By Julia Caulfield
Project Trio isn’t your typical chamber trio. Greg Patillo understands that.
“You don’t often see a flute, saxophone, base trio. What kind of a trio is that even?” he jokes.
Patillo is the flute component of Project Trio – a genre-bending ensemble, pushing the boundaries of chamber music to include jazz, hip-hop, and world music influences.
Patillo joins saxophonist Daniel Berkley, and double bassist Peter Seymour.
“There’s a little something for each person in the audience,” says Seymour. “If you don’t like the tune we’re playing, you might like the next one and the next one. We’re ever changing. Throughout a Project Trio concert you’ll here all these genres brought together.”
This week, Telluride Chamber Music is bringing Project Trio to the box canyon for a high energy performance at the Alibi.
Adding to an already untraditional trio format, Patillo brings a unique element to the group.
“I am known not only for traditional style of flute, but I’m also known for beatboxing on the flute,” Patillo explains. “Beatboxing is doing drum noises, percussive sounds at the same time as playing the flute so I’m able to get some interesting and funky sounds on the flute. Something not a lot of people have heard before.”
Throughout the concert, Seymour says there’s a little taste of everything.
“We play music of Mozart, Blue Rondo à la Turk. We play Charlie Parker, Hall of the Mountain King. We play the great Lennon and McCartney. We play a lot of original music. We have an homage to the great Django Reinhardt, the father of French Hot Jazz. We have an original salsa tune called ‘Bodega’ inspired by the streets of New York. It’s a whole smorgasbord,” he says.
Patillo says they want to think outside of the box and give the audience a proper show.
“We’re trying to be entertaining. We’re not looking to do things correct. We want to have everyone have a blast, come out to the show, see something new, have something different to talk about after the show,” he notes.
Project Trio will play at the Alibi on Thursday, October 24th at 7 p.m. Tickets are available at telluridechambermusic.org.
