Gananoque Concert!

 Guy Few and I were thrilled to return to the Firehall Theatre and the Gananoque Concert Association, one of Canada’s long-standing small concert societies.

New Bassoon Concerto by Paul Frehner

One of the best emails ever...   We just received news that the Ontario Arts Council is funding most of the commission of the new bassoon concerto by superstar composer Paul Frehner!  The concerto will be premiered in 2013/14 and I will announce the orchestra once I have permission from all contracted parties.  So flipping happy/grateful/selfpinching.

Play Every Day! - practising on the road (or anywhere that they will let you)

Practising on the Road (or anywhere that they will let you)

3 concerts this week with Violons du Roy (accompanying superstar Alexandre Tharaud)
and recitals coming up February 17 in Gananoque and February 28 in Richmond Hill.

Once you have a life as a professional musician, practising on the road is a constant reality, along with making reeds and paying bills and trying to be a complete human being.  In the last two weeks, I have practised in 7 different locations in 4 different cities in 3 provinces.

Snow Day!

Snow day instead of recital day!  What a strange, odd, unsettling feeling.  Our February 8 concert for the Celebrity Concert Series at McMaster University was buried under a mountain of snow.  Even though my big silver 4 x 4 kingcab pickup truck had a tank full of gas and snowtires ready for anything, the university wasn’t taking any chances and cancelled all activities early in the blizzardy day and they  will reschedule us.  Stay tuned to my website for the Hamilton date (and others!).

Glorious Youth Part III (i think) - 15.5 hour teaching day

Yesterday, I taught all of my university students on a single day, which meant  12.5 hours of teaching, 2 hours of travel and eating and one blessed hour for practising.  A typical 15.5 hour work day starting at 7:00 a.m. and ending at 10:30 p.m.

Berio

On January 21, 2013, I was part of the first-ever Canadian integral performance of all the Berio Sequenze.  Here is an account from WholeNote reviewer, Wendalyn Bartely.  The whole show was incredibly stimulating and curious.

Playing Sequenza XII was a harrowing, thrilling experience for me.  I felt shredded by the effort of pulling all of the technique together in the too-short time I had to fully learn the piece.  I felt like a deconstructed clock,  put back together... everything seems to run the same but now I am aware of things that have existed only before on the periphery... sounds and techniques that I have toyed but have never been obliged to put together into something that is so unabashedly committed to its own unique outcome.