Je suis vraiment partagé entre les deux les sentiments se mélangent.  Il y a juste une semaine de passé car je dois vous dire que je me sens loin de mon Saguenay. Généralement je passe quatre semaines en stage au Domaine Forget dans la région de Charlevoix qui est à 2 heures de route de chez moi.  À London, je sens comme une longue distance psychologique. Personne ne venait me voir lorsque j’étais au Domaine pas plus qu’ici à London. Alors je me surprends tout de même à penser que je suis à plus de 12h35 minutes de chez moi (j’ai regardé sur Google Map) et je me sens loin.  

Le gars de 16 ans que je suis vit dans une région à 99,9 % francophone je me sens un peu isolé ici, non pas que mes compagnons musiciens anglophones ne soit pas gentil avec moi ou ne veulent pas m’intégrer, bien au contraire,  mais comme je ne suis pas à l’aise en anglais alors je traduis dans ma tête en français je prépare ma réponse en français pour la traduire à nouveau en anglais et oups! Il est trop tard tout le monde est passé à un autre sujet. 

Où en sui-je? Ah! Oui, les sentiments partagés.  Déjà une semaine de passé car il est vrai la musique est un langage universel et lorsque je joue en quatuor ou en orchestre cette barrière de la langue s’estompe, je communique parfaitement avec mes collègues, je me sens très heureux, j’accomplis ce que je veux faire dans ma vie.  Ce n’est pas que c’est facile,  ça demande beaucoup de travail, je fais en moyenne 8 à 9 heures de musique par jour les répétitions en sectionelles, les répétitions de quatuor, et enfin les répétitions d’orchestre tous les jours mais je vous assure que malgré cela ça passe vite, trop vite. 

La tournée débutera dans un peu plus de 2 semaines et je suis impatient de la débuter. Bref, jusqu’à maintenant, mon séjour à l’ONJC est très agréable.

I always told myself that the day that playing percussion begins to feel like a job is the day that I retire. Thankfully, as exhausting as this first week has been, it has been full of exciting and valuable musical experiences. First time experiences that will either never happen again in my lifetime or will just not feel the same as the first time. Plus...I'm too young to retire! The Canada Pension Plan may not be too happy with me....

Year 3 of NYOC. I guess they just can't keep me away. In past years, a journalist here in the London area has referred to the NYOC training session as a "Boot Camp". I never liked this term. Boot camps are essentially Basic Military Training with rifles and tear gas chambers. To me the NYOC has never been a Boot Camp. But with the demanding work this year it can sometimes begin to feel like that. We certainly have our hands full in the percussion section; from the rockin' "Mambo" of West Side Story to the primal drums of "Le Sacre". That doesn't include the hour and a half Mahler symphony as well as the Ravel, Moussa, and Teehan. When the standard orchestral literature has just as much percussion as the contemporary music and commission you know you've got a lot of work to do. We've been running our sectionals in the afternoons for an extra half hour on each end to ensure we cover the material and properly prepare for the tutti orchestra rehearsals. As the old saying goes, the percussion section is always first to arrive and last to leave the concert hall. Even when John, our percussion coach, wants us to start on time the five of us eat quickly and head back over in time for an extra half hour of pouring over the music and playing together. "Why?" you ask. It's just what you do. The concept of orchestral perfection, as unhealthy as it may be, drives us to be ready to go when the rest of the orchestra shows up. And the Maestro is already here. Usually we have until the end of week two to learn the music but Maestro Trudel is ready to roll with rehearsals and details. Welcome to the professional world. Where you have very little time to learn your music and it needs to be dead on. This is professional training at a grueling pace. By 9pm each night I'm absolutely fried. In fact, I can't wait for our first day off on Sunday to be able to recover from the grueling pace set at the beginning of this session.

