Quodlibet
by Allan Pulker
Eli at 80
As long as most of us can
remember, the classical guitar has been popular. Stores have a large selection,
private teachers abound, guitar is taught in every private music school and
even some public high and senior elementary schools. Those wishing to pursue it
professionally, can do so in most post-secondary institutions. Classical guitar
recordings abound and actually get airtime! Most issues of WholeNote feature
at least one guitar recital or concert.
It was not
always so. In 1951 when Eli Kassner, whose 80th birthday will be celebrated at
Walter Hall Sept 18, arrived in Toronto, the guitar was looked down upon, not
only in Canada but also in the United States and Europe, as a “cowboy”
instrument, good enough only for the likes of Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Hank
Williams. Julian Bream tells the story of being reprimanded for playing the
guitar in a stairwell while a student of piano and composition at the Royal
College.
I went to Eli
Kassner's quiet downtown Toronto home to talk to him about his influential
career. Shelves of LPs on the first floor, carefully organized sheet music in
his second floor studio, and everywhere on the walls his paintings, reveal a
prodigious and energetic talent tirelessly engaged in the arts. Some of the
paintings were recent, some go back to the late 1940s, living in Israel. A
large painting of a village caught my eye, the Mediterranean sun glowing from
it, making that moment about 55 years ago as alive now as it was then. “I did
that on drafting paper,” he told me, “that’s all there was, but it didn’t
absorb so now the paint still looks as if it is wet!”
Born in 1924 in
Vienna into a devout Jewish family, he was able to leave Austria for Palestine
in 1939. In Palestine he was first trained as a cobbler, then as a soldier by
the British, all the while playing the guitar on a very casual basis and also
painting. When he came to Canada he had the visual arts in mind. Before he had
even learned English, however, fate intervened in the form of a job sorting music for $5 a week for Whaley
Royce Music on Yonge Street. Here he discovered an abundance of sheet music for
guitar – much of it written or arranged by Segovia. Promoted to a sales position once he learned English, when there
were no customers around he was able to
practise the guitar.
A customer asked
for lessons and his career as guitar teacher was launched! Through another
customer he was introduced to RCM pianist and teacher, Boris Berlin, through
whom he got the opportunity to audition for Boyd Neel, the Dean of the Faculty
of Music at U of T and Ettore Mazzoleni, the principal of the RCM. The latter offered
him a position teaching guitar at the Conservatory. He declined because he
could not afford to give up the percentage of his earnings the deal required!
Before that,
however, he and his students founded the Guitar Society of Toronto in 1957.
This led to a master class with Segovia, the Society’s honorary president, who
invited him to attend a month of classes in Spain in 1959. He went, thanks to
the newly formed Canada Council.
Upon returning
to Toronto he accepted guitar instructor positions, the first ever, at both the
RCM and the University of Toronto Faculty of Music. “It took quite a few years to gain acceptance,”
Kassner told me, but before long some good students entered the program. One of
the first was Liona Boyd. Once she became well-known many people came to study
with Kassner.
His next major
accomplishment was the founding of the Eli Kassner Guitar Academy in 1967, his
response to the need for instruction in jazz and flamenco. The U of T brass
wisely did not require that Eli give up his position to do this, seeing the new
academy’s potential as a “feeder school”. They were not to be disappointed;
students flocked to Eli from all over the world, and the better ones went
through the program at the university. Some of his students who have gone on to
have an impact in the guitar world are Liona Boyd, Aaron Brock, Robert
Feuerstein, Lynne Gangbar, Rachel Gauk, Drew Henderson, Danielle Kassner (his
daughter, for many years now living,
performing, recording and teaching in Spain), Dale Kavanagh, Norbert
Kraft, Vincea McClelland, Gordon O’Brien and Laura Young.
What made him
such a successful teacher? “I always tried to preserve the individuality of
each student, to inspire and to provide them with the tools to do what they
want to do. I let my students express themselves. All my students are
individuals.” He went on to explain
that every student has different hands and since it is through the hands that the
music is transmitted from the intellect and temperament to the guitar, every
student brings something quite different to the instrument. One of the keys,
therefore, was to keep the hands relaxed and flowing – that was the foundation
on which each student’s development was built.
Eli Kassner’s
other major contribution was the five international guitar festivals and
competitions that he launched, with participation of the Guitar Society of
course, in 1975, ’78,’81,’84 and’87. A measure of the impact of these events:
the winners of the 1975 competition are now among the leading guitarists of
their generation – Sharon Isbin, Manuel Barrueco and Elliott Fisk.
The line-up for
the September 18 "Eli at 80" concert also speaks volumes. Guitar
luminaries David Russell, Carlos Barbosa-Lima, Vincea McClelland and Celso
Machado will perform, introduced by Liona Boyd. Among the compositions: one by
Sergio Assad written for this event, and also one by Leo Brouwer, his health
permitting. This is a celebration not to be missed.
Four Festivals
The summer music festival scene continues, after a short pause in late
August, into September with four festivals: the Colours of Music Festival in
Barrie, the Westben Festival near Campbellford, the SweetWater Music Weekend in Owen Sound and the Prince Edward
County Music Festival in Picton.
Colours of
Music
Lawyer,
politician and now impresario, Bruce Owen, building on last autumn’s highly
successful festival, has been nothing short of amazing in organizing this
festival of 44 concerts in Barrie from September 24 to October 3. Not only are some of Canada’s best musicians
performing at the Festival such as James Campbell, Alain Trudel, the Penderecki
String Quartet, the Duke Trio and the Elmer Iseler Singers, to name only a few,
but also wonderful musicians from other countries will play – Britain’s Onyx
Brass Quintet and organist, Carol Williams, woodwind quintet Vento Chiaro, the Adaskin String Trio from the United
States and the New Zealand String Quartet.
