MUSIC TO MY EARS

Part of my “Looking Ahead” idea is that I continue to look for new things to do, new places to learn, and new ventures. It’s one reason why, a few years ago, I returned to the piano. I am still taking weekly lessons and if I live to be 150 will be appearing at local night clubs doing an imitation of Bill Evans.

All this is just to let me tell you about kids and music. I don’t mean garage head-banger bands. I mean kids who represent the reality that classical music, or more particularly, the virtuosity required to play it, is still alive and well.

For me there is an interesting paradox. I love learning to play jazz. I enjoy learning the harmonies, the “voicings” and the rhythms. The paradox is that what I enjoy playing and what I prefer listening to, are not the same. Aside from my awe when I see “You Tube” clips of the greats like the aforementioned Bill Evans, or the legendary Art Tatum or my favourite – Teddy Wilson – my preference for listening goes to classical music. All of it, although I lean away from opera. (That’s another story.)

Like many of my contemporaries, I observe the audience for music. Go to where jazz is being played. Notice how many people in the audience are older. Go to a classical concert and you are sure that, with a few exceptions, it is a geriatric gathering. But all is not lost. There are kids learning serious music. There are more than I would have believed.

A few nights ago I went to a concert at the Royal Conservatory’s exquisite Koerner Hall. The orchestra was the Royal Conservatory symphony orchestra, made up entirely (with perhaps one or two exceptions) of music students. I inveigled my sister into coming along because they were going to be playing Stravinsky’s Petrouchka, one of her favourites. She asked me of course, what it would be like to hear students playing. She was worried that it would be “A for effort” but not ready for prime time. At the opening bars of Smetana’s Bartered Bride overture, I heard a gasp from the seat next to me. She could not believe her ears. Sixty or so young people were sounding like the best symphony orchestra. They were lead from the podium by Julian Kuerti, virtuoso son of renowned pianist Anton Kuerti. Next on the program came a lanky kid who had won a competition at the conservatory. He played the Bartok Viola concerto. He got and deserved a standing ovation. (Afterwards I learned that it was his first playing of the piece with an orchestra, and it was Kuerti’s first conducting of it.)

Finally came the coup de grace. Petrouchka. It was spellbinding. The zest, the vigour, the musicality – it was all there. One forgives an occasional slip from musicians reaching high. It was memorable. I came away believing I had heard this piece for the first time.

Just down the street from the Conservatory and Koerner Hall is the University of Toronto Music department, a sort of “dueling banjos” arrangement. Again the orchestra is kids. A few weeks ago I heard their wind orchestra play. The highlight was a new concerto for percussion and orchestra by Christos Hotzis. His wife, Beverly Johnson, was the percussionist, the rest of the crowd on stage were students. They played with all the zest and enthusiasm of musicians not yet jaded by the competition of finding work, or the notion that ensemble playing is boring. A flautist friend of mine says a major orchestra is where you play what the way the conductor tells you to play. It becomes trying. But not for kids with their whole musical life ahead of them.

For me it is a revelation. For me it says that all the doomsayers who believe classical music has no place in the 21st century, and even more, that the rising generation had no interest in that kind of music, vindication. It’s all still there.

The rising generation will save us from that feared oblivion. They will continue to create great treasures. Even though there are thousands of kids who believe that playing guitar or drums or air guitar or air drums, is the way to go, and is the road to what they really want - celebrity, here are kids who play violins and flutes and bassoons and trumpets. Not only are they keeping a tradition alive, but their skills make it possible for a whole new generation of composers to strut their musical stuff.

Nowhere does the future more truly “belong” to youth. I applaud.