BISQC Blog:

North American Fall Tour Diary

Posted by Rachel Desoer, cellist with Cecilia String Quartet
Monday, 21 November 2010

We just got back from our BISQC North American fall tour. We visited places both familiar and new and had a tremendous amount of fun playing concerts, teaching, and learning.

We started in New York, very nervous because we were playing a Mozart quartet that was pretty new for us and some other very challenging works including Berg’s Lyric Suite. We were comforted by the beautiful room at the Americas Society that we had the opportunity to play in. It was the ideal chamber hall, small, resonant, clean, and visually interesting. Despite all the pressures the concert was a joy to play.

We enjoyed a few days in New York, visiting friends, rehearsing at Adrian Fung’s place (big thank you to him) and of course, shopping!! Not much was bought but Loehmann’s will never be the same after being picked over by four Cecilias.

Next stop, Kelowna, B.C, after a very long travel day. I had the usual trouble with my cello on the plane. I won’t go into all the details — all I will say is that if you’re going to have dumb policies, at least make sure that your own employees know what they are.

Kelowna was beautiful, the water, the sunshine, and the first hints of fall that were missing in New York. We were greeted with such warmth and hospitality; we thoroughly enjoyed meeting members of the board and the artistic directors of Chamber Music Kelowna. Unfortunately we didn’t get to partake of too much of the wine at the wine festival but we had a wonderful time.

Vancouver!! Sushi!!! We love it there. The weather, the food and the Music in the Morning organization. The audience is so positive and appreciative and the staff are wizards of organization. We also stayed in one of the kindest and most convenient hotels we’ve ever encountered. Listel hotel, fabulous. It was great to be able to spend a few days there; rehearsing, recharging, and most importantly, doing laundry!

We got the chance to take the beautiful ferry ride from Vancouver to Victoria. I felt bad that everyone except me had to do homework on the boat ride but we were all still happy to be there. Victoria was extremely pleasant. We felt very at home in the Victoria Conservatory where we played a concert and got to give a masterclass, the faculty there were extremely helpful and the students very enthusiastic.

Next was another long travel day to Providence, Rhode Island. Totally worth it though; we attended a workshop given by Community Music Works. We learned about their organization which teaches music lessons for free on the west side of Providence with dynamic programming and a vision for what community can be far beyond anything we could have imagined. They gifted us four days of helping us brainstorm and strategize our own plans in regard to our career and educational programs. I personally felt re-infused with the power of idealism and positive thinking which brought back a lot of memories from my two years at Oberlin College. We were so impressed with the healthy attitude of the entire staff but more particularly the vibrancy of the students. We were lucky enough to work with the kids a bit and were so impressed with their creativity, behaviour, and confidence. They also taught us about improvisation and teamwork. From the whole experience I personally learned that with some planning and persistent work dreams really can come true.

Exhausted but inspired, we crossed the continent again and landed in Calgary. Another beautiful hall, this time the Rozsa Centre at the University of Calgary. We had forgotten about Alberta cold, however, and were a little surprised to find a winter-like bite in the air. Luckily, it was a great excuse for Min to get a nice new parka and for us to brace ourselves for Banff.;

Our last stop, our second home, The Banff Centre. We always love being there. We have great creative productivity there. It was fun to go to the concerts and hear and hang out with our favorite sibling quartet the Afiara. We also performed for the first time of many with our new collaborator Georgy Tchaidze, 2009 laureate of the Honens Piano Competition. He’s a joy to work and play with, so kind and such a mature musician. It was very satisfying to have our final concert of the tour surrounded by such excitement and so we finished exhausted but satisfied.

A big thank you to Lisa, Barry, Julie, Theresa, and all the staff at The Banff Centre for putting the whole thing together. It was a real pleasure for us.

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