Pianist Lang Lang a Sellout

This week I’ve been in the Lower Mainland with my wife Pat as she adjudicates piano examinations for the Royal Conservatory of Music of Toronto. One evening looking at the local concert listings we lucked out. Only a few steps from our hotel, at the Orpheum Theatre on Granville, the Chinese-born classical pianist Lang Lang (pronounced Long Long) was performing. Getting tickets proved a bit of a scramble. With BC’s large Asian population centred in the lower mainland, anytime the brilliant pianist plays Vancouver tickets are as scarce as hen’s teeth. 

In China Lang Lang enjoys megastar status and is an inspirational icon for over 40-million school age youngsters currently taking classical piano lessons in the country. Add to this total another 90 million learning other instruments, and such figures become staggering when taking into account that the entire population of Canada is pegged at somewhere around 34 million souls. 

Meanwhile in this province we continue treating cultural endeavors as expendable. Government funding for the arts in BC is cancelled at whim, a thoughtless practice that can lay waste an entire generation of talented artists. 

In an interview before Lang Lang’s Vancouver concert, the pianist stated: “a generation ago people used to worry that classical music would eventually die out, but now we know this is definitely not the case. The tradition has been invigorated by Asian performers”. Regretfully the ever-shifting politics governing arts funding in this province will guarantee many of our most talented citizens will not be part of this renaissance. 

My blog last week regarding Glenn Gould’s search for the perfect Steinway piano sparked a number of responses. Reader Don Cox emailed a story about the whereabouts of Glenn Gould’s “other” piano, a small grand made in 1895 by the Boston-based firm Chickering. Purchased by Gould in 1957, he used the piano to practice on for his U.S. debut. He loved the piano’s touch but because of its small size it was unsuitable for the concert stage. 

Don Cox grew up in Port Alberni and after graduating from the ADSS music program he went on to play bass and tuba with Canadian Forces bands across the country. Don wrote that the piano “was given to the Canadian Government, and it’s in Rideau Hall (Gov Gen's residence in Ottawa), in the main Ballroom where all the ceremonial occasions take place. When I was serving with the Central Band of the Canadian Forces (Air Force band in Ottawa) we had a String Quintet (2 violins, viola, cello and piano) and a Jazz Quartet that alternated playing the ceremonial functions in Rideau Hall (and there were a lot of them !!!! ). With either group the Gould piano, as it was known, was used. We never knew who was going to be at these functions. When it had to do with the Arts (awards and such) it was especially interesting to see who would be there.

We had a pretty good piano player with us then, and I remember on one occasion when we were there with the jazz quartet, he looked up after finishing his solos, and there at the end of the piano, sitting in his wheelchair, was Oscar Peterson. Oscar just nodded and said "nice work son" and rolled away. Good thing he didn't know he was there before!”

Sky-Training around the Lower Mainland this week I’ve had the opportunity to play on many different pianos – namely Yamaha and Steinway Grands. However there is a relative newcomer in the high-end piano world. One day I visited the Showcase Pianos store at Aberdeen Centre in Richmond. Showcase Pianos is one of a limited number of outlets in Canada for an Italian made piano called Fazioli. The company was started in1978 by Paolo Fazioli in a village northeast of Venice called Sacile. A trained mechanical engineer as well as a musician, Fazioli set about reinventing the modern piano. Assembling a skilled team of acoustic engineers, wood- workers and piano makers, the first prototype was produced in 1981. Still a boutique business, the company produces only 120 pianos each year entirely by hand.

In producing a superior piano sound, one of the most important parts of the instrument is the sounding board. In Fazioli pianos the wood comes from the same trees as Stradivarius violins - red spruce from Val di Fiemme in the Italian Alps. Over a period of three years, the timber is transformed in a laborious process that includes a natural drying period taking between six months and a year.

As you might guess, such a defined process pushes the price of these high-end pianos into the stratosphere. When the Vancouver dealership opened in 2007, the owner hoped to sell two or three Fazioli pianos each year; instead, he’s managed to sell 30. If cost is a factor, the store suggests you look elsewhere. How does an average price tag of $225,000 (before HST) grab you? Want an even better model? The Fazioli piano below is tagged at $450,000.

PHOTO (above) A Fazioli piano at the Aberdeen Centre in Richmond.  Fazioli built what may be the most futuristic-looking grand piano ever made. The piano is designed to be used aboard a yacht with a unique leg that is permanently fixed to the floor in case of rough seas.

