Christmas began life-long passion for trains

Sunday evening I wrapped up 23 days playing piano in the pit combo for the Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular. This was my fourth season with the production directed and produced by Katy Bowen-Roberts. The gig is a joy to play and since moving to Nanaimo the show has become my launching pad to the Christmas Season. Driving home from the closing show and with the car radio blasting forth perceivable carol fare, my mind repeatedly wandered to memories of Christmas’s past.

The season’s sentimentality invariably reminds me of a very special gift received in my youth - my first electric train. Tooling around the malls these days all I observe are tons of toys molded from colorful plastics. None bear any resemblance to those marvelous miniatures that depicted the heavy railroad equipment of the pre 1950's era. To find such works of toy art today one must search out the hallowed hobby specialist shop. Here you’ll find mainly people like myself (children seem to be scarce in such establishments) jawing the jargon of railroading to a storeowner who savors and caresses the products he sells like fine pieces of jewelry.

Many holiday seasons have passed since my first electric train magically appeared under the Christmas tree. The layout, set up by my father late on Christmas Eve, consisted of a 4X8 sheet of plywood painted green with an oval of “027" gauge railroad track tacked firmly to its surface. My father being a Medical Doctor had even constructed a miniature pedestrian overpass out of wooden tongue depressors. I still have the locomotive and most of the track from that first model train set. That simple layout expanded over the years into a major model railway operation only to be torn down when my parents moved to a smaller home after I graduated from high school.

Getting married in the 60's didn’t suppress the boy within as I undertook the construction of a model railway layout in the spare bedroom of our first apartment. Whenever we had visitors stay overnight, they got the master bedroom and my wife Pat and I slept on a foamy beneath the sheets of plywood supporting the railroad. Pat mentioned to me in later years just what she was thinking as she lay there looking up at the various trestles criss-crossing above her - “this must be true love because not many wives would put up with this.”

Today my train collection has been boxed away. However, at this time of year I’ll invariably get a box or two out of storage, have a quick look at a few pieces and reflect how that single gift on a December 25^th morning in the early 1940’s 

sparked in me a life-long love of trains. 

Photo: My brother Terry (on the left) and I sit admiring the train layout that appeared one Christmas morning in the early 1940’s. I appear to be four or five years old.

Photo: At Christmas time I’ll invariably dig out from storage a few pieces of my train collection.

Thursday evening Pat and I hydroplaned our way over the hump through a torrential rainstorm to perform with Timbre! at the Harbour Quay Farmer’s Market. Not exactly a concert hall setting as you can see by the photos. My only concern was the power cords laying amongst the puddles leading to my electric piano and amplifier. I didn’t exactly want to light up like a Christmas Tree. However, the new roofing at the Quay managed to keep most of the rain off the performers.

It’s Christmas Eve day morning as I write this blog and I’m about to venture forth to the supermarket crush to purchase our Christmas turkey for our annual Boxing Day family dinner. Tomorrow morning after opening presents Pat and I will light our Christmas candle. When we presented our last Candlelight Concert 12 years ago some of our choir parents melted down all the candle stubs that had been saved and left over from rehearsal use. The melt was molded into a handsome candle which we light each Christmas Day. The candle is so large it reminds me of the visionary image of the Wyoming mountain known as Devil’s Tower that Richard Dreyfuss created in his livingroom in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. When we light our own mountain of wax it tends to burn somewhat like a volcanic display, heating up the whole living room in the process but most importantly enveloping us with brilliant memories of our years with the Teen Choir.    

Pat and I wish you all the very best this holiday season. Merry Christmas!

Photo: Timbre! singing Christmas Carols in a rain storm at Harbour Quay in Port Alberni

Photo: Cutting the fingers from a pair of wool gloves, I managed to keep my finger muscles flexible.

Good Grief!- only 8 sleeps till Christmas

Driving home last weekend after playing piano at the Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular I had the car radio tuned to the CBC. Broadcasting was a program called Inside the Music hosted by Patti Schmidt. Featured was a documentary entitled Good Grief It’s Serendipity, Vince Guaraldi.

Although it would be hard to fathom, there is the possibility that a reader or two of this blog may have never heard of, or viewed a 45-year old TV show called A Charlie Brown Christmas. The show, which airs annually at this time of year, is one of those traditional mileposts that confirms that Christmas has arrived. However, for me it’s not the animated cartoon itself that represents the film’s focal point but the TV show’s jazz based soundtrack.

