R. MURRAY SCHAFER

Interviewed by Paul Steenhuisen
 
Interview no longer available online: Paul Steenhuisen explains...

Between Summer 2001, and Spring 2005, I have been contributing content to the WholeNote Magazine. Initially, I wrote the Hear and Now column and did selected CD reviews as time permitted, but the most important of my WholeNote writing has been the Composer to Composer series of interviews. As of June 2005, however, I have chosen to end the Composer to Composer series in Wholenote, and continue my interview project independently.
 
The series began in the Summer of 2001, when WholeNote editor David Perlman wrote to me and asked if I would interview R. Murray Schafer about his upcoming installment of the Patria series. Initially, I was reluctant to do the interview, thinking such things should be the work of musicologists - but clearly they were neglecting the opportunity. Eventually I agreed to do the interview and called Schafer at his cabin somewhere in the Ontario bush. I was pleased that one of Canada’s senior composers, notoriously cantankerous, was so open to discuss his ideas. I soon realized that composers speak candidly and openly about their work to me for two main reasons: First off, I’m a composer, and I know their work and care about its presentation. While being critical, I ask questions as an “insider”. Second, I happen to be talking to them about their favourite subjects—themselves and their work!
 
Following the Schafer experiment, I decided to continue, and since then have been fortunate to talk with many Canadian and international creative minds, exploring their music and printing their thoughts in the pages of WholeNote. The list of interviewees (in chronological order) includes Schafer, Robert Normandeau,Chris Paul Harman, Linda C. Smith, Alexina Louie, Omar Daniel, Michael Finnissy, John Weinzweig, Udo Kasemets,  Barbara Croall,  Pierre Boulez, James Rolfe, John Beckwith, Yannick Plamondon and Marc Couroux, George Crumb, Peter Hatch, John Oswald, Francis Dhomont, Helmut Lachenmann, Juliet Palmer, Maurizio Kagel, John Rea, Gary Kulesha, Howard Bashaw, Keith Hamel, Jean Piché, James Harley, Hildegard Westerkamp, Denys Bouliane, Eric Morin and Patrick Saint-Denis. The interviewees were largely selected based on concert activity in the Toronto area. In some cases, there were several interesting possibilities in one month, but space and time precluded covering all at once. While not exactly a balanced regional or gender representation, I feel that the collection provides an interesting cross-section of the generations, aesthetics, and musical media presented in Toronto.
 
Before going, I’d like to thank WholeNote for including the interviews in the magazine. As well, thanks to the ensembles and presenters who facilitated some of the interviews. Although the series herein is finished, it is by no means complete. There are many composers in Canada and internationally whose ideas require detailed exploration, and I plan to do so. The majority of these interviews, augmented by others I did between 2001 and 2004, will be published in book form in the near future. A second volume is already in progress. Since I’ve begun teaching at the University of Alberta, time for the project is more scarce, and with this change I can do the work with more open scheduling and interview options that aren’t directly connected to Toronto area concert activity. Despite the focus of portions of my work now being in Alberta, I continue to make seamless re-entries into Toronto, virtually every month—for concerts, meetings, and yes, my hockey games. Although leaving these pages, I fully expect to maintain my otherwise fairly diverse relation to the musical life in this town, and I look forward to reading the new music content that WholeNote will include. I hope that readers will similarly join me and continue to embrace the strange and keep ears and eyes open for fresh adventures in sound and print.
 
 
Sincerely, Paul Steenhuisen