PHOTO (above): For the Olympics last year, Tom Lee Music and Steinway created a one‐of‐a‐kind art project in the form of a Steinway concert grand piano decorated by Haida artist Jay Simeon. The piano named Kuniisii - Music & Mythology is valued at more than $500,000 and joins Steinway’s collection of Art Case pianos, which have been created by artisans the world over since 1857. In this case, Jay Simeon used acrylic paint made from ground argillite – a type of stone found only in the Queen Charlotte Islands of BC. A fitting theme for the piano, his creation features Kuniisii, the supernatural being who gave the Haida people songs and music.

PHOTO (above): Pat has been examining ARCT Performance and Piano Pedagogy exams this week on the Lower Mainland with Toronto colleague Dr. Chris Foley. Chris introduced us to some wonderful Chinese Cuisine in Richmond. 

If you’re a pianist you should check out his blog at

http://collaborativepiano.blogspot.com/ 

Closing Chord: 

As a member of the BC Choral Federation Advocacy Network, I’ve been asked to pass along information regarding the government’s recent decision to prohibit adult performing arts groups from applying for Lottery Grants. Historically, charity has been used as the leverage to gain public acceptance of gambling. It started out simply enough with a few charity bingos and some pull-tab lottery tickets operated and sold by the charities themselves. Later, as most British Columbian’s are aware, the whole process grew and was taken over by the government. Over the years the percentage of proceeds dedicated to charity have shrunk from 100% (1969) to 50% (1985) to 33.3% (1999) to less than 10% (2010). Simply put, as a person who for over 20 years promoted charity gambling in order to raise funding for art’s groups, I feel totally betrayed.

However, it comes as no surprise. Now that we’re in the midst of a B.C. Liberal Leadership race, some of the candidates are promising to restore arts grant funding if elected. I am not holding my breath. One thing I’ve learned about B.C politics in the last few years is that honesty is a rare commodity. 

JAZZ NIGHT: A reminder that The Griffith/Hiltz Trio from Toronto is performing in the Alberni District Secondary School Auditorium on Tuesday evening (Feb 2nd). Student groups get things underway at 7pm. Admission by Donation.

A Romance on Three Legs

A few blogs back I was extolling the virtues of the Yamaha Disklavier, a traditional acoustic grand piano with built in digital electronics for recording and instant auto playback. When I wrote the blog I’d just attended a workshop on the incredible piano at Tom Lee Music in Vancouver. I was intrigued by the musical possibilities offered by connecting the instrument to a computer and the Internet. 

Reporting back to my wife Pat, we began toying with the idea and crunching the dollar numbers it would take to acquire one for her studio. Lately we’d been worried about the condition of our Steinway Grand after decades of heavy use. The piano seemed to be losing its tonal sonority. We purchased the 1924-built instrument in the 1960’s from Eaton’s, at that time the exclusive Steinway dealer for all of Canada. The thought of now using it as a trade-in (on even a high-end Asian-built instrument) was not a welcome thought.

For those readers who don’t know keyboard instruments, a Steinway Grand is considered the Mercedes of pianos. According to Forbes.com, a “Steinway piano...is a singularly inspired investment -- an instrument that combines the joy of musical perfection with the security and reassurance of financial appreciation. It is, quite simply, a treasured possession that grows in value over the course of time. Over the past ten years, the retail value of a Steinway concert grand has appreciated nearly 200%.” 

At Tom Lee’s Music in Vancouver I spoke with one of the keyboard consultants and asked whom they employed to service the pianos they sold on Vancouver Island. He mentioned a piano technician who had worked for the Vancouver store and was now retired in Nanaimo. He has continued covering the store’s island sales. I phoned the technician the following day and discovered he’d had training at the Steinway factory in New York. Talk about luck. Agreeing to have a look at our Steinway, he spent 6 hours working on our piano and, although there is still some work to be done, has literally brought the instrument back to life. Our treasured Steinway as far as we’re concerned is not going anywhere.  

Packing up his tools, the technician mentioned a book he was reading entitled A Romance on Three Legs.  Finding a copy at Chapters the following day, I haven’t been able to lay it down. Written by New York Times correspondent Katie Hafner, the book is a detailed account of the compulsive search for a sensitive, highly responsive concert piano by Canadian musical wunderkind Glenn Gould. Presented is a fascinating biography of Gould who was known for many quirks, including the wearing of winter clothing in the middle of summer. 