Fifty years ago an unknown San Francisco pianist named Vince Guaraldi was struggling to make it in the jazz world. Performing around the Bay Area with a trio, Guaraldi (who always described himself as "a reformed boogie-woogie piano player") continually dreamed of writing tunes that would have lasting value as defined in the music business as becoming “a standard.” After two years on the road with the Woody Herman Band in the early 1960’s, Guaraldi finally scored a huge hit on the pop charts with a tune called Cast Your Fate to the Wind. He had included the tune on an album made with his trio, based on the award winning film Black Orpheus.  Winning a Grammy for the tune led to Guaraldi being asked to write the music for a TV pilot based on the comic strip Peanuts.

However, with an irony that seems appropriate for a show about Charlie Brown, the producers were never able to sell the pilot show to a TV network and to this day the original production has never aired. Fortunately for the producers, some underground showbiz hype surrounding the venture led to the Coca-Cola company becoming intrigued with the notion of a Peanuts Christmas TV special.  The rest as they say is history. When A Charlie Brown Christmas debuted in December 1965, Guaraldi joined a rarified guild of jazz musicians - those enjoying a steady paycheck with royalties to boot. Time magazine also did an article about the show, giving jazz and Guaradi’s trio some important exposure against the Tsunami of Rock & Roll.

The CBC’s Inside the Music show last Sunday had as a guest the Halifax-based musician Jerry Granelli who was the drummer on A Charlie Brown Christmas TV special back in 1965. His insights into the making of the special and stories about the jazz musicians involved were so entertaining I re-listened to the show by Podcast the following day and downloaded the original Vince Guaraldi recording of the soundtrack to my computer. I could have dug through dozens of cardboard boxes containing my vast vinyl record collection for the original 12-inch LP. However, by the time I found it I reasoned Christmas would have been long over.

Last Saturday at 6am I drove to Port Alberni to help our son Cory set up the stage microphone stands and cables for a 10am Timbre! dress rehearsal at ADSS. The rehearsal was my only chance to hear the choir sing through this year’s offering of Christmas music as their concert on Sunday conflicted with my two-week gig with the Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular. I thought the selected material stunning and the choir in top form. The accompanying pianist, UBC Piano Department Head Dr. Terrence Dawson, did a supurb job, having learned the entire program in one week when the original contracted pianist unexpectedly had to cancel. Giving the music director (my wife Pat) a quick kiss at 12:30 pm, I scurried back over “the hump” to play a matinee performance of the Yellowpoint show. I have no doubt that those blog readers attending Timbre!’s Sunday performance enjoyed the Christmas program as much as I enjoyed the dress rehearsal. If you did, send me an email.

Monday was a day off from the Yellowpoint show. As it happened the Toronto Chamber Jazz Septet was playing the Port Theatre in Nanaimo with an evening concert entitled a Jazzy Nutcracker. Six of Canada’s finest jazz musicians are members of the seasonally assembled touring ensemble – reedmen PJ Perry (flute/soprano sax), Campbell Ryga  (sax/alto flute), Phil Dwyer (tenor sax/clarinet), Perry White (baritone sax/bass clarinet) with a stellar rhythm consisting of Terry Clarke (drums) and Neil Swainson (bass). American pianist Bill Mays who assembles similar groups in the States leads the septet and also writes the arrangements.

Photo: American pianist Bill Mays leads the Toronto Chamber Jazz Septet.

From Louis Armstrong to Count Basie, from Oscar Peterson to Bill Evans, just about any jazzman of any consequence has produced an album of Christmas music at some point in their career. Many interpretations I adore, some I abhor. The Toronto group’s Christmas offering Monday night fell into positive territory. The concert was a tasteful blend of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Nutcracker Suite), Claude Debussy (Clair De Lune), Richard Rodgers (My Favorite Things), Mel Torme (what else! - The Christmas Song) and perhaps a bit of a stretch, a selection by the eccentric pianist Thelonious Monk called Stuffy Turkey. The evening was definitely one would categorize as light jazz. However, the brilliant improvised soloing by these gifted players never let the program sink into the morass marketed to the masses these days as “smooth jazz”. There was something for the jazz aficionado and the uninitiated jazz listener alike.

Tuesday and Wednesday were road days for the Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular with performances at the Old Church Theatre in Courtenay. Tuesday afternoon was spent re-blocking the show for a narrower stage. Last week an E5 key broke on my digital piano and I’ve had to play all the shows to date on a music store loaner. Qualicum-based musical instrument repairman extraordinaire Claudio Fantinato immediately ordered a new key for me. Unfortunately the shipping department at Yamaha Canada in Toronto failed to send the part by overnight courier as requested. The piano key finally showed up on Wednesday. Claudio had the key installed just in time for me to switch pianos for the 7:00 pm performance in Courtenay. What a relief getting back to my own keyboard and not having to readjust my arm weight and touch on almost every chord. Tonight felt like I was driving a Ferrari rather than a Tata Nano.