Sounds like a job, doesn't it? It sounds like we're slaving away at the gear just rehearsing and eating and rehearsing and eating and rehearsing and eating. Should I throw in the towel move out to the country, buy a convertible and play a little canasta and bridge at the community centre three times a week? Never. This boot camp is a labour of love full of once in a lifetime experiences, more than the other two years I've been with the NYOC. I mean, when will I ever get to feel the rawness of the Rite of Spring played with the energy and adrenaline of young and keen aspiring musicians? When will I ever get to play drumset in West Side Story with such a powerful ensemble? When will I ever get to plow the hammer blows of fate and play a herd of cows in the Mahler symphony? (It calls for Herdenglocken - the sounds of cowbells in the distance). I mean, here I am tying cowbells to a plastic rack offstage....for a symphony. And as the first movement begins and everyone else is playng their parts I promptly leave the stage and begin ringing these old dirty cowbells like I'm massaging roots of a plant to add to my garden.

This is my role.

And I take it quite seriously. Seriously. I practice it. Getting it louder and then softer. People have yet to "Moo" at me as I walk by but we've only done it once so far so I'm not holding my breath. I mean, it doesn't get any better than that. And when will I ever get to be surrounded by the best and hardest working young orchestral musicians in the country who are becoming some of my closest friends? This place is the best...

When I was growing up my Dad always said, "Work first and play later!" Retire? How can you retire if you're not working....?

PS - I'd like to also add to Alex's list of why the pianist has the best job in the orchestra, which I'm sure he just forgot. In the Mahler he gets to play some triangle and tam-tam making him an honorary member of the percussion section. What keyboard player would turn that opportunity down? =)

Un an s’est déjà écoulé depuis mon passage à l’Orchestre national l’an dernier. Que le temps passe vite! Un an s’est écoulé, mais à mon arrivée, la même énergie et la même passion flottait dans l’air. J’ai vite pu réaliser, à ma grande surprise, que de nombreux visages m’étaient familiers. En effet, beaucoup d’anciens font toujours partie de l’orchestre cette année. L’orchestre est en grande partie composé d’anglophones. Nous ne sommes que très peu de francophones, tout comme l’an dernier.

La première journée, soit le lundi, est toujours une journée un peu spéciale puisque c’est à ce moment que les professeurs d’instruments décident du placement pour les différentes pièces. Qui aura le célèbre solo de basson du Sacre du Printemps de Stravinsky? Qui sera chef d’attaque des premiers violons? Qui aura la chance de faire la partie de cor anglais du Sacre du printemps…c’est moi! C’est donc avec joie et disons-le, avec un soupçon de crainte, que je me lance dans cette aventure de six semaines. Le cor anglais est pour nous, hautboïstes, un instrument que nous devrons tous maîtriser un jour ou l’autre, mais que nous n’avons pas nécessairement la chance de côtoyer aussi souvent que nous le souhaiterions. La période estivale est donc, à mon avis, le meilleur moment pour apprivoiser ce gros instrument, frère du hautbois.

Dès les premiers jours, le processus s’enclenche. Par section, nous déchiffrons les œuvres afin d’être mieux préparés aux premières répétitions. Le chef de l’orchestre, Alain Trudel, nous fait même don de son temps afin de répéter, par grandes sections (vents/percussions et cordes), certains passages rythmiques du Sacre du printemps et de West Side Story avant la première répétition de l’orchestre entier. Cette répétition a eu lieu hier soir, dans une salle fraîchement rénovée. Quel bonheur! Après avoir réussi à faire entrer environ cent musiciens sur scène, ce qui était un très grand défi, nous avons pu répéter le Sacre pour la première fois. Je vous souhaite à tous, au moins une fois dans votre vie, de sentir cette énergie présente avant la première lecture d’une telle œuvre. C’est tout simplement génial!

Ce soir, nous répéterons quelques mouvements de la 6e symphonie de Mahler… à voir!

J’espère que d’ici notre prochain rendez-vous, la pluie, qui nous suit depuis notre arrivée à London, aura cessée!
À bientôt!