I can verify this as fact, having seen the unapproachable Gould wandering Stanley Park’s seawall in July of 1958 wrapped in a heavy overcoat, a rakish cap perched atop his head and wearing a pair of wool gloves without fingers. Stopping periodically, Gould would begin sweeping his arms skyward as if he were conducting an invisible symphony orchestra. I was in Vancouver attending the 1^st Vancouver International Festival. I had tickets for a play (Lister Sinclair's The World of the Wonderful Dark), the French mime artist Marcel Marceau, and the Oscar Peterson Trio. Having not yet met my soul mate Pat, my love of classical music still lay dormant and I skipped attending the festival recital by Glenn Gould, an opportunity that I now regret. In 1964 Gould suddenly, at the peak of his career, gave up the concert stage forever in favor of the recording studio. 

A Romance on Three Legs focuses on Gould's love for a particular piano, a Steinway concert grand known as CD318 (C, meaning for the use of Steinway Concert Artists only, and D, denoting it as the largest that Steinway built). Hafner’s narrative follows the piano from the day it was born on Steinway’s New York factory floor in 1942 through to the moment of discovery by Gould in Eaton’s Toronto Store in 1960. Used for many of Gould’s best recordings in subsequent years, the piano was unfortunately dropped by movers while in transport between Cleveland and Toronto after a cancelled recording session Gould was to do with the Cleveland Symphony. Throughout his life Gould was notorious for cancelling out on contracts. Understandably it kept his lawyer very busy.

Readers are introduced to the world and art of piano restoration and tuning, including a central character in Gould's life, the blind technician Verne Edquist who lovingly attended to the pianist’s favorite Steinway for more than two decades. Well documented are the attempts by Edquist, the Steinway factory and others to restore the piano after the moving accident to Gould’s high technical expectations. After Glenn Gould’s passing in 1982, the piano was sent along with all his personal possessions to the National Library of Canada in Ottawa. Recitals are still performed on the Steinway including pianists playing at the city’s annual International Jazz Festival. Those who play the instrument say it’s the finest piano they’ve ever performed on. 

Early in our married life I recall Pat often playing a 1955 12-inch LP of Glenn Gould performing Bach’s Goldberg Variations, the recording that skyrocketed the Canadian pianist to international fame. It would become the most popular classical solo-instrumental album ever, selling an astonishing 1.8 million copies. Reading Katie Hafner’s book I realized I’d not given an intensive listen to the recording since. Downloading from itunes the Goldberg Variations version that Gould re-recorded in 1981, I’m listening to the album on my Apple computer as I finish this blog. Through earphones Gould’s eccentric habit of humming along as he played can clearly be heard. 

    PHOTO: A corner of the Steinway Piano Floor at Tom Lee Music in Vancouver

Green Hornet triggers radio memories

If you’re of my generation, you’ll know what a crystal radio receiver is. As a youngster in the 1940’s I received one in kit form as a birthday present. What made the crystal radio unique was that the rudimentary device didn’t need a battery pack because its only power came from radio waves transmitted into the atmosphere from a radio station tower. The radio waves in turn were picked up through an antenna wired to the crystal set. The small receivers got their name from their most important component known as a crystal detector which was made from pieces of a crystalline mineral called galena. In order to hear a radio station broadcast, you listened through a set of earphones wired to a thin metal “cat’s whisker” which had to be delicately touching the crystal.

Photo: Crystal Radio Receiver

I kept my assembled crystal set under my bed so I could listen to radio programs far into the night without my parents knowing. In order to make my little radio operate I had a long shielded copper wire running from my second floor bedroom window, across the shingled roof to a wire-wound clothesline that ran from our laundry room porch out to a Douglas tree in the backyard. Since the crystal radio set also needed to be grounded, a second wire dropped down from my window and attached to a steel water pipe.

I have wonderful memories of the programs I heard on my crystal set. Bringing those memories to the fore was a new movie I saw on Friday at Nanaimo’s Galaxy Theatre called The Green Hornet. The film was based on The Green Hornet radio series, one of the programs I would faithfully listen to on my crystal set in the 1940’s. The radio program was the brainchild of Fran Striker who also created The Lone Ranger series, another program I loved.  

Watching The Green Hornet on a big theatre screen with all its technological wonders of 3-D and Surround Digital Sound was, to put it mildly, an exercise in pure sensory overload. Listening to The Green Hornet as a youngster on a rudimentary crystal set I had to visualize everything in my imagination. On the theatre screen, one’s mind just needed to be passively parked in neutral with a bag of popcorn at hand, your imaginative responsibility having been downloaded to the movie-maker’s magical arsenal.

