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Triple play
Three standouts pursue their common cause to stunning effect

By Eric McHenry

"When I perform, I learn so much that I can take back to my students," says violinist Bayla Keyes, cochair of the SFA string department. "And conversely, when I teach, I learn so much that I can take into my own performances. It's been a very lovely spiral for me."

Keyes' word choice is telling. The spiral -- multiple pursuits and personalities spinning together -- is an unmistakable theme in her life. And as is the case with her teaching and playing, it tends to be an upward spiral: disparate elements dovetailing in ways that elevate them all.

	Triple Helix piano trio: (clockwise from top) Bayla Keyes, violin; Rhonda Rider, cello; Lois Shapiro, piano. Photo by Rebecca Sher

For the past five years, Keyes has enjoyed a productive partnership with pianist Lois Shapiro and cellist Rhonda Rider in a piano trio whose name is another giveaway: Triple Helix. The group, recently deemed Best of Boston for chamber music by Richard Dyer, the Boston Globe's classical music critic, will give a free concert on Friday, January 26, in the Tsai Performance Center.

Three distinct but complementary musical personalities represent the three helices of the group's name. Differences in taste and experience, says Keyes, both strengthen and are subsumed by a common artistic purpose.

"I think it was obvious from the beginning that we were kindred spirits," she says. "We all like to play with a great deal of passion and involvement. It was nice to discover that in each other. And even more promising to me -- because there are lots of high-intensity players out there -- was the fact that Lois and Rhonda were really interested in rehearsing in depth, in detail, and in learning as much as possible. For me, the most exciting thing about being a musician is being a perpetual student."

In that regard, Shapiro says, the trio's members function not only as colleagues but as coeducators, introducing one another to fresh perspectives and, often, fresh material.

"I guess what we share most of all, thankfully, is an openness to experience new tastes," says Shapiro. "Many times, one person in this group will find beauty or value in a piece that one of the other members has played in another context and found not all that inspiring. And that's an exciting thing to awaken in that person -- a sense of what's possible."

The musicians put together programs with an eye toward both diversity and thematic coherence, although one or the other consideration might receive more emphasis on a given bill. The January 26 concert, for example, will include performances of Mozart's E Major Trio, K.548, Mendelssohn's D Minor Trio, and Shostakovich's Seven Romances on Poems by Blok, featuring the esteemed contralto Marion Dry -- at face value, a very diverse slate. The selections, however, have some underlying similarities that might not be obvious to the listener, Shapiro says.

"Shostakovich, in the piece that we're playing, is on the brink of some far-reaching tonal adventures," she says. "At the same time, he's very much attuned to traditional forms and shapes. And certainly with the Mendelssohn it's the same thing. What Mozart did within the music, of course, was revolutionary. But all three, I think, seem to be reveling in what tradition has to offer them."

Like Keyes, who cofounded and played more than 1,000 concerts with the Muir String Quartet, Shapiro and Rider bring impressive résumés to the trio. All three have done extensive and acclaimed solo and ensemble work. In performance, the depth and diversity of their experience lends the group a wonderful balance. A Triple Helix concert, Dyer notes in a glowing Globe review, is a musical conversation in which the participants are neither too loquacious nor too cautious. That, says Shapiro, is simply a reflection of the way she and her partners generally interact with each other.

"There are, certainly, trios and other ensembles in which there's one dominant force and the others just kind of nod their heads in agreement," she says. "But that's not what happens here. We try to resolve differences of opinion in ways that produce unexpected and exciting results. And if we can't do that, then we take turns getting our way!"

The Triple Helix piano trio will perform at 8 p.m. on Friday, January 26, in the Tsai Performance Center, 685 Commonwealth Ave. Admission is free. For more information, call 353-3341. The group can also be heard playing Mozart's E Major Trio, K.548, and Mendelssohn's D Minor Trio at 11 a.m. on Thursday, January 25, on WGBH (89.7 FM) Radio's Classics in the Morning.

19 January 2001
Boston University
Office of University Relations