Thursday evening the Yellowpoint show was back at the Cedar venue to begin its final run of seven shows. Sorry folks – if you snooze you lose. All seven shows are completely sold out.

Need a musical instrument repaired? Check out Claudio Fantinato’s website at www.highnotemusicalservices.com

Past postings of my blog can be accessed on the internet at http://barrysblog7.blogspot.com

Apple - One More Bite

The first computer my wife Pat and I ever purchased was an Apple 11e. Back then, buying a computer wasn’t easy as it entailed traveling to the mainland and visiting a store specializing in the product. In this day of $400 lap tops it’s hard to believe that we paid over $3500 for a little green-eyed screen encased in an apricot-coloured plastic shell which could only process three or four type written pages at a time. However, like a growing number of parents at the time, I blindly believed the prevailing hype that owning a computer guaranteed a child’s educational success. 

It wasn’t long before school districts, backed by a truckload of targeted funding from the Ministry of Education began moving “big time” into the world of computers. Any teacher who could figure out a way to integrate a unit into their classroom was automatically earmarked the recipient of the cascading cash.  

As a high school band director, each year I submitted a budget for musical instruments. Some years I’d receive funding for a needed instrument while other years, fair being fair, money would go to another department. Computers however changed the budgetary landscape. 

Suddenly there was a new kid on the block, a capital item that ate up a budget like there was no tomorrow.

Having had my request for the purchase of an oboe and a bassoon turned down one year, I decided I needed to figure out a way to tap into the school district’s technology account which was being force-fed annually by the department of education. I joined the herd after the “new money” and placed myself firmly aboard the computer bandwagon. 

So into the new world of the microchip I plunged, programming an entire Broadway score into an Atari computer to use alongside conventional instruments, as supplementary accompaniment for the school’s fall musical. I hadn’t received the funds for my wished for oboe and bassoon but did have a machine that could produce the sounds of those instruments, albeit rather thinly. However the exercise did keep funding flowing and teaching colleagues acknowledged I was on the “cutting edge” of the technological tidal wave. Happily in the end common sense prevailed and budgetary balance did return, enabling the purchase of needed acoustical musical instruments for my program.  

However, computers did make a huge impact in the music program and continue to do so in my personal musical life. I no longer lay pen or pencil to paper to write a music score, using instead software called Sibelius that instantly plays back my arrangements with sampled sounds that rival real acoustic instruments and neatly prints out the sheet music band members need to play from. I pack my own digital piano and synthesizer to gigs, never having to rely on a house piano that hasn’t been tuned for eons. 

Recently after decades using PC’s built by the likes of Samsung, eMachine, Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba, I’ve returned to my roots, an Apple computer. Both our sons Cory and Brock have Macs as does my brother Terry. They were constantly praising the merits of the new Apple products so I decided recently to purchase a MacBook Pro Laptop. To say I’m hooked would be an understatement.  I absolutely love it. Hours of jazz recordings are stored aboard plus movies and entire TV series. It also inspired me to get into writing a blog.

It’s been a bit of a learning curve to absorb the new platform. Last week’s blog is a case in point. As part of the blog I had included a dozen photos taken at rehearsals leading up to the opening night of the Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular. Unfortunately I failed to do something I’d automatically done when working on my PC – reduce the resolution size of the photos. The result was some readers experienced excessive download time. I apologize to them for not getting into the photo section of my 4-inch thick Apple laptop manual in advance of clicking the send button. However, I’ve now mastered the process with a little help from one of my blog readers in the Canary Islands, and I’m confident future mailings won’t plug up anyone’s mailbox. 

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Timbre! in Port Alberni - A Valley Christmas (L to R Michelle Weckesser, Wendy Nixon-Stothert, Dale Graham and Jennifer Forsland). The vocal quartet Swing Set from Courtenay will be special guests at the Timbre! choir's Christmas concert on Sunday at 2:30 pm in the ADSS Auditorium. Tickets available at regular outlets in the Alberni Valley and at the door.

Nanaimo Concert Band

Blog reader François Bouchard emailed to ask if I’d mention a concert taking place this weekend with the Nanaimo Concert Band. François is one of the band’s two musical directors. The Hub City ensemble is recognized as the oldest continuous community band in Canada having been established in 1872. An interesting fact - the band has played every Remembrance Day Ceremony since World War One, without fail. The concert takes place on Dec. 12 at 2:30 in the Beban Park Auditorium. Admission is by Non-perishable Food Donation to the Salvation Army.

Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular Opens

After an intensive 10-day rehearsal period, the Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular opened last night to a full house and was an instant hit. This is my 4th season playing piano in the orchestra and although I don’t get to see the show visually out front, I can tell you the extravaganza of music and dance will kick your Christmas season into high gear. 

With a professional cast of 14, the show takes place in the Cedar Community Hall south of Nanaimo which has been transformed into a Christmas wonderland with thousands of lights and decorations. This year the big production numbers include a scene from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera and a tribute to Motown. Even Frank Sinatra makes an appearance. I could be prejudiced but I sensed a crowd favorite last night was an orchestra number called Csardas which featured our musical director James Mark on violin and Susan Bullock on clarinet. Wow is it fast.  It goes without saying, the show is loaded with Christmas favorites. 

With 16 more performances still to go (including two nights in Courtenay), I encourage you to drive to Cedar and take in one of the afternoon or evening performances. Tickets can be reserved by phoning the Port Theatre Ticket Centre in Nanaimo at 250.754.8550. Tickets can also be ordered on the internet at www.porttheatre.com 

PAT IN PORT

I’M IN CEDAR

This month my wife Pat and I perform on both sides of “the hump.” Pat is into her final rehearsals with Port Alberni’s Timbre! choir who will present A Valley Christmas - Festive Music of the Season on Sunday December 12 at 2:30 pm in the ADSS Auditorium. Meanwhile I’m in Cedar south of Nanaimo rehearsing for the Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular which opens on December 8th running through to December 19.

Accompanying Timbre! will be Vancouver pianist Terence Dawson. A versatile artist, Dr. Dawson leads an active career as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral pianist and teacher. He has collaborated with numerous artists and ensembles including concerto performances with the Vancouver Symphony and National Arts Centre Orchestras and the CBC Curio Ensemble.  He has concertized across Canada, the United States, England and Asia, recorded for CBC Radio, and on disc for EMI Virgin Classics, Bravura, and Skylark labels. Terence is a dedicated teacher with invitations from coast to coast to conduct master classes. He has also served as a competition jury member for the Canadian Music Competition, the Canadian Federation of Music Teacher’s National Convention, and has adjudicated numerous music festivals.

In the summer months, he teaches and performs at Strings and Keys in Alberta – a program for young musicians – and for the Vancouver International Song Institute. Dr. Dawson is on faculty at The University of British Columbia School of Music, where he is the school’s Keyboard Division Coordinator and teaches piano and chamber music.

Special guests will be the vocal quartet Swing Set from Courtenay with Michelle Weckesser, Nixon Stofhert, Dale Graham and Jennifer Forsland.

The concert will include traditional selections from Handel’s Messiah as well as seasonal favorites like White Christmas and the music of English composer John Rutter. The popular Timbre! soloist  Elizabeth Grenon will be featured in two selections.

Timbre!’s annual Christmas concert is one of the choir’s most popular so if you don’t have a season ticket already, single tickets can be purchased at Rollin Art Centre, Echo Centre, Somass Drugs and Salmonberry’s. Tickets will also be sold at the door one hour before show time. Timbre! is sponsored by the Port Alberni Orchestra and Chorus Society.

PHOTO: Vancouver pianist Dr. Terence Dawson will accompany Timbre!’s A Valley Christmas on December 12, 2:30 at ADSS.

The weather outside was frightful!

Last Monday an arctic air outflow spilled down the mainland interior passes, whipping across Georgia Strait with a vengeance. The result was our home overlooking the strait just south of Nanoose Bay got wacked with a solid dump of the white stuff for most of the day. Besides shoveling the walkways, my foremost chore was trying to convince my wife Pat that she shouldn’t attempt driving that evening to Port Alberni over “the hump” to get to a Timbre! choir rehearsal. Pat is the type of person who as a youngster never missed a day of school. Cancelling a scheduled rehearsal she finds, to put it mildly, stressful to the extreme. However, Pat finally relented after receiving a report that several trailer trucks had jackknifed on both sides of “the hump”. 

Having the evening free, I asked my wife out on a date, suggesting a little escapism might blunt her anxiety at having to cancel a rehearsal so close to Timbre!’s upcoming Christmas concert. We headed out for dinner and a flick, catching a 4:30 pm matinee showing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows. I knew Pat would enjoy the film as she used to read the books to our grandchildren. 

The film picks up where the last episode left off. Dumbledore is dead, Voldemort has retaken control and Harry Potter and his friends are forced on the run. Knowing that the key to Voldemort’s defeat is the destruction of his horcruxes (bits of his soul he left in various objects in order to become near-immortal), the trio head off on a mission to track them down. 

When the Potter film series started in 2001 the lead characters were 11 and 12 years old. Now they’re all grown up which made for a much scarier flick, one I’d advise you not to take a young child to see. A few of the scenes featuring a mammoth snake made my skin crawl. 

