It is important to remember why you started doing something, especially when you're still doing it years later.

For The Trillium Trio, this means the love of performing music – whether together in practice or in front of a crowd.

The members of the Ottawa trio, consisting of Cathy Baerg on flute, Joan Milliken on piano and cellist Steven E. Smith, are all experienced musicians and there is no doubt that their love of performing is as strong as ever.

“This is our 11th year," Milliken said. “I can be dead tired, but at the end of the week on a Friday night practice we just feel so energized once we start in.”

The Trillium Trio performed to a warm audience of friends and students on the ninth floor of the Loeb Building Jan. 29. The set consisted of mostly 20th-century art music, but the group has performed other music in the past.

“We love the romantics and the lyrical, but we also love Bach. We have some beautiful Bach flute Sonatas that we've done,” Milliken said.

Friday's performance showcased the chemistry that 11 years can create. While being totally engrossed in the moment, all three musicians remained tight and focused on the piece and each other.

“It's like wine, it's almost telepathic now,” Milliken said. “We don't even have to look at each other, we know each other so well.”

The final piece of the performance had a special significance to the trio. “Adios Nonino” by Argentinian composer Ástor Piazzolla was arranged by Baerg's brother-in-law Rob Lussier, and he added an original piano cadenza in the middle of the song.

“He had us in mind when arranging the piece,” Baerg said.

“That piece was originally performed at the Montreal Jazz Festival in 1988, and it sounded very different [due to the instruments used],” Smith said. “[Lussier] took that piece apart and reassembled it in a beautiful arrangement."

“Adios Nonino” takes you on an emotional trip, with extreme highs and lows including the aforementioned cadenza, and with what Baerg describes as “an angry tango.”

All the passion of a young musician discovering their craft is still present in the hearts of these three pros, and that is evident with their performance. But they say relationships that have grown between the three are just as important.

“I'd be lost as a solo musician," Milliken said. "I'd rather do this with these guys, [it's] my

favourite thing of all.”