R E M E M B E R I N GPHOTO PROVIDED BY ANNE GIBSONKen WintersCANADA’S MUSIC WORLD LOST one of its most eloquentsupporters last month. Critic, broadcaster and scholar Ken Winterspassed away at his farm in Orono, Ontario on Tuesday, February15, 2011. Born into a musical family in 1929 in Dauphin, Manitoba,Winters had a rich and varied career in music in Canada. He workedas an organist, choirmaster and arts critic in Winnipeg from 1954to 1966, at which point he moved to Toronto to write dance andmusic reviews for the Toronto Telegram. He served as the executivedirector of the Ontario Federation of Symphony Orchestra and theAssociation of Canadian Orchestras from 1971-1975. During thistime, he also was the co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Music inCanada. He and his co-editors Helmut Kallmann and Gilles Potvinbrought a rigour and scholarship to a vital and important project.Ken was the host of CBC Stereo’sMostly Music for many years,presenting concerts, documentariesand series full of insight, passionand a particular appreciationfor thoughtful, forward-lookingperformers, composers and teachers.His sonorous, well-modulated voicesuited radio and his meticulouslywritten scripts were full of poetic turns of phrase.More recently, Ken wrote music reviews for the Globe and Mail.These were beautifully written and always gave the sense that hewas holding the performance he was reviewing up to a high standardof musical emotion and meaning. That being said, he was generousand encouraging, especially towards young talent and new ventures.From my own perspective, Ken’s reviews of Toronto Masque Theatrewere positive, fair and challenging and I was always happy tohear he was coming. More generally, it was just always a supremepleasure to open the paper and read Ken’s sumptuous prose. Theor nonsense.I have kept copies of his reviews of ventures in which I was involvedand there are many excerpts I could share by way of exampleof Ken’s lovely turn of phrase. Of Anton Kuerti’s appearance lastsummer at Music at Sharon, with the Tokai String Quartet in a performanceof Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet, Op.47, Ken wrote:“All four strings played like souls inspired, as indeed theymust have been by Kuerti’s phenomenal, minutely and grandlycollaborative account of the piano part.”I think what runs through all of Ken’s critical writingand hisdistinguished broadcasting career, is a passion for well-crafted andwell-performed music, and a very public desire on his part to bemoved by it. I also appreciate that Ken kept alive the memories ofothers connected with Canada’s rich music community. He oftenmade reference to Harry Somers, Jon Vickers, Lois Marshall, ErnestMacMillan, Maureen Forrester, the Orford String Quartet, but heage. He was just as anxious to pay tribute to the young emergingmusical leaders of this generation and seemed to recognize that hiswell-chosen and honest words carried weight and importance.Mass in BMinor on February 13. Of those special musicians he wrote:“This choir and orchestra are deeply inside what they do. Theylisten raptly. They mean what they play and sing. There are noothers quite like them.”Needless to say, there was no other quite like Ken Winters. Larry Beckwith is the artistic director of Toronto Masque Theatre,co-artistic director of Music at Sharon and a violinist, singer andteacher. He is a frequent contributor to The WholeNote.Ann SouthamSCHOENBERG ONCE SAID there was great music still to be writtenin C. Ann Southam proved him right. As she said of some of herpieces, they “cheerfully hunted for Middle C”– and in doing so hada disconcerting way of reinterpreting familiar forms and techniques.A graduate of the University of Toronto and the RoyalConservatory of Music, Ann wrote music in a wide range of styles.Her lyricism and fascination with an instrument’s body, resonance,tone and sensuality re-invented the art. Although she continued touse a 12 tone row and spin it out, one note at a time for 20 years,Ann hoped she could bring some tonal sense to the serial technique.It may be called “minimal,” but her works embroider the layers oftonal fabric created through the serial row – weaving in a mannerStarting off as one of Canada’spioneers in electronic music, Anncreated her early work for dancers.She loved working with them, andfelt that because they could sense thetime space as much as the physicalspace, she didn’t have to writeanything down. She just created hermusic directly.When she wrote for piano,she continued to work directly on the instrument, as she did incomposing her series of solo piano pieces, Rivers. “After the exoticand ‘disembodied’ world of electroacoustic music in which I’dworked for many years,” she said, “there was the sheer pleasure ofmaking music by hand – the pleasure of touch.”Some of Ann’s major piano compositions include works in thevirtuosic tradition of Chopin and Liszt. Her pieces are characterizedinterchanging melodic motifs. Her slow music suspends our sense oftime, while the fast pieces, with their undercurrent of recklessness,maintaining an angular tone row, both extremes reveal a serenelyricism that is a common thread in her music.A generous philanthropist and strong advocate of Canadianwomen artists, Ann also mentored young composers and was alwayseager to learn about their music. One young composer, who iscompleting his doctorate at the University of Toronto, was surprisedwhen Southam came to his concert last year. She said that she nolonger wanted to talk about her work. She was more fascinated with music and bagpipes. She was without pretence or artistic snobberyand could see humour in any situation. While we were working on alaid out in front of her. One of my dogs, a puppy at the time, boltedfrom the kitchen and headed straight for Ann, but seeing the paperwe ran to the bathroom with the dripping manuscript, Ann turned tome and remarked, “I hope that wasn’t a comment on my music!” Herirrepressible sense of humour is one of the qualities that made her ajoy to work with.Ann Southam will be remembered for her unique voice andindividual style in musical compositions that allowed interpreterschoreographers and musicians in Canada, are feeling her losswith immense sadness and remembering her with admiration andgratitude for the legacy she left.Her generosity of spirit and her music will stay with us forever. Christina Petrowska Quilico is professor, piano and musicology,and director of classical piano in the Department of Music, YorkUniversity.PHOTO ANDRÉ LEDUC56 thewholenote.comMarch 1 - April 7, 2011