Exploding visually on screen was the Hornet’s super-powered automobile the Black Beauty invented by his sidekick Kato. Most crime fighting characters and cowboy superheroes had partners. The Lone Ranger had Tonto, Batman - Robin, Tom Mix - Pancho, Roy Rogers - Gabby Hayes, Hopalong Cassidy - Andy Clyde to name a few. Like the Lone Ranger and Batman, the Green Hornet wore a mask to conceal his true identity. He also had a weapon of choice – a gas gun to subdue fugitives. The gun didn’t do permanent harm to the criminals, just making them helpless till they could be arrested. Sort of like the controversial taser guns that some police officers indiscriminately employ these days.

An interesting legend exists concerning the character of the Green Hornet’s sidekick Kato. The story goes that Kato was said to be of Japanese ancestry until the attack on Pearl Harbour and then the radio scriptwriters suddenly changed his heritage to Filipino. Like the Lone Ranger series The Green Hornet had a stirring classical theme song and memorable opening narration. The show would open with Flight of the Bumblebee by Rinsky-Korsakov. Then the announcer would begin in a deep stern timbre with: “The Green Hornet, he hunts the biggest of all game! Public enemies who try to destroy our America! With his faithful valet Kato, Britt Reid, daring young publisher matches wits with the underworld, risking his life so that criminals and racketeers, within the law, may feel its weight by the sting of the Green Hornet”.

The last original Green Hornet radio show aired in 1953. Very little of the original material made it into the new movie. However if you’re up to some electrifying car chases and unfettered violence, then this movie is a must see.

Also opening at the Galaxy Theatre in Nanaimo this weekend is a film I told you about in a previous blog. The King’s Speech starring Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham is a film not to be missed. The movie is the story of King

George VI of Britain, his unwanted ascension to the throne and the speech therapist who helped the shy and stutter-plagued monarch deal with the stress of the public speaking engagements that came with being King. Having seen almost every film released in 2010 I’ll wager the movie has several Academy Awards in store, perhaps even Best Picture if the American Hollywood-based members of the Academy can bring themselves to vote a British film top prize.

Other films I’ve viewed recently were The Fighter (excellent), Season of the Witch with Nicolas Cage (best skipped), Black Swan (weird but pretty good), Country Strong (boring for my musical tastes - however the folks in cowboy hats sitting behind me loved it), True Grit (outstanding), Little Fockers (not as funny as the original), Tron (viewed in 3D the special effects were fabulous), The Tourist (bogged down with a very weak script), Made in Dagenham (an excellent British film about a car plant strike led by female workers) and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (also viewed in 3D. Based on the classic children fantasy novels by C.S. Lewis. Loaded with special effects of flying dragons, slithering sea serpents and one-footed dwarves. Very well done).

Next week I’m on the Lower Mainland with my wife Pat as she adjudicates piano examinations for the Royal Conservatory of Toronto. If there’s internet in the hotel, another blog is likely.

Father’s Films reveal memories

I keep telling myself I’ve got to do something about the clutter overtaking my garage. The garage is a double-bay and my wife Pat’s car, much to her chagrin, has never been parked inside out of the elements since we moved into the house. Her space is packed to the ceiling with everything from lawnmowers and tools, through to numerous cardboard boxes containing treasured memorabilia we’ve never had the time to sort through. Last fall I did make a feeble attempt to organize the space. However that expedition didn’t last long after being sidetracked upon discovering a tattered box containing over a dozen cans of 16 mm home movie film belonging to my father taken in the late 1930’s.

It was in the early 20th Century that home movie making by amateurs became a realistic possibility. The Kodak Company, founded by George Eastman, became the leading player in early 20th century developments in both still photography and in movie making. The company launched their first 16mm home movie system in 1923. The first films were in Black and White with the first color film (dubbed Kodacolor) appearing in 1928. 

The silent 16 mm film format was initially aimed at the home filmmaker, but by the 1930s it became popular for professional use in the educational market. In 1935 came the option of sound and an improved color process called Kodachrome. During WW2 the format was extensively used resulting in a massive increase of 16 mm professional filmmaking. The clients for these films included schools, government departments, medical institutions and industrial groups. I recall in my elementary school years viewing a steady flow of National Film Board presentations in the classroom. One I’ve never forgotten was a “short” called The Loon's Necklace which told the story of how the loon got the distinctive band around its neck. I recall vividly how the filmmaker used West Coast First Nations ceremonial masks to illustrate the legend. 