As the saying goes, "the promised land's in a Londoner's hand." Here in London, ON, music is in the air and things are off to a ‘brilliant' start. My first impressions are definitely not subtle. To put it one way, it's like being in musical Never-Never land for 6 weeks. It's joyful, exuberant, passionate, and intense. It's luvvly-jubbly. It's the National Youth Orchestra, what!

I've decided to kick off my first-ever blog with a list of reasons I have the best job in the orchestra and why every pianist needs to do exactly this. Yeah, I said it. Orchestral keyboards, NYO style.

All solos, all the time. This is better than being the concertmaster!

All the lessons you can handle. They don't even do that at Banff! If you're lucky, your coach here will even teach you some "rock" harpsichord.

Play nice with others/Escape your stereotype. Like an alternate universe, your own practice time here becomes the stunningly less important in relation to your sectionals and full rehearsals. (Although there's still plenty of time to practice.) You'll have to fit into a score bigger than you, make eye contact with others, and groove in a way that traditional piano upbringings can't touch.

Play anything. Read the entire solo viola accompaniments in 1 day and then dig deep into rep with a cohort of winds that like to toss off the Rite of Spring in their rooms before breakfast.

A conductor? Oh man. To put it one way, you want to make sure your first concerto appearance is smooth-sailing, so why not get some experience following a moving baton, not to mention doing some extreme counting.

Play some immaculately conceived instruments. When was the last time someone handed you the reins to the piano at the National Arts Centre or Roy Thomson Hall?

Did I mention this is free?

The power of music. I like to think that there are too many great pianists in the world but not enough great musicians. Surprising as it may sound, we pianists have a lot to learn from other players that hit, bow, and blow to speak our universal language. At the risk of seriously expanding your horizons, you may realize that symphonies are just big piano sonatas, and that alone can change the way you think about music. Have you ever sat in on a string quartet coaching or a brass sectional? You will be utterly amazed at what "other" musicians are doing, and I hope that you'll get a chance to live it here one day.

Cheers mates!

I can't believe the last summer I spent doing NYOC was two years ago, because all of the memories are still so fresh. I swear that my excitement from that first year hasn't worn off yet!

This year's training session is taking place at the breathtaking campus of the University of Western Ontario. That's really saying something, considering I spend my school year with cedars and redwoods towering over my head and adorable rabbits scattered across the grass. The residence we stay at, Delaware, is wonderful. Some people are hesitant to do NYOC because you don't get paid for it; if the experience can't convince you to come, then the food sure will!

Before arriving, there were a few things I was getting very excited for. The first was obviously the opportunity to play in this orchestra again. The second was for the faculty. Not only are they top performers in orchestras across Canada, but they're also excellent pedagogues and very approachable people.

The third thing I'm excited about is the lecture series. We haven't had any yet, but I hope we do soon! They feature faculty, guests, and the one I can't wait for, Tom Allen. If you don't know who that is, just imagine you're a university student and not a morning person, but you wake up at 6am just to hear him on CBC radio every weekday. That's a pretty powerful gift, and he'll be teaching us the history behind our repertoire this summer.

Another thing I'm very excited about is the conductor, Alain Trudel. He doesn't know this, but my friends and I openly worship him as a conductor and trombone player. A friend of mine was working at the Banff Centre and had the privilege to clean his room after he checked out. She found his parking pass and mailed it to me. Yes, I still have it. To Mr. Trudel, if you're reading this, you also forgot a pair of shorts but the staff threw them out.

Tension was definitely in the air today as the bassoonists were auditioning for the impossible solo at the beginning of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. I was genuinely worried for them when I found out they were all just hoping to physically survive it! I ran into bassoonist Matt Nickel after the auditions, and he said that all the bassoonists have been accounted for and there are no missing bodies. Congrats and good luck to Marc De Geus, who will be playing the famous solo for this year's tour!

There is so much more I want to write about but it's only day two so I should get back to practicing!