Westben
The Westben
Festival offers two fine pianists, Jane Coop and Charles Foreman on Saturday,
September 18 and Sunday, September 19 at 2:00 in the afternoon. Both will play
music by Chopin and Beethoven. Ms. Coop’s program will also include Paganini’s
Variations on a Theme by Brahms. Mr. Foreman will give a pre-concert talk on
Chopin and his music at 11:00 on Saturday. On Thursday afternoon, September 23
soprano, Nancy Hermiston with pianist, Brian Finley will perform music from the
operetta repertoire; pianist, Bill O’Meara will provide music for the 1925 Phantom
of the Opera; and on Sunday, September 26 the University of Toronto’s MacMillan
Singers will perform a variety of music including a composition by Westben
co-artistic director, Brian Finley.
SweetWater
Music Weekend
In the
July/August issue I focused on the fine local instrument makers whose work will
be featured in this festival in Owen Sound. Another local artist whose work
will be featured at this event is Toronto Composer, Andrew Ager, who is also
the composer-in-residence of the Georgian Bay Symphony Orchestra. Ager is
described in an August article in Mosaic by SweetWater organizer Keith
Medley, as “a modern composer unafraid
to embrace the past, a reluctant national figure whose love of the Canadian
north reaches only so far as the 'armchair,' a Romantic but not too much so, an
instrumentalist who makes no claim to being honoured as a performing artist, a
composer who is flattered when others compliment his unique voice but is
nonetheless wary of being categorized as a result." Ager has written a string quartet entitled simply
Serenata. Violinist Mark Fewer says that Ager’s is “a compositional
voice that is ‘free of excess and clutter,’” and that he finds “the length of
Ager’s phrases deceiving as they are often short – but packed with
information.” Serenata will be performed on Sunday, September 26 in
Leith Church north of Owen Sound.
Prince Edward
County Music Festival
The Church of
St. Mary Magdalene in Picton, venue for many of the summer’s Music at Port Milford
concerts, will be the venue for the three concerts in this festival which
begins Thursday, September 23. The performers in all three concerts will be the
Quatuor Arthur Leblanc, pianist Stephane Lemelin and Ottawa flute-player Robert
Cram. Several works on the programs are by Québec composer, Jacques Hétu.
Back In Toronto
“Collaborations”
Valerie Kuinka’s
“Collaborations” series gets off to an early start this season with two
performances at a new venue, the Al Green Theatre in the newly renovated Miles
Nadal Jewish Community Centre, on September 12 & 13. Built around the theme
of equilibrium, the event reflects Kuinka’s approach of going “beyond simple
concert format to reach for deeper meaning” and striving “to represent and
reflect issues that are part of being human….” At least one performer, dancer
Rex Harrington, will go beyond what he usually does and will sing and act as
well as dance in this performance. And, as Harrington dances, flutist Susan
Hoeppner will perform Luciano Berio’s Sequenza by memory as she relates
to Harrington’s every movement. The repertoire for the concert will cross genre
boundaries, also including music by Claude Bolling and Duke Ellington.
Dr. Peggie Sampson, 1912-2004
It is rare to find a person
whose being actually seems to radiate music; and when that person departs, not
only is a great loss felt, but also a lingering sense is left of the ability of
music to shape a life, to invade a life so deeply that one becomes beautiful
because of music. Peggie Sampson was such a person. It is impossible to think
of her without thinking of the music she lived, taught, played and rejoiced in.
Peggie
was born in Edinburgh and spent her early life in Scotland, England and Europe.
Her gift for music brought her into contact with towering musical figures:
Suggia, Alexanian, Feuermann, Casals, Donald Francis Tovey and Nadia Boulanger
were among her teachers, and no doubt they all contributed to the formation of
her wide cultural outlook, striking imagination and generosity of spirit. These
qualities she brought with her when she emigrated to Canada in 1951, to teach
and perform. She played and taught cello in Winnipeg, and brought enthusiasm
and energy to her classes in various musical disciplines at the U of Manitoba,
as well as her experimental classes for unusually gifted children. Many
musicians blossomed as a result of her teaching.
Most
people will remember her primarily in the second phase of her musical life, her
involvement in the early music world as viola da gambist and teacher. Her
romance with viols began in Winnipeg; she was a founding member of the Manitoba
University Consort, a group which specialized in performance of early music
(1100 and on), and which toured Canada, Britain and Europe. Moving to Toronto
in 1970, she taught at York and Wilfrid Laurier Universities and continued to
be a shining light in the performance world as well for many years. More can be
found about her life in The Encyclopedia of Music in Canada and its
online version at www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com
Those
who knew her will remember much more: her charming humour, her delight in
nature, hiking, camping and growing things, her steadfast commitment to her
friends, and her uncanny influence on anyone trying to make music – music
radiated from the walls in her presence, and it was impossible not to play
musically.
A
celebration of Peggie’s life and accomplishments, through words and music, will
take place at the Church of St. Simon the Apostle, 525 Bloor Street East, on
September 11 at 2:30pm. All who would like to join in the celebration are
welcome.
For more Concert Notes see
Bandstand,
Choral
Scene,
Early Music,
Hear
and Now (New Music), Jazz
Notes, and Music
Theatre