After the movie it was off to Moxie’s for dinner. Pat and I consider their ribs to be the best in the hub city. At the restaurant we ran into a Timbre! choir member who was thankful she didn’t have to trek over “the hump” either, assuring Pat she’d made the right decision by cancelling the rehearsal.

After a couple of days of sunshine, on Thursday morning the snow was back, just in time for a taxing drive south to Cedar for my first rehearsal with the cast of the Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular. I’m playing piano for the annual production for most of December. The snowy picture-postcard setting of the Cedar countryside was a perfect location to begin rehearsing a Christmas Show. Regrettably by rehearsal end the rain that usually follows our snowfalls here on the west coast had reclaimed its territory.  

YELLOWPOINT CHRISTMAS SPECTACULAR at the Cedar Community Hall in Cedar with 3pm matinees and 7pm evening performances December 8^th to 19^th & Old Church Theatre in Courtenay on December 14^th & 15^th. December 12^th 3pm show is sold out! 

Phone 250.754.8550 to reserve tickets. www.yellowpointchristmasspectacular.ca/

Alberni Pacific hosts conductors in training

I have a habit of waking up around 3 am every day. Sometimes I try to get back to sleep. However when that proves unsuccessful I’ll open my laptop to write a blog, answer some emails, pay a few bills or read the Vancouver, Victoria and Port Alberni newspapers online. If I have a concert or show coming up I’ll use the early awakenings to practise on my electric piano using earphones, so as not to disturb my wife Pat. To maintain this nocturnal routine, most days I’ll grab a nap during the day. 

However, Friday morning I forced myself to sleep in until 5 am as I had a 9-hour shift aboard the Alberni Pacific Railway and any mid-day siesta was out of the question. I left our Nanaimo home at 6:00 am in order to arrive in plenty of time for an 8 am departure from the APR Roundhouse in Port Alberni aboard Loci #8427 with Rollie Hurst at the throttle heading to McLean Mill.

I was spending the day in the diesel’s fireman’s chair watching out for the safety of the students taking part in a B.C. Institute of Technology’s Railway Conductor’s training course. The program has been developed by the institute to fill a demand by the country’s major railway companies (CPR & CNR) as they begin to face an increasing number of employee retirements coming within the next five years. Using the Alberni Pacific Railway for the practical training component of the BCIT program is becoming a major revenue source for the Industrial Heritage Society, particularly in view of the Liberal government drastically cutting the society’s community access gaming grant through the local Chances Casino. I’ll stay clear of my thoughts on that subject for the time being, at least for this blog.

Although most folk know me as a conductor of the musical ilk, when they find out that I’m also a conductor on an operational railway they usually assume I drive the train. Not so. The conductor assigned to a passenger or freight train actually has authority over that of the engineer who operates the locomotive. In reality the conductor is in charge of the entire train and its crew. It’s his or her responsibility to inspect the mechanical equipment onboard such as the brakes, air hoses, couplings etc. and keep track of the train order paperwork. Train orders can come by way of a supervisor or can be radioed to the conductor from a dispatcher whose job it is to control meets at sidings, have certain trains wait in sidings for priority trains to pass, as well as maintain spacing (called blocks) between trains going the same direction. There’s a lot more to it than that, but basically it gives you some idea what railroad conducting is about. 

Since I’m on the subject of railroads and also a film freak, I’d like to recommend a new movie to readers entitled Unstoppable which just opened in theatres. The basic premise has an unmanned diesel locomotive hauling a consist of toxic cargo roaring its way along a mainline track in the state of Ohio. Fortunately a veteran engineer played by Denzel Washington and a young conductor (Chris Pine) aboard another train in the runaway's path devise a far-fetched plan to stop it -- therein preventing certain disaster in a heavily populated area. 

Although I’m not encouraging the BCIT student conductors I was working with on Friday to rush out and see the film, since a runaway is not something they’d ever want to have happen in their future conducting careers, I recommend it for anyone up for a good dose of adrenaline-infused action that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Returning home over ‘the hump’ later in the evening, the first snowfall of winter was threading its way through the Cameron Lake Valley. By morning the North Nanaimo cul-de-sac where we live had become a winter wonderland. Time to locate my snow shovel.

Class photo of BCIT conductor students aboard APR Diesel #8427 with engineer'instructor Rollie Hurst, On the ground (L to R) are APR conductors Kevin Hunter and myself with Irving McIntyre who assisted with instruction. Behind Irving is BCIT instructor John Wetzel.

Rollie Hurst at the throttle of Diesel #8427. An engineer with the patience of a saint, never letting a student error cause him any stress.

