Some of my earliest memories are of scenes, stories and landscapes I imagined as classical music flowed from our family record player. Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Sarasate magically brought alive images of fairies, woodland creatures, exotic gypsies (the word a great compliment in our home) dancing in the darkness, fire-lit by bonfires at my great-grandparents’ farm in Ukraine … I was never there, but my mother — who was brought to Canada at age four — gave descriptions imbued with wonder and romance of the hard-working itinerant people who came to the farm to labour by day and then light up the night with their music and dance. “The men were so dark and handsome!” I still recall her beautiful smile and sparkling light blue eyes as she spoke those words, and I marvel that a four-year-old would recognize ‘handsome-ness’ and remember that vision into adulthood! Her descriptions have stayed with me all my life, as has the sound of the violin (thrilling ‘Zigeunerweisen’!) played by Heifetz …
By the time I turned four, my sister and brother were away all day at school, and I began piano lessons which, along with drawing, reading and writing, filled my days. These artistic pursuits remained my focus into my teenage years: ideal for the dedicated introvert! But there was no violin in the house. I became very involved with oil painting ~ to the point where I dropped out of university (fine arts) to study ‘more seriously’ en plein air with a Montréal artist who lived near relatives who were kind enough to let me live with them, to avoid a daily commute to lessons.
Art and writing continued concurrently; ultimately a move to Peterborough was the springboard to buying my very first violin, funded by the proceeds from my very first income tax return. I found a violin teacher and attended one lesson before he left for summer holidays … I moved to Winnipeg … began a career in which I revelled in long days of design, writing & production management … and the violin remained in its case.
I thought of it as a treasured object; it made the move to Ontario with me, displayed prominently (though protected in its case) in the living room … Years passed … and in 2010, more than three decades since I had acquired it, a trip to New Orleans was the pivotal event that catapulted me into action. There is so much music in New Orleans — it spills out into the streets from pubs, bars and restaurants. I watched performers — particularly a woman with a violin — having the time of their lives up onstage. What had I been waiting for all this time?! On the drive home from Detroit Airport, I resolved to research violin teachers just as soon as I got home.
And that’s what I did.
As I write this in early January 2022, I’m entering my 12th year of lessons, just a few shy of 400. Thousands of hours of practise. As soon as I started, my teacher encouraged me to participate in Kiwanis Music Festivals, prepare for Conservatory exams, attend summer workshops, plan and perform a recital with a chamber group and join amateur orchestras. I did all these things, despite excruciating and almost debilitating anxiety ~ because music, the sound of the violin, is so much a part of my memory, intrinsically, perhaps even genetically, that I persevered despite all. As a very young child, Vivaldi somehow took hold and now, to play his music and that of other Baroque composers, answers a call that I may have heard even before I was born. Put simply, that’s how much it means to me, and toiling away, week after week, month after month, to learn a piece of music ~ aiming to improve, to play it as I hear it in my head ~ is meaningful, gratifying and really worthwhile.