From the box which was stored in the carport, I picked out two films which seemed to appear in better shape than the others and carted them off to London Drugs in Nanaimo. I’d recently seen a flyer advertising that the store’s camera department could convert old films into a DVD format to play back on your TV or computer. London Drugs shipped my two films off to a lab in Calgary to be processed. Weeks later, a few days before Christmas the converted film/DVD arrived back and on Boxing Day at our family dinner we all positioned ourselves in front of the TV for a viewing. When the films were taken to London Drugs I had no idea what the contents were. It turned out the first movie focused upon my first two years on the planet (1938/39) with the second featuring family holidays in Penticton (early 1940’s) where my mother’s parents and brother lived plus scenes of my brother Terry and myself riding Shetland ponies in Vancouver’s Stanley Park. 

Especially interesting were the summer scenes taken on Penticton’s sandy beaches which were virtually deserted, this being before the flood of rubber-tire tourism that came with the building of the Hope/Princeton highway in 1949. Up till then the only way to get to the Okanagan Valley was by train or an arduous day’s drive up the narrow and winding Fraser Canyon Highway via Kamloops and south to Vernon and Kelowna. At Kelowna a ferry transported cars across Lake Okanagan to West Bank. From there getting to Penticton involved another hour’s drive south. With wartime gas-rationing few holiday seekers made the trip. 

The tattered box found in the garage still holds a number of 16 mm films. I’m looking forward to other family showings and seeing the films through the eyes of our children and grandchildren as they watch their great great grandparents, great grandparents, grand parents and uncles cavort in front of the camera. The memories they’ll undoubtedly trigger will last a lifetime. 

On Wednesday I hiked aboard a 6:30 am ferry at Departure Bay. From Horseshoe Bay, a crowded city bus transported the walk-ons into downtown Vancouver. Trudging several blocks through a driving rainstorm on Granville Street brought me to Tom Lee Music store to attend a seminar on using the Disklavier Yamaha piano as a teaching tool in the digital age. 

The original Yamaha Disklavier piano made its debut in 1986. The technology involved taking a traditional acoustic grand piano and equipping it with integrated digital electronics for recording and auto playback. Since that time, these computer-age 'player' pianos have evolved into instruments that can reproduce not only 'live' acoustic piano concerts, but ensemble music with instrumental and vocal tracks as well. They allow the player to record and instantly play back their own performance, create complex multi-track arrangements, and connect to the world of musical opportunities offered by MIDI devices, personal computers and the Internet. 

The demonstration of the Disklavier piano was given by Stella Branzburg Sick who received her early music education at the State Conservatory in Novosibirsk, Russia. Upon coming to the United States she went on to earn her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. The pianist is a pioneer in the field of long-distance piano performance and instruction, teaching students in various parts of the United States from her private and collegiate studios in Minnesota by connecting her Yamaha Disklavier piano to the student’s piano over the Internet, using long distance MIDI connectivity technology in conjunction with video via the computer program Skype.

Later this month Pat will be adjudicating lower mainland piano students for the Toronto Conservatory Examination Department. The piano consultant at Tom Lee Music has invited me to spend some time playing the Disklavier when we’re in Vancouver. Are we contemplating getting one of these remarkable instruments? Buying a piano of such excellence is a little like purchasing an automobile. A lot of haggling is part of the process and much would depend on receiving a substantial trade-in for our present Steinway grand piano. In the meantime I plan to enjoy test-driving the Disklavier pianos in the music store’s expansive showroom.

Overture to another New Year

Christmas Day turned out to be a wet slog over the hump to Port Alberni. At Cameron Lake we came across Santa Claus enjoying his annual post-delivery fishing trip, umbrella unfurled against the raging monsoon. However, enjoying a superb dinner at our son Cory’s home with the grandchildren more than compensated for the depressing weather. On Boxing Day with the ‘Pineapple Express’ still rolling across Vancouver Island, the full Miller clan gathered at our home in Nanaimo for the annual annihilation of the Christmas bird.