BCIT students learning to safely spot rail cars on a steep grade on the McLean Mill siding.

Students observe a smooth coupling by the locomotive.

Arriving home, winter's first snowfall had blanketed our house.

Remembrance Day 2010

Yesterday was Remembrance Day. Musically November 11^th  has always been a busy day for marching pipe bands and trumpeters capable of laying down a flawless version of the Last Post followed, after two minutes of silence, by a snappy Reveille. 

For over 30-years as a secondary school music director I was called upon every November to field a band for student Remembrance Day ceremonies.  The first ceremony I ever conducted was at a newly built school in Port Alberni. Eric Dunn Junior Secondary School was a novel design, better suited for Southern California’s sunny landscape than our monsoon lashed West Coast environment. Clusters of module classrooms were scattered on a wooded hillside, joined together by numerous outdoor cement staircases. Changing classes meant moving outdoors along open roof-covered walkways, nice on sunny days, not so in the middle of a lashing winter rainstorm.

The new school had no indoor area large enough to house a student assembly. The gymnasium had been axed from the construction schedule for lack of funding. The only available area for large gatherings was an open courtyard between a group of classroom clusters. However I was in luck for my first Remembrance Day ceremony. It was sunny but very cold, although thankfully not frosty enough to freeze the valves on the brass instruments. Ceremonies in later years were held a few blocks away at First United Church which, along with the church’s gymnasium, the school district rented for assemblies and PE classes until the government finally released the funding needed to have a physical education building built on the Dunn property.  A band room for the school’s music program was built atop the shower rooms of the new gym complex. Up to then I’d taught band alternating between the metalwork and woodworking shops.

After 15 years at EJ Dunn I transferred to Alberni District Secondary School where it was a tradition for the school band to play the community’s Remembrance Day Ceremony organized by the Legion.  Each year I’d ask for students to volunteer for the ceremony and never had a problem filling the orchestra pit with musicians.  Upon my retirement I was honoured to be awarded a life-membership in the Canadian Legion.

During the last decade there has been a growing trend across the country towards the staging of Remembrance Day concerts featuring everything from choral ensembles through to professional symphony orchestras. Last weekend the community choir Timbre! included a set of selections in their fall program in tribute to our veterans and members of the Canadian Forces. One of the most moving was For The Fallen, composed by Mike Sammes and based on the well-known text by Canadian poet Laurence Binyon. A favourite with the audience was a bevy of Songs That Soldiers Sang including Lili Marlene, It’s a Long Way to Tipperary, The White Cliffs of Dover and We’ll Meet Again.

Early yesterday morning I watched the national Remembrance Day ceremony playing out on a sun bathed Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Three hours later I viewed the annual ceremony broadcast from Victoria and Vancouver. Then it was time to heave my piano into my van and head for the Parksville Legion to play a dance with the Arrowsmith Big Band. In the Mood, Sing Sing Sing, It Don’t Mean a Thing If You Ain’t Got That Swing - there’s no better place than a Legion hall in which to perform all those venerable big band hits of WW II.

This year I wore an English poppy that my brother Terry picked up last week in Britain while attending the funeral of our cousin Philip.  Unlike our brilliant red plastic copies of the ancient plants, English poppies are made from a light red paper backed with a green leaf. 

One of my fetishes following Remembrance Day is the un-boxing of our Christmas decorations. Getting a jump-start on the season has always been driven by the musical commitments I have in December. I fear if I wait I won’t have time to trim the house. Besides, brightening up the lengthening November darkness makes my pre-emptive strike worthwhile.  Actually I assembled our artificial tree on Nov 10^th , albeit without the light strings attached. This morning I plan to affix the lights and by this evening our living room will be awash in a blaze of colour. 

PHOTO 1: Unlike our brilliant red plastic poppy, English copies of the ancient plants are made from light-weight red paper backed with a green leaf.

PHOTO 2: Before a gymnasium was built at Eric Dunn Junior Secondary School (now Ecole E.J. Dunn Middle School), the school’s Remembrance Day ceremonies took place at First United Church in Port Alberni.  Some blog readers may recognize themselves. 

PHOTO 3: The Arrowsmith Big Band performs at the Remembrance Day dance held annually at the Canadian Legion Hall in Parksville. 

Timbre! opens 37th Season with Bits and Pieces

It’s going to be very busy weekend. Friday night I’m performing on piano with the Cory Miller Quartet at Jazz Night in the Step Above Café at Quality Foods in Port Alberni. Nanaimo based vocalist Lauren Bush will be appearing as guest artist. Word is the Step Above Café  is sold out and no further reservations are being taken. However I understand a few spots are usually held back for walk-ins.  

