Rescuing oboes in Canada à la rescousse du hautbois.

Over the past 12 years, Facebook and other internet discussion groups have really opened my eyes to the outstanding work of highly qualified instrument repair people. From simple things like adjusting screws to really difficult things like rebuilding the broken wood of a mold-rotten tone-hole or tenon joint, some really amazing repairs have been shared in picture-stories.	Dans les 12 dernières années, Facebook et autres groupes de discussion sur Internet ont vraiment mis en valeur le travail des réparateurs d'instruments de haut calibre. De simples ajustement de vis aux tâches inouïes telles la reconstruction du bois rompu par la moisissure, quelques réparations incroyables ont se sont fait connaître par des chroniques-photo.
The oboe, in particular, has proven really difficult for tuning the pitch of specific notes, their sound (clear or congested) and their stability across dynamics. Apparently, only professional-grade flutes even come close to how finicky and precise the work on pads and other considerations must be.	Le hautbois, en particulier, s'est montré très difficile. On mentionne l'intonation de notes spécifiques, leur timbre clair ou congestionné, ainsi que leur stabilité à travers les nuances. Paraît-il que seules les flûtes professionnelles approchent combien capricieux et précis doit être exécuté le travail sur les tampons et autres considérations.
The Facebook groups have shown masterful work by repairers in the USA, Europe, Asia and Central+South America ... but Canada often appears to be an odd-man-out. Canada has a population of 38 million people, but we are distributed over the biggest, most vast country in the world. We do have big cities that compare with European centres, but overall, the density of our population does not lead to as many high-level musicians. Even though the USA has 10 times our population, I think it is fair to say they have much more than 10 times the number of oboists, let alone high-prestige, world-class soloists. As a natural consequence, it is much more difficult to maintain an elite repair business here in Canada.	Les groupes Facebook ont montré le travail magistral de quelques réparateurs aux É-U, en Europe, en Asie ou en Amérique centrale/du sud ... mais on dirait que le Canada reste à l'écart. Le Canada compte une population de 38 million, mais elle est distribuée sur le pays le plus vaste au monde. Nous avons bien des cités comparable à l'Europe, mais la densité ne mène pas à autant de musiciens prestigieux. Même si les États-Unis compte 10 fois la population, je crois qu'on peut estimer beaucoup plus de 10 fois le nombre de hautboïstes, sans compter les solistes de renommée internationale. Par conséquent, il est beaucoup plus difficile de maintenir en marche un atelier de réparation élite par ici.
Thankfully, Alessandro Garcia of AG Woodwind Repair is just such an elite repair person. There may be others in Canada, but I don't know them. (Please message me if you know some!) He is so passionate about his art that he periodically takes training from the top manufacturers in the world: notably Mönnig, Muramatzu and now Lorée!	Par la grâce Providentielle, Alessandro Garcia, propriétaire de AG Woodwind Repair, offre justement un tel atelier. Il en existe peut-être d'autres au Canada, mais je ne les connais pas. (S.V.P., laissez-moi savoir si vous en connaissez!) Il est si passionné de son art qu'il prend périodiquement des stages de formation chez les fabricants les plus importants du monde: notamment Mönnig, Muramatzu et maintenant Lorée!

So I thought it would be a good idea to do an interview with Alessandro (Sandro) and get to know his shop and story a little bit better.	J'ai donc cru bon d'inviter Alessandro (Sandro) à une petite causerie et prendre connaissance de son histoire un peu mieux.
Enjoy!	Au plaisir!
p.s.: You can find out more about Sandro's work, get all his contact information and book an appointment with him on his website here: https://agwoodwindrepair.com	p.s.: Vous pouvez en apprendre plus sur l'oeuvre de Sandro, toutes ses infos de contact et prendre rendez-vous pour réparer votre instrument sur son site web ici: https://agwoodwindrepair.com
You can also see before-and-after pictures and showcasing the instruments he is working on at his Facebook pages here: https://www.facebook.com/agwoodwindrepairs and here: https://www.facebook.com/agwoodwindrepair	Vous pouvez aussi voir des photos avant-et-après ainsi qu'un défilé des instruments qu'il rencontre sur ses pages Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/agwoodwindrepairs et https://www.facebook.com/agwoodwindrepair

Thankful for Concerto avec Reconnaissance!

 NOTE à mes lecteurs francophones:

Encore une fois, je veux vraiment faire promotion de l'usage du français, mais l'envergure de cet article et les pressions du temps ne me le permettent simplement pas. J'explique pourquoi dans le texte ci-dessous, puis étant donné que la très grande majorité de mon lectorat comprend l'anglais, mais pas le français, je n'ai simplement pas le temps de le rendre bilingue. Vous pouvez facilement traduire en copiant l'adresse de cette page, puis la coller dans un service comme: https://translate.google.com

Giving thanks: A soloist on stage!