On Wednesday Pat and I traveled over to the big city to see the Arts Club Theatre Company’s performance of White Christmas the Musical. Actually we had tickets for last year’s edition of the show but on our way to catch a ferry I discovered our tickets were for an afternoon performance, not the evening performance which we’d timed our travel plans around. Embarrassingly turning tail just short of Departure Bay, we drove home. This year I triple checked curtain time before leaving. However I almost blew it again. Being mid-week, I thought I wouldn’t need to contribute to Commodore Hahn’s annual million-dollar salary by forking out $17.50 for a ferry reservation. Luckily I changed my mind shortly before heading out and coughed up the fee online. Reaching the ferry terminal the traffic display monitors were already flashing “Ferry Full”. With strong winds whipping up the strait the shuddering Queen of Oak Bay was an hour late docking at Horseshoe Bay. Coupled with a gridlocked Lions Gate Bridge we just had time to grab supper before show time.

White Christmas the Musical was inspired by the 1954 movie starring Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Vera Ellen and Rosemary Clooney. According to Hollywood lore, both Fred Astaire and Donald O’Connor turned down the male shared-lead with Crosby before third-stringer Danny Kaye signed on. I’ve watched the film a zillion times over the years and caught the last half yet again just before Christmas. Since you can’t change scenes as quickly onstage as you can in film, there are a number of differences in the live theatre version. However the best moments are there, including the thread-worn gags and pratfalls. The colourful costumes in the Arts Club offering were absolutely stunning. The tap-dancing production numbers exploded on the live stage like dovetailed strings of firecrackers. Then there were all those wonderful Irving Berlin song hits - Blue Skies, I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm, Sisters, How Deep is the Ocean, Count Your Blessings Instead Of Sheep, Snow and of course White Christmas, the iconic seasonal melody that habitually warms our hearts and for the Berlin estate, adds a few more million dollars in royalties.

After the show Pat and I threaded our way down through the departing audience to the orchestra pit to have a visit with Ken Cormier who was the musical director for this performance. Ken was scheduled to play the matinee this day but when we emailed to say we’d be attending the 7:00 pm performance he switched with the alternate conductor/keyboardist Bruce Kellett, to play the evening show. Port Alberni audiences will know Ken Cormier through his many appearances with the Timbre! Choir. Ken will be coming over to the island to accompany Timbre!’s Last Night at the Proms concert on April 9th.

Being a musician I’m always interested in what’s going on in the orchestra pit. These days computers have found a permanent place in show bands, usually handling the sound of a string section. The original score of White Christmas the Musical calls for an orchestra of 23. Using two keyboard players firewired to computers, coupled with acoustic musicians on trumpet, saxophone, trombone and percussion, the seven pit musicians at the Arts Club Theatre managed to credibly cover the instrumental nuances of a much larger orchestra. 

Staying overnight at the Holiday Inn Downtown we spent the following day drooling at all the Boxing Day Week 70%-off-everything bargains. We also caught a matinee screening of a newly released film entitled The King’s Speech starring Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham. The movie is the story of King George VI of Britain, his unwanted ascension to the throne and the speech therapist who helped the shy and stutter-plagued monarch deal with the stress of the public speaking engagements that came with being King. Having seen almost every film released in 2010 I’d wager the film has several Academy Awards in store, perhaps even Best Picture if the American Hollywood-based members of the Academy can bring themselves to vote a British Film top prize.

Enjoying the big city all spiffed up for Christmas and unable to resist the range of bargains presented at every turn, Pat and I decided to stay over an extra night and partake in the Boxing week shopping mania. Taking the Canada Line to Oakridge Centre, Pat was thrilled to find the perfect performance gown for the next Timbre! concert and I was able to pick up a few software additions for my computer at the Apple Store. Returning downtown I finally agreed to the purchase of a new suit, something I’ve resisted for several years. With 50% off the list price it was a no-brainer that the time had come. Unlike Pat, trying on new clothes I find about as exciting as having a root canal. However, I patiently rode out the whole modus operandi, peeling off and on an assortment of jackets, colourful shirts and ties, climaxed by standing on a raised pedestal to be measured by a haggard tailor overwhelmed by the Boxing-week sales storm.

Returning to the island by ferry on New Years Eve, we arrived home in time to catch the New York Philharmonic Orchestra’s live TV performance from Lincoln Centre and welcomed 2011 watching the Space Needle fireworks from Seattle.

Pat and I wish you all a happy and healthy New Year. 

      

Photo: Santa trying his luck in Cameron Lake following his annual Christmas Eve marathon.

Photo: Our Teen Choir Candlelight candle burns brightly on New Year’s Eve before being boxed for another year. After 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 huge candle which we continue to light each Christmas.