Submitted by: Roman Borys from the Gryphon Trio
My whole life is rooted in the one-ness of music. To me, music is a happy, healthy place. Sitting there playing my cello is absolutely transcendent. I have played in a chamber ensemble — the Gryphon Trio — at a very high level for more than 27 years. Sitting down and making music with other people is like performing a trapeze act without a safety net. There’s a sense of excitement, risk and common purpose. Allowed to tap into the energy and brilliance of Haydn, Beethoven and Shostakovich, whose works serve as portals to the past, contemporary composers like Silvestrov, Hatzis, Ryan and Wijeratne allow us to reconsider and reflect the world we live in. A successful performance combines our musicianship and collective spirit with their intent and allows an audience to transcend the ebb and flow of daily life as the power and beauty of the music flow through them. My emotions are tied directly to whatever music I’m playing. As musicians, we become one with the music, one with our instruments, and one with the people — not just our fellow musicians but also the audience. We’re all one entity. That’s the wonder of it. That one-ness is especially true of the small ensembles in chamber music. We breathe as one and become the music. It can help us overcome all the other challenges we all face as humans. The nature of this experience changes as the ensemble gets bigger, though the world’s best orchestras also function like great chamber ensembles. They are an ecosystem, all their movements in sync with each other and the conductor. I grew up listening to all sorts of music: Brahms one minute, Mexican ranchera the next, followed by Freddie Mercury singing “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Musicians committing to the music and laying it out there. That’s what we do! That inspiration, that power, that’s what music does. People who don’t play music but just love to listen to it — music lovers — sense that. The music transports you, takes you out of your space, gets you out of your own skin, until you follow your soul and just fly. It’s an incredible thing.
Roman Borys plays cello in the Gryphon Trio, a classical music group formed in 1993 that has won three Juno awards. Borys is also Artistic and Executive Director of the Ottawa Chamber Music Society.