On Saturday morning there is a dress rehearsal scheduled with Timbre! and the accompanying musicians for the choir’s Sunday afternoon performance. The concert, titled Bits and Pieces – Music from Broadway and the Movies, opens the ensemble’s 37^th season and gets underway at 2:30 pm in the ADSS Auditorium in Port Alberni. 

As Timbre!’s Musical Director, my wife Pat has chosen a pleasingly varied repertoire for the performance. Choral Highlights from the Broadway Musical Mamma Mia! is one of the major selections programmed. Many super ABBA hits including I Have A Dream, S.O.S., Take A Chance On Me, Thank You For The Music, Waterloo and Dancing Queen are part of Mac Huff’s well written arrangement. 

Other pieces programmed include Sweet Caroline (Neil Diamond’s 1969 hit which was recently featured in the television series Glee), I See You (the ethereal theme song from Avatar, a powerful ballad which captures the magical science fiction atmosphere of this blockbuster film and its stunning world of imagination and color), Look To the Rainbow (from Burton Lane’s Broadway Show Finian’s Rainbow) and Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat (from the venerable Broadway musical Guys and Dolls).

After intermission Timbre! will present a set of pieces in tribute to Remembrance Day. In honour of our country’s annual recognition of our veterans and members of the Canadian Forces, the choir will sing Make Me a Channel of Your Peace (Prayer of St. Francis), For The Fallen (music by Mike Sammes and based on the well-known text by Canadian poet Laurence Binyon), Oscar Peterson’s Hymn To Freedom and a bevy of Songs That Soldiers Sang including Lili Marlene, It’s a Long Way to Tipperary, The White Cliffs of Dover and We’ll Meet Again.

Season Passes are now on sale at Rollin Art Centre, Echo Centre, Salmonberry’s, Somass Drugs and will be available at the door. A Season’s Pass admits you to all three concerts - Adult $30, Senior & Student $25, Family $65. Individual ticket prices for Bits and Pieces are Adults $12, Seniors & Student $10 and Children $6. Making the price of buying a Season’s Pass more attractive is the fact that starting with Timbre!’s Christmas Concert there will be a price increase for single show tickets. 

This increase has been made necessary due to the current government’s decision to no longer support adult performing arts organizations in British Columbia through access to gaming grants.  Adding insult to injury, last week the government’s newly minted cultural minister removed “arts” from the title of her portfolio. With support to the arts accounting for such a tiny percentage of the overall provincial budget, the damage being done to BC performing arts groups by this ill-conceived judgment is appalling. I predict within a year or two a vast number will virtually disappear. Without a doubt the philistine agenda has found a centralist role within the reigning government. However this debate is reserved for a future Blog. 

Hope to see many of you from Port Alberni and surrounding area at Timbre!’s concert on Sunday.

As I type this blog my brother Terry has just Skyped me from London, England. For those who may not know what Skype is, it’s a computer program that allows people to talk and see each other (on their computer screens) from anywhere in the world for free. Sadly Terry is in Britain to attend the funeral of our cousin Philip who passed away on Oct 15th. The funeral was originally scheduled for next week but the Vicar at St Mary’s Anglican parish church in Bristol unexpectedly moved it up to today. Unfortunately, with my concert commitments this weekend, it was impossible for me to accompany Terry as planned. However I feel fortunate to have had two extended visits with Philip last year. He was an exceptionally cultured individual and a very entertaining host in that British sort of way. Through Skype I’ve been able to feel allied to the interment observance regardless of the great distance.

Photo: Nov 1st, 2009: Timbre! on Stage at Bob Dailey Stadium in Port Alberni for the lighting of the Olympic Torch.

Photo: Nov 1st/2010 - Timbre! Music Director Patricia Miller on stage at ADSS preparing for Bits and Pieces concert scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 8th at 2:30 pm.

A lifelong passion for movies fulfilled weekly 

I must confess I’m an incurable movieholic. Sitting in a darkened theatre munching an overpriced bag of popcorn ranks up there with hearing Oscar Peterson rip off a solo in full flight. Not actually, but you get the picture (no pun intended). 

My passion for motion pictures started when I was four or five years old with The Wizard of Oz. I recall being excited beyond belief viewing the film’s colourful billboard posters as my father and I shuffled slowly through a line-up to the glassed-in ticket booth at the Capital Theatre in Port Alberni. The thrilling opening scene which has Dorothy’s Kansas prairie farmhouse being ripped from its foundation by a howling tornado (filmed in black and white) and then crash landed in a place called Munchkinland (filmed in gorgeous Technicolor) was my first experience with the celluloid art form known as the ‘special effect’. The magical moments which the ever-evolving technical process produces continue to thrill me.  

