Volume 21 Issue 3 - November 2015

CBC Radio Two: The Golden Years
Alex Pauk’s
Big Idea
DAVID JAEGER
The moment my new CBC Radio Two network program Two New
Hours hit the airwaves in January of 1978, composers, and especially
Canadian composers, suddenly had a new way to connect
with audiences across Canada. The simple act of broadcasting
concerts of new works from all the major production centres of Canada
each week immediately allowed a growing number of people to become
aware of all the diverse sorts of newly created music. And naturally, the
musicians who performed in these concerts of new works quickly realized
there were paying gigs for them if they were willing to learn new
compositions. Musicians began networking with other musicians, often
with the result that they created ensembles to play all this new repertoire.
Two New Hours was an instant success. Audience numbers for
what was considered highly specialized listening were at once respectable
and in a short period of time grew to be more than just respectable.
By 1982 Two New Hours had already broadcast more than 400
world premiere performances and commissioned more than 30
original works, composed specifically for the program. Several of these
commissioned works, such as Walter Buczynski’s 1978 Monogram for
solo piano, Brian Cherney’s 1979 String Trio and R. Murray Schafer’s
1981 Third String Quartet had been heard around the world through
international program exchanges such as the International Rostrum of
Composers in Paris.
Enter Esprit: The missing ingredient in this early success story was
the lack of new Canadian works for orchestra. Our symphony orchestras
at that time showed no interest in contemporary repertoire. And
the budget that had been established for Two New Hours productions
was sized for chamber music recordings. This made sense, given
that the new music ensembles across the country were all chamber
groups of various sizes. This aspect changed in 1983, when composer
and conductor Alex Pauk founded Esprit Contemporain, an orchestra
devoted entirely to the performance of contemporary music.
Alex Pauk was experienced in starting new music groups. The
Toronto group Array was “born in my living room in 1972,” he told
me. In 1974 Alex settled in Vancouver and founded, first Array West,
a group that didn’t last, and then Days, Months and Years to Come,
which did. Their concerts were heard on Two New Hours in the
1970s. He also became familiar with the CBC Vancouver Chamber
Orchestra, an orchestra that often included new Canadian works in
their concerts, usually blended with standard repertoire. It was at one
of those concerts that Pauk met his mentor, the French-Romanian
composer-conductor, Marius Constant. But in 1981, Alex moved
back to Toronto and was elected president of the Canadian League of
Composers. In 1982 he told me that he had started thinking seriously
about creating an orchestra that would only play contemporary music.
Versed as he was in the mechanics of raising support for musical
start-ups, it was clear to Alex that the usual modest sums available
from the regional, provincial and national arts councils would barely
get him into the rehearsal room, let alone cover the costs of paying the
musicians to perform a series of concerts. However, a chance meeting
with a Suncor executive at the Financial Post Awards for Business and
the Arts in 1982 gave him a key connection with corporate Canada.
A major donation from Suncor Inc. was secured, and the company’s
commitment of continuing support, together with a grant from the
Canada Council gave Alex the means to mount his first concert with
Esprit Contemporain in the summer of 1983, in Kingston. This concert
of new Canadian orchestral music, presented in association with the
National Youth Orchestra of Canada, was not broadcast on Two New
Hours, but their very next concert was. It was the beginning of a
The cover of our November 2000 issue.
legacy of broadcasting contemporary orchestral music on CBC Radio
Two that lasted 25 years.
World Music Days: John Peter Lee Roberts, a former head of CBC
Radio Music, and the creator, along with Sir Yehudi Menuhin, of
International Music Day, had persuaded the International Society
for Contemporary Music to hold their annual festival, World Music
Days, in Canada in 1984. This high profile event was a made-for Two
New Hours opportunity. I made sure that we were the lead broadcaster
for the festival by making the case to CBC senior managers
that this was our chance to show ourselves to our international
colleagues as a model for contemporary music broadcasting. Alex
Pauk’s new orchestra was a festival highlight, and we were there to
help Alex announce Esprit Contemporain to the world via our broadcasts
on CBC Radio Two in Canada and through international program
exchanges with public radios in more than 30 countries. World Music
Days was a watershed moment for Alex’s new orchestra, and the
positive spin it created helped Two New Hours as well. Karen Kieser
(1948-2002), who was Deputy Head of Radio Music in 1984, and
who had helped raise budgetary support for our broadcasts of the
festival, arranged that we be funded to continue including orchestral
broadcasts.
The addition of Esprit Orchestra concerts allowed Two New Hours
to offer its listeners a full range of contemporary musical genres. Alex
Pauk and I shared the conviction that developing emerging Canadian
composers was a necessity. Esprit Orchestra gave young composers
their first high profile presentation of large-scale compositions and
Two New Hours let the network audience know who these young
artists were and what they were doing. “The Two New Hours broadcasts
of our concerts created a sense of camaraderie among our musicians,”
Alex told me. “The CBC relationship knit the players together
and helped to raise their expectations to a higher standard.”
When Alex Pauk takes the podium November 15 at Koerner Hall
to conduct the largest orchestral ensemble in Esprit’s history, it will
demonstrate the result of decades of patient development and cooperation
by those who believed it was necessary to have such an orchestra
and those who insisted the story needed to be shared.
Esprit Orchestra’s concert at Koerner Hall, November 15, begins at
8pm; pre-concert chat at 7:15.
David Jaeger is a composer, producer and
broadcaster based in Toronto.
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