We Are All Music’s ChildrenMarch’s Child Alain TrudelMJ BUELLWho is April’s Child?Will someone offer the young lady achair?Not yet, but she has one today thatshe’s occupied since 1989 which will,by the end of this season, have takenher literally to hell and back again,visiting (among other places) Egypt,Venice, China and Naxos along theway.Evidently not one to take life sittingdown, today she plays musical chairswith numerous diverse chambergroups as well. Among her manycollaborations, an ensmble whosesomeone who must often commute to acity famous for its zoo – San Diego!Think you know who our mysterychild is? Send your best guess tomusicschildren@thewholenote.com.Please provide your mailing addressjust in case your name is drawn!Winners will be selected by randomdraw among correct replies receivedby March 20, 2011.Trois-Rivières circa 1975.Alain Trudel began his musical life as atrombonist. He played his solo debut atthe age of 18 with l’Orchestre Symphoniquede Montréal, but it would be hard tosay which aspect of his work today he is bestknown for. Composing, educating, recordingand conducting are all aspects of the life ofthis immensely well-liked musical man witha ready grin, infectious enthusiasms, and apparentlyendless energy, unquenchable evenin the face of a rare and often lethal cancer,from which he recovered in 2006.On the late February day this interviewwas completed, Alain Trudel was conductinghis debut performance with the St.Petersburg Cappella Symphony Orchestra,but still found time, good-humouredly, to“Alain currently lives in Chambly,Québec, with his partner Christine, a nurse(and no, they did not meet at the hospital!).agers:Alexis (14), Roxanne (14), Olivier (17),Elisabeth (19) and Alexandre (19). This livelyhouse is also the home of Oreo, a tuxedo cat,and Kovi, their faithful Golden retriever.”Between that day at the end of Februarybeen the guest conductor of the HamiltonPhilharmonic (March 5), and connectedwith almost all of his main ensembles: he’smusic directorof l’Orchestre symphoniquede Laval (March 6, April 26), principalguest conductor of theVictoria Symphony Orchestra(March 26, May 6), conductorof the Toronto Youth SymphonyOrchestra (April 10-16), andprincipal guest conductor of theHannaford Street Silver Band(April 17). He’s also music directorof fthe National Broadcast Orchestra.The recipient of several international andto be a Yamaha international artist, Trudelhas conducted and been a guest soloist withAmong his colleagues he is known as aneager collaborator: “Bellows and Brass” withGuy Few and Joseph Petric, and “Kiosque,”which recreates the band music of smallQuebec towns at the turn of the previouscentury, are two examples of the imaginativemusic making he embraces.The lucky young people under his batonin the TYSO are only a few of those whosemusic futures he will shape. For more thantwo decades his summers have includedtime at camps such as Interprovincial MusicCamp in Ontario and Camp Laurentide, inQuebec.Do you remember that childhood photo beingtaken? the Catholic religion. I was 6 or 7, and wasreally excited about that suit… especially theshoes! I lived almost across the street fromthe church and used to play very often onthe church grounds as a child. Later when Istarted playing in the community brass bandPHOTO PIERRE RACINECONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNERS! HERE’S WHAT THEY WON – Annie Odom: a pair of ticketsto the Toronto Youth SymphonyOrchestra’s spring concert (April13, George Weston Recital Hall)featuring Gershwin’s An Americanin Paris, Copland’s Old AmericanSongs, Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 (From the New World), and theworld premiere of Dreams of Voyage, by Canadian composer TristanCapacchione. Phoebe Cleverley: a pair of ticketsto the Hannaford Street Silver Band’s Low Blows(April 17, Jane Mallet Theatre) featuring Americantuba virtuoso Patrick Sheridan and the premiereof his new work, The Straights of Hormuz for tubaand brass band. The HSSB will perform Graham’sStanding on the Shoulders of Giants. Also featured:HSSB’s annual young soloist contest winner. AlainTrudel will direct all and play his trombone, closingthe show with a blues duet. Doogie Simcoe:a CD/DVD set by the National Youth Orchestraof Canada, conducted by Alain Trudel, featuringselections from their 2009 national tour. This2009 Juno nominated recording features Mahler’s Symphony No.6 andStravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, and includes a DVDof their webcast concert. June Keys: a remarkableduo recording Conversations with Alain Trudel,trombone, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, piano. Musicby Elgar, Saint-Saëns, Ravel, Bruch, Tchaikovsky,Blazewitch, Kreisler, Glière, Jongen, Brahms,Fauré, Fièvet. (ATMA: ACD2228).Music’s Children gratefully acknowledges Joan, Christine, Stephanie, Roberta, Barbara, the TYSO, HSSB and ATMA.March 1 - April 7, 2011 thewholenote.com 57