Moving to the city of Nanaimo eight years ago has allowed me to emerge in my passion for films as many as three to four times a week. Not only am I able to see the latest Hollywood releases on one of the 14 available screens within a few blocks of our home, but also experience via satellite live musical performances from around the world.  At the Galaxy Theatre at Rutherford Mall on Saturday mornings once or twice a month the Metropolitan Opera’s Emmy Award winning series The Met: Live in HD is in its fifth season with twelve live transmissions on tap. When I first started attending the operas there were only ten or fifteen of us in the audience. Now there are two full theatres for every performance.

However, the Galaxy Cineplex is not only presenting opera on the big screen.  On September 12, along with my wife Pat and brother Terry, we took in a live via satellite performance of one of the most popular musical celebrations of Britain’s extensive summer concert season, the Last Night of the Proms from The Royal Albert Hall in London, England. 

Then on Oct 4th I stumbled across a listing for another live satellite feed from England. Pat had driven up “over the hump’ to Port Alberni to rehearse the Timbre! choir. About 6 pm I was looking on the Internet at the local movie listings and to my surprise learned that the 25^th Anniversary production of Les Misérables was scheduled to be broadcast within the hour. I phoned Terry who lives only a few steps from the Galaxy to say the broadcast was a must-see and I’d meet him there shortly. Bar none, it turned out to be the best of all the satellite broadcasts I’ve attended in the last four years. Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s Les Misérables is one of the most beloved musicals of all time and I never tire of hearing its magnificent score. Projected onto the giant movie screen it was nothing less than spectacular and with the Galaxy theatre’s digital surround sound system I’m sure we heard the show better than the audience in attendance at the O2 Arena in London.  

As mentioned above, I’m an incurable movieholic and I’ll go to just about anything that moves - except a horror film.  Currently in theatres, my favourites include Red (a CIA spoof), The Town (an intriguing bank heist flick), Hereafter (Clint Eastwood’s latest release) and The Social Network, a film exploring the moment at which Facebook was invented.  I’d better confess.  Both Pat and myself are on Facebook and as hard as it is to do, we limit the time spent on the social network phenomena. However many past students have found us through our Facebook page and it’s great to track and find out what they’re up to. Many have become professional singers and musicians so that’s a special joy for us to read about.

Further entertainment we enjoy here in the hub city is the Vancouver Island Symphony Orchestra. Many years ago I played the double bass in an orchestra called the Nanaimo Symphony which was an all-amateur ensemble attracting players from every community north of Duncan. We met weekly on Sunday afternoons under the baton of Maurice Kushner (and later John Getgood) to rehearse for two or three concerts a year. With the advent of the handsome Port Theatre, Nanaimo now boasts a fully professional orchestra. Last Saturday evening we attended the orchestra’s first performance of their 16^th season. The concert, entitled Remembrance, featured the world premiere of a composition written by James Mark, a violinist in the orchestra. I met James several years ago when he asked me to play in an instrumental ensemble he was putting together to accompany an annual show called the Yellowpoint Christmas Spectacular.  It’s not very often one gets to write a piece for a full symphony orchestra so I was looking forward to hearing James’ new work which he had entitled Weit ist der Weg zurück (The Long Road Back). 

On stage James explained that his inspiration to write the piece had come from hearing stories of heroic actions as told to him by his Grandfather who had been a soldier on the German side during the Second World. Along with Pat and Terry, we enjoyed the composition immensely. The constant martial-like rhythmical pulse of the piece was haunting and evocative, almost hypnotic. Layered upon this constant rhythm, the brass and woodwind sections periodically created thickly textured blocks of harmony, which to my mind radiated thoughts of multiple numbers of tank weaponry on the move. The strings delicately wove their way through this minefield of sound conjuring up the image of morning mists after a ferociously fought battle.  To better appreciate James’ work I hope I have an opportunity to hear it again sometime.

Presently I’m learning my piano accompaniments for the upcoming Timbre! concert on Nov 7th. Also another Jazz Night at the Step Above Café at Quality Foods is on my gig calendar for Nov 5th.  More on both of these Port Alberni concerts in my next blog.

PHOTO: Nick Jonas may be best known for being one third of the immensely popular Jonas Brothers, but he’s been a Broadway star for even longer. The 18-year-old pop star, who started out on the Great White Way in shows like Les Miserables and Beauty and the Beast, joined the cast of Les Miz’s 25th Anniversary concert at London’s O2 Arena to reprise his role of Marius, which he played on the West End earlier this year. The concert was broadcast via satellite to the Galaxy theatre in Nanaimo on October 4th.