Maestro has never forgotten Winnipeg

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/06/2018 (2917 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Home is where the art is, and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s outgoing maestro Bramwell Tovey has never forgotten his Prairie roots, firmly planted during his 12-year tenure as the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s artistic director between 1989 and 2001.

“It’s always very emotional whenever we come back here. And Winnipeg is looking its absolute best right now. I just think this is a very, very special place,” Tovey told the Free Press in an interview. The Grammy and Juno award-winning English conductor/pianist/composer is married to Manitoba-born singer Lana Penner Tovey, with whom he has two musical daughters, violinist Jessica and cellist Emmeline, and his in-laws still reside in Morden. His son Ben, from a previous marriage, performs lead guitar in metal bands in the U.K. — Tovey quips it gives him “street cred” — and has also made him a proudly beaming grandfather.

Tovey brought his merry band of players to town as part of the VSO’s three-city Canadian tour, showcasing Brandon-born violin virtuoso James Ehnes on May 23 at the Centennial Concert Hall. Earlier that same day, he spoke to the WSO’s Women’s Committee at the Viscount Gort Hotel, sharing personal anecdotes and reminiscences of his dozen years in the city.

“I suppose I had the musical chops when I first started with the WSO, but conducting is about empowering the musicians,” says Tovey, 64, who was appointed as the orchestra’s leader at the youthful age of 35.

“And I think, however gifted I might have been at that age, what I lacked was experience, and so with the support and the energy of the musicians that I was fortunate to work with in Winnipeg, I acquired the knowledge of what I didn’t know. Because when you’re young, you think you know everything and in fact, you don’t even know what you don’t know.”

Tovey takes over as principal conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra next season, as well as serving as the director of orchestral activities at Boston University, following his departure this month from the VSO after 18 years at the helm. He will also continue to compose and guest conduct around the world with his riveting concert appearances always creating the impression one is chumming with their best mate.

During his illustrious career, he’s proudest of his two musical babies: the internationally renowned Winnipeg New Music Festival, which he co-founded with composer Glenn Buhr in 1991, as well as his second “passion project,” establishing the VSO’s affiliated School of Music in 2011 that boasts an enrolment nearly 2,000 students — an estimated 35 per cent being adult learners.

He fully credits the festival for opening the door to a position with the New York Philharmonic, after Jenny Bilfield, who was the president of music publisher Boosey & Hawkes, travelled to Winnipeg for the inaugural festival. She became so impressed with Tovey’s artistry that she recommended him to lead one of the Phil’s summer concerts — and the rest is history, with Tovey having now conducted more than 150 regular subscription concerts for discerning New Yorkers.

The ebullient conductor will return next January to open the 2019 Winnipeg New Music Festival with its first programmed work from back in 1991, John Adams’ Harmonielehre. Remarkably, the acclaimed American composer, whom Tovey met shortly after moving to Vancouver, told him he had received a cassette of the performance, sending the WSO recording worldwide as the work’s gold standard — a substantial feather in Tovey’s musical cap he’s still proud of.

My late dad, Neil Harris, who served as the Free Press’s music critic between 1986 to 1996 had a long-standing admiration and deep respect for Tovey’s musicianship — and the feeling was mutual right until the end. In fact, Neil once wrote in these same pages in the mid-1980s that the WSO board would be well advised to hire this young upstart from across the pond — a point of fact the maestro has never forgotten and noted last month during his presentation to the WSO’s Women’s Committee.

Two examples showing Tovey’s generosity of spirit include his performing a sublime piano solo of Sondheim’s Anyone Can Whistle during Neil’s magical tribute evening in January 1997. In November 2006, the maestro flew in from Vancouver to host our successful fundraising concert sponsored by the University of Winnipeg Foundation that helped establish the Neil Harris Bursary, awarded annually to a University of Winnipeg student in the creative arts since its inception. I know there will be infinite more examples “out there” from those who have similarly experienced Tovey’s kind nature and deep wellspring of empathy for others.

In return, my dad composed a rip-roaring orchestral work for Tovey called — wait for it — Bramwell Tovey’s Ragtime Band. True story, however due to unforeseen copyright issues with Irving Berlin’s fiercely protective estate, this brilliant piece sadly has never seen the light of day, existing now only as printed manuscript paper in my own tickle trunk of treasures. I like to think if we reverted it to Alexander’s Ragtime Band, then this piece could be repurposed and dedicated to another WSO former maestro— and thus give another shot for its long overdue world première.

Perhaps Tovey said it best himself, as he wrapped up his speech to the Women’s Committee last month.

“I don’t want you to think for one second that I’ve forgotten about being here, because it’s incredibly important to me still. There isn’t a day of my life that goes by without remembering how much I owe to all of you, and what Winnipeg has meant to me.”

And that, I am sure, works both ways.

holly.harris@shaw.ca