Volume 22 Issue 3 - November 2016

COVER STORY
Podcasting Comes to
Conversations TheWholeNote
DAVID PERLMAN
BRYSON WINCHESTER
Edwin Huizinga
It’s amusing to look back at the moment in 2003 when after eight
years of ad-hoc existence we incorporated and decided to name the
parent company of this magazine Wholenote Media Inc. Prescience
or hubris? It’s hard to say. After all, back then the fax machine was
at the cutting edge of communications technology, we didn’t have a
website, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube didn’t exist, and Bell Canada
was seriously contemplating suing for trademark violation anyone
who referred to the relatively new phenomenon of the Internet as
“the web.”
As wild as the ride has been since then, it’s immensely reassuring to
see the re-emergence, out of the madding, digital, multimedia gadgetand
platform-driven crowd, of an electronic medium which, if not as
old as the hills, certainly predates most of the hyper-kinetic information-dispensing
media that compete for