Classically trained in violin and cello, the three Baltimore girls who became the string trio Glass started out in 2013 just noodling around with songs they’d heard on the radio.

“We’d just be messing around with pop songs,” said Talia Floyd. “That was the only part I enjoyed.”

Cellist Floyd, 18, along with two violinists, her twin sister Jadzia Floyd, and Daniela Bahia, 20, were first asked to formally play together at an event for their religious community of the Bahai faith.

That’s how Glass, which performs original, contemporary compositions, improv, pop and classical music, came to be.

Now they get paid gigs, play at charity events, performed at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum and have dreams of an album.

They also sometimes just pick a pretty public place to do their thing, like a picnic table at Druid Hill Park where we found them on a recent springy Saturday.

“Playing together became a habit,” said Jadzia.

Good to be Bad

The Floyd sisters sat down with The Brew yesterday to talk a bit about their group and how they came together. A lot of it has to do with their school.

The two Floyds are currently seniors at the Baltimore Youth Initiative High School (BYI), from which Bahia graduated last year.

An alternative non-public high school located in Coldspring Newtown, BYI runs on a no-tuition model so all interested students may attend – meaning, the girls crack, “It always needs money!”

The band found that one way they could contribute to their school was by performing at fundraising events, an experience that’s humbled them.

“The act of music has been very much for ourselves, and getting to share it for a cause is very cool,” Jadzia explained.

Although BYI brought the girls together, their roots in music go back before then.

In fact, Talia confessed that she didn’t much enjoy cello for the first six years she played it.

But, fortunately, as a middle school student at the Waldorf School, she said, “I wasn’t allowed to quit.” The school’s musical instruction requirement, which spans 4th through 8th grade, proved to be liberating, she observed.

“It was really good to be bad at something. I learned not to be so self-focused and to see the bigger picture,” she said.

Jadzia shared her own musical trepidation pre-Glass era. “After graduating from middle school, I learned I wasn’t as good as I thought I was. I was thinking, ‘Why should I continue?’”

But after playing at events and having people come up to the group to share very positive comments, she was inspired to continue.

Buttercup Graveyard?

Asked about the origin of the band’s name, Bahia said it wasn’t always that spare and sleek.

“Our first name was Buttercup Graveyard, which we chose by just blabbering words and seeing which sounded catchy,” she laughed. Glass was chosen later “to widen our audience and sound more sophisticated.”

Musically, Glass has found inspiration in a variety of artists from Esperanza Spalding, a bassist and singer, to the pop group Coldplay, whose song “Viva la Vida” was the first the group ever performed and is still a favorite.

They practice either using sheet music transcribed for cello and violin or by learning songs by ear.

“She’s way better than me!” exclaimed Jadzia about Bahia, who began playing violin at the age of three. “She does the finger work.”

“The fancy stuff,” Talia added, before chuckling. “Does that make sense?”

Busking and Beyond

Along with paid gigs, Glass has busked at Patterson Park and the Inner Harbor, but after finding out it was illegal to play at the Harbor without a permit, the members are considering new locations.

“We have to busk to pay for our busking permit,” Jadzia said, acknowledging the irony with a wry smile. Though not entirely decided, the band thinks Hampden may be their next spot.

Other upcoming events for Glass include a performance with the Waldorf middle school choir of Imagine Dragons’ “Radioactive,” a Friends School coffeehouse, and big life plans.

Talia will begin school at Berea University in Kentucky next fall and plans to study sociology.

Sister Jadzia has deferred a year from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she’ll study illustration, to do a service year within the Bahai community. “We’re creating groups for middle schoolers to attend.”

Bahia currently works as a violin and after-school teacher as well as in building and apartment maintenance. She attended community college “for a bit” and is searching for a university to transfer to so she can “continue feeding my passion of psychology and therapy.”

“I may still become a music therapist so I can incorporate music into mental healing,” she explained.

Glass performs at the Reginald F. Lewis Museum in Baltimore, February 1, 2014:

Glass plays at Baltimore Youth Initiative High School’s first graduation:

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