Volume 5 Issue 2 - October 1999

11!1 month's cover: Nmhan Annan Interviewed by Allan Pulker
On October 30 Toronto's new
professional chamber orchestra,
Sinfonia Toronto, will make its
long-anticipated debut at the
Glenn Gould Studio. The man
behind this exciting project is the
orchestra's music director Nurhan
Arman. Although he has conducted
such orchestras here as
the Royal Conse..Vatory Symphony
Orchestra and the Toronto
Symphony Youth Orchestra, he
·has done most of his conducting
in other centres and so is for
many people a new name on the
Toronto music scene.
DISNEY?
Armenian by birth, he grew up in
Istanbul, where he studied at the
Istanbul Conservatory, giving his
first violin recital at the age of
13. In 1971 he went to the United
States, on a Disney Foundation
Scholarship, to the California
Institute of the Arts and then the
University of Louisville. After
completing his studies he was the
(:()ncertmaster of several orches­
.tras, including the Florida
Symphony, the Florida Chamber
Orchestra and the Savannah
Symphony as well as performing
as a soloist in many major U.S.
centres and the prestigious music
festivals of Tanglewood, Spoleto,
New York and Florida. After
several seasons he began a
conducting career which has
taken him all over North
America, Europe and Asia and
given him a portfolio of reviews
that have praised his conducting
for its musicality and vitality.
NoRTH BAY TO YEREVAN
His connection with Canada
began in 1982 when he became
the conductor of the North Bay
Symphony. In this post, starting
with very little, he created a
highly successful organization. In
1987 he became the music
director of Symphony New
Brunswick, in which position he
has built the orchestra into a
major regional resource with
subscription series in three cities
and a well-attended summer
series as well. In addition, since
1993 he has been the principal
guest conductor of the Yerevan
Symphony Orchestra in Armenia,
which means he spends from
three to six weeks a year there,
and he teaches conducting at the
Orford Arts Centre in Quebec.
CHAMBER SHADES
Conducting his own chamber
orchestra is something that
Maestro Arman has wanted to do
for a very long time. His love of
the sound of small string
orchestras started when he was a
child: ''I grew up in Istanbul. This
is a very cOsmopolitan city. All
the best of Europe came during
the season." Among them were
the Versailles Chamber Orchestra
and the Andree Colson Chamber
Orchestra, whose performances
he will never forget. Later, as a
violinist early in his career he
played in several small string
orchestras, and as a conductor
has conducted Paris' Jean-Louis
Petit Chamber Orchestra and also
started chamber orchestras as
adjuncts of the North Bay
Symphony Orchestra and
Symphony New Brunswick.
" I like the repertoire very
much. It is pure music," he says.
"like a string quartet except
bigger and with a double bass."
Sinfonia Toronto will have 14
players: 4 first violins, 4 second
violins, 3 violas, two cellos and
one bass. With a group this size,
he says, ''we will have an
amazing amount of shading. The
dynamic range will be incredible!"
fROM THE FRONT
Will he lead the orchestra from
the first desk or will he conduct
it? His answer is definite: "I will
conduct. When I was a violinist I
wanted to play and conduct, but
after so much experience as a
conductor, I know it will save a
tremendous amount of time to
have a musical authority on the
podium."
When musicians play
together, he explains, there are
always disagreements about
everything from tempo and
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