September 2009 - Vancouver Recital Society

A few weeks ago, I was sitting at YVR waiting for a flight to Seattle – Frankfurt – Johannesburg – Cape Town for a reunion with my friends from the College of Music in Cape Town. My husband recently won an iPod Touch which I quickly appropriated, so now I have finally joined the iPod world, and I’m loving it. In any case, there I was at the airport listening to Mozart, having downloaded Murray Perahia’s complete recording of the concerti, and I was reminded of an incident on a trip to South Africa about 18 years ago involving Murray Perahia. Books and CDs cost an absolute fortune in South Africa, so I usually travel with CDs to give friends. I, and my then-teenage daughter, Sara, were driving from Cape Town to Hermanus (a coastal town about 80 miles from Cape Town) to spend a week with some friends.

The route winds over a very beautiful mountain pass with a lookout at the top. We parked the car and locked the doors…but forgot to close the rear window. There are signs all over the place warning of baboons and to keep car windows closed and food out of sight, but we hadn’t noticed that we had left the window open. So there we were, a few yards away from the car with our cameras in hand, when, all of a sudden a baboon entered the car through the open rear window. I watched in horror as it rummaged through my handbag which I had left in the back seat. Out came my wallet. He tasted it and threw it out of the window. Next, the passport, which couldn’t have tasted very nice either because it soon followed the wallet (thanks heavens!). I stood shrieking, much to my daughter’s embarrassment and drew a crowd of onlookers. Next, the baboon, getting fed up with the fact that he couldn’t find anything edible, seized a Murray Perahia CD, climbed out of the window and ran around the parking lot with it in his hands. I followed, shouting “oh what a publicity shot!” The baboon disappeared into the bushes and I’m sure that generations of baboons in the area of Sir Lowry’s pass have grown up listening to Mozart. My friends in Hermanus never got their gift.

And whilst on the subject of Murray Perahia, it is he who introduced me to YouTube on his last visit to Vancouver. He wanted me to see Dudley Moore doing an imitation of Peter Pears singing Benjamin Britten songs (if you haven’t seen it you really should check it out…you’ll find it under Benjamin Britten). I have to confess that after that introduction, I spent hours glued to my computer exploring the great musicians of the past and present on YouTube. And now I’ve even found another weakness of mine, Tony Hancock!

I have been persuaded by the powers that be, that if I, or the Vancouver Recital Society wishes to remain relevant and ‘hip’, cyber communication is the thing to do. So, it seems that blogging is the starting point. Why do I feel as though I’m jumping off a diving board?

Funny how things come full circle…and the story I’m about to tell you is so relevant to my dipping my toes in this water. In 1978 the Jewish Community Centre in Vancouver presented a series of three concerts with the assistance of one of New York’s most stellar concert managements, Young Concert Artists. Young Concert Artists is a not for profit music management which holds auditions and signs young musicians to its roster and then helps to develop their careers, giving them counseling until they are ready to go on to the commercial managements. Actually, it’s hard to think of any classical music management as being commercial these days! Musicians like Murray Perahia, Richard Goode, Dawn Upshaw were all nurtured in their early years by Young Concert Artists and we at the Vancouver Recital Society have had a long time relationship with YCA, as they are fondly called. In fact, we always wish that we had come up with their slogan before they did which is “Be among the first to hear the best”.

In any case, back to Vancouver, and the Jewish Community Centre. I received notification about the three concerts which were to take place, and being extremely interested, I called the Centre and volunteered my services. Little did I know that soon I would be running these concerts. It was obvious that after the first year there wasn’t the will nor the money to continue, and that’s when the seeds of the VRS were planted in my head. The last musician of the three was a young violinist, Ida Kavafian who came with Anne Epperson at the piano. Following the concert, we went back to the Getz house for some supper, and over dinner Ida and Anne said to me “you’re a natural at this. You should be presenting your own concert series”. I smiled and said “yes, but…” My husband said “yes but what?” So I said “well, what about the money”? And he said “why don’t you worry about the artists and I’ll worry about the money. Just stop talking about it and do it”.

So, before he could change his mind, I booked myself on a trip to New York and set up the first season of the Vancouver Recital Society. And here’s the amazing thing…recently I met with a young violinist from Victoria, who is a definite VRS prospect and who is studying at the Curtis Institute with none other than Ida Kavafian.

This husband of mine, without whom none of this would ever have happened, had cleared out some boxes in the garage two days before I met with the young violinist…and guess what he uncovered…..the program from Ida Kavafian’s concert at the Jewish Community Centre in Vancouver. I gave the program to the young violinist to take to Ida, and you can just imagine his amazement. He said “wow, this was way before I was born!”

Why am I telling this whole long story? Because central to this is my husband’s admonition “why don’t you stop talking about it and just do it?” Same thing can be said for this blog.

Monthly Archives: September 2009

Murray Perahia has some wild fans!

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