I recently learned that, in the USA, Thanksgiving is actually more popular than Christmas! In Canada, we celebrate it a month earlier: probably because winter comes here much more quickly than in Texas! But for me, Thanksgiving remains a really important holiday, because it is the weekend I used to go home after the intimidating start of the academic year in college.

These past few years, it has become really easy to focus on what is going wrong in the world, in our towns, in our homes. But let's be brutally honest: anyone who is capable of playing the oboe, a very expensive instrument with tons of time and effort requirements, should be thankful that life is even making it possible at all, no matter how hard it is to maintain those conditions, no matter what struggle is required to keep it going -- and I have stories to tell about my journey there ... for some other day. So let's focus instead on how life has kept us going, how Providence has shielded us from the really rough times we are living, such that we can continue to pursue our art.

In that perspective, I can give tremendous thanks that last spring, I was honoured with the opportunity to play a concerto, as soloist with the Kanata Symphony Orchestra, at the point in their development where the strings have never sounded so good: truly a string orchestra of semi-pro level!

This was a wonderful experience for me, too powerful to describe. But I want to share it because I hope it can serve to inspire other passionate amateurs, or ex-professionals to keep pursuing your dreams. When I started this blog, maybe 12 years ago, I actually did not think I would ever be playing in public again. Now look!

To music students:

Please learn this while it can still bring peace to your hearts: you don't know where life will bring you, anymore than I did, anymore than anyone does. Perhaps you will be successful professional performer, perhaps you will become a teacher, perhaps you will abandon all that to working in computer technology or installing sinks and cabinets. In all cases, I can think of nothing that brings more meaning to life than playing music ... well, maybe caring for dogs, but that's another discussion! Suffice it to say, that every musician I have ever met agrees: regardless of what we end-up doing in life, it would not be right without our instruments or our voices. Change instruments if you must, take a 10 or 30 year break if you must, but always keep a song in your heart and you will make the world better than it would be otherwise. From just practicing my digital piano for my own mental sanity, to producing You-Tube videos to track my oboe rebirth, to church music, to chamber music, to finally THIS! ... If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.

So why did it take me so long to blog about it?

I played my first concerto on May 28, 2022, at the age of 52. That was a long time ago now! So much has happened since then. If you only listen to the regular news sources, then you might have missed so many monumental events that happened all over the world. If you follow me on FaceBook, you will have noticed a drastic change in what I post: I am doing this despite an attempt to use it against me that could have literally crushed my professional career and my home. Instead, by the Grace of God, I have found a minor "calling" to participate with Veterans for Freedom. We have been joined by farmers, nurses, police, fire-fighters, lawyers, doctors and researchers among the most prestigious and most cited from all over the world. I will not grant people around me the right to remain ignorant. 

But again by Providence, there have also been splendid things happening at work (computer development) making my day job very fulfilling on a personal level and I had the pleasure of meeting some wonderful musicians, making new musical projects a real possibility to be explored. So "real life" has just been so active that no time was left for blogging.

My first concerto, at the age of 52!

When the Kanata Symphony Orchestra's Artistic Director (Yves Lacoursière)  offered me the opportunity to play a concerto, I made 3 suggestions:

1. Bach concerto in A for oboe d'amore and strings
2. Cimarosa concerto in C minor for oboe and strings
3. Marcello concerto in D for oboe and strings

Marcello is the best known in these parts, and both the Artistic Director and the Concert Master (Anna Klochkova) decided it would give the strings the best combination of challenge and fun, therefore the choice was clear. But it turns out, in my opinion, the Marcello is the most difficult of the 3, mostly because of ornamentations.

Deciding on ornamentations.

I could be criticized for caring more about flashy ornaments than doing a really good job with intended style. But this concerto is very repetitive: the same motifs come back over and over again with very minor differences. So  it seems to me that, even in the fast movements, ornamentation is implicitly requested by the composition itself.

My choice of ornaments may not be proper baroque in style, but then I don't play a period instrument! I started by listening to all my favourite performances (Albrecht Mayer, Antonio Masmano, Fabien Thouand and others) and used that as inspiration: not to imitate them, but to absorb the playful and joyous attitude they exude when playing. From that, it was a matter of deciding what my fingers can actually DO and where my brain doesn't get mixed up.

Difficulty: all mental!

It's really strange how you can practice for hours and days and weeks: everything seems to be going just fine! All the phrases fall neatly in place, the fingers behave perferctly, a great sense of confidence arises. Then, out of nowhere, I start practicing with the computer playing the orchestra part, and it all falls to pieces!

Learning the technique and mastering the phrasing is only the beginning. I found that the real difficulty in music is not the technique or even the instrument (reeds!), the real difficulty is THE MIND! 

In fact, all the tripping and messing-up that happens when you start practicing with a metronome (but then you master it) might happen again, when you start with a computer orchestra (and master that too) AND YET AGAIN when you finally start rehearsing with the orchestra! The real trick is not the ability of the fingers and the breath, but truly to calm the wandering mind that disconnects the body from the breath. 

At the concert, my fingers acted differently than during rehearsals. Usually, they are very hard on the pads, but now they pressed lightly, I could hardly close the pads or just stay on the note!

Big KUDOS to the KSO:

When I joined in 2018, the string section had a very hard time playing in tune or sounding like a proper section. They improved wonderfully up to the Covid lockdowns, but still sounded like a "community orchestra". During the lockdowns, as soon as restrictions allowed playing with masks, they started rehearsing when most other small orchestras remained closed: this attracted students and excellent string players from other orchestras. This was excellent, because the KSO already needed more string players, so the level really increased to the point where --- well, they may not be I Solisti Veneti, but I think this recording shows they actually sound like a real string orchestra.

HAPPY 2022 ! / Bonne et Heureuse 2022 !

HAPPY 2022!		BONNE ET HEUREUSE 2022!
Definitely time for a new blog post: it has been too long and the world is definitely in need of some happy news! The year 2020 was very frustrating as we saw so many lockdowns which cancelled music festivals and oboe conferences all over the world.		Il est vraiment temps d'un nouvel article au blogue: le monde a vraiment besoin de bonne nouvelles! L'an 2020 fut très frustrante alors que les confinements et couvre-feux ont annulé la presque totalité des festivals et conférences musicales de par le monde entier.
2021 was greeted with a lot of hope that the Covid pandemic would come under control, but instead, we saw things get worse as the most prestigious medical research institutions in the world battled disagreements with politicians all over the world, leaving people confused, divided and fearful of one another. For us musicians, this only increased our anxiety and fear about the various instruments and frustration that technology (Zoom, You-Tube etc.) seems to be taking over what should be social activities (lessons, rehearsals and concerts).		À son arrivée, 2021 nous remplissait tous d'espoir, mais les mesures sanitaires ne se sont qu'amplifiées; les institutions de recherche médicales les plus prestigieuses du monde se sont vues en opposition aux politiciens dans les pays pourtant les plus libres, ce qui a laissé la société confuse et méfiante, les uns contre les autres. Pour nous musiciens, tout cela n'a fait qu'augmenter notre anxiété et nos craintes au sujet des divers instruments et nous a d'autant plus frustrés que la technologie (Zoom, You-Tube etc.) semble prendre le dessus des arts, qui devraient pourtant présenter des activités sociales (leçons, répétitions, concerts).
Whereas 2020 motivated musicians of all levels (amateurs, beginners, advanced students, professionals, world-class soloists) to make videos of them playing in balconies for their neighbors and projects with people in different coutries playing together in "virtual ensembles" or "split personality" videos by the bushel, 2021 saw people so discouraged (things were not getting better) that this seems to have lost its steam and just stopped.		Alors que 2020 a motivé des musiciens de tous les niveaux (amateurs, débutants, étudiants avancés, professionnels, solists de renommée) produisirent des vidéos de leurs musique dans les balcons pour les voisins et leurs projets avec des amis dans des pays lointains jouant en "ensembles virtuels" ou en "vidéos schizophrène" (la même personne remplit pluseiurs voix en même temps sur la même vidéo), 2021 semble avoir mis les freins sur l'enthousiasme.
It really seems like the Devil won and our spirits have been crushed: the world succumbed to fear, depression and extreme behaviour (both against and in support of gouvernment actions).		Ça donne vraiment l'impression que le Diable ait gagné et nos esprits furent écrasés, succombant à la crainte, la dépression et le comportement extrême (autant pour que contre les actions gouvernementaux).
So where is the good news? It may look like the Devil won, but I am firm in my conviction that God is running the show. You may say Allah, or Jehovah, or the Great Manitou, or Source or whatever word you want: those are just words, we know the concept all those words are trying to convey. Contrary to all expectations and in contrast to common sense, 2020 was the year, I finally purchased an oboe d'amore! I had been pining for this instrument since I first saw a drawing of one in old music encyclopedias when I was 14 years old! By some miracle, 2020 saw me participating, on invitation, in international productions. In 2021, I actually managed to produce a number of recordings together with some friends (live, together) as well as more "virtual ensembles". This prompted me to better learn the art of sound-recording mixing and mastering - and I still have much to learn! In 2021, my previous workshops on home-producing videos got me invited to present a lecture at the 2nd IDRS Symposium! In Ottawa, Canada, where most community orchestras and bands cancelled their concerts, the Kanata Symphony Orchestra (where I am principal oboe and treasurer) welcomed an audience for its Christmas concert! And those are just the highlights.	Home-Producing Lock-Down Concerts and Virtual Ensembles from IDRS on Vimeo.	Alors, où sont donc les bonnes nouvelles? On pourrait croire à la victoire du Diable, mais je reste ferme dans ma conviction que le jeu est mené par le Bon Dieu. Vous pouvez dire Allah ou Jéhovah ou le Grand Manitou ou la Source ou ce que vous voudrez: ce ne sont que des mots alors qu'ils décrivent un même concept. Contrairement à toutes mes attentes et au gros bon sens, 2020 fut l'année où j'ai enfin acheté un hautbois d'amour! Je rêve de cet instrument depuis que j'ai vu les croquis dans les vieu encyclopédies musicaux à l'âge de 14 ans! Par miracle, 2020 m'a vu invité à participer dans des productions internationales. En 2021, j'ai réussi à produire d'avantage de vidéos "d'ensembles virtuels" ainsi que quelques enregistrement ensemble (en personne) avec des amis. Ceci m'a motivé à améliorer mes habiletés en mixage sonore - encore beaucoup à apprendre! En 2021, mes ateliers sur la production de vidéos à domicile m'ont vu invité à présenter le sujet au 2e Symposium de l'IDRS! À Ottawa, Canada, alors que la plupart des orchestres communautaires, l'Orchestre Symphonique de Kanata (où je suis hautbois solo et trésorier) à accueilli un public pour son concert de Noël! Et ne voilà que les points saillants.
Funny how things go. For 2 weeks before the pandemic was declared, I had been working from home: thank God Almighty that my "day job" makes this possible! So one might think this would give me more time to do Tai-Chi, make reeds, practice long-tones etc. It turned-out to be the opposite. Bad habits compounded the simple facts of aging, so that did not work as planned. I was really hoping to record videos of a specific Etudes book on oboe d'amore, but that fell through. Also, I found making reeds for the oboe d'amore oddly more difficult than for the oboe - I have not played English Horn in 25 years, so I don't know at all how making reeds for that instrument would be like.		Drôle comment vont les choses. J'avais déjà commencé de travailler à domicile, environ 2 semaines avant la déclaration d'une pandémie: merci à Dieu Tout-Puissant que mon gagne-pain me le permette! Alors on croirait bien que cela me donnerait plus de temps à me consacrer au Tai-Chi, aux sons filés, aux anches etc. En fin de compte, le contraire s'est passé. Les mauvaises habitudes ont amplifié les exigences de l'âge, alors ça n'a pas marché comme prévu. J'espérais vraiment enregistrer un cahier d'étures particulier au hautbois d'amour, mais ça a flanché. J'ai été surpris par la fabrication des anches de cet instrument: la taille si proche du hautbois "tout court" mais ça répond vraiment différemment. Je n'ai pas joué de cor anglais depuis 25 ans, alors je n'ai aucune idée de la différence ou de la difficulté.
But the end of the year saw things start to pick-up. Lots of great news, but not all of it is visible, much of it consists of necessary preparation for things to come (may it please God). So right now, I am very optimistic that 2022 will again bring surprising happy musical times.		Mais la fin de l'année a vu se raviver l'espoir. Plein de bonnes nouvelles, mais pas forcément à la surface car beaucoup prépare des choses à venir (qu'il en plaise à Dieu). Alors je deviens optimiste que 2022 apportera des surprises heureuses dans la vie musicale.
So I'll keep my blog post short this time. I'll only present the various videos I made throughout the year, including those from last year that I remastered to sould (a little bit) better. To everyone who visits this blog, THANK YOU for coming! Together we help spread appreciation for the precious treasure, which is live instrumental music! May 2022 see us participate in more live music, keeping us all safe, healthy, happy and strong! HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!		Alors pour ce blogue, je ne ferai que présenter mes vidéos de l'année, et celles dont j'ai amélioré le son, si peu soit-il. À tout le monde qui visite ce blogue, MERCI d'être venus! Ensemble nous répandrons l'appréciation pour ce trésor précieux qu'est la musique vivante! Que 2022 nous voit tous participer dans plus de musique vivante, nous gardans sains, saufs, heureux et forts! BONNE ET HEUREUSE ANNÉE À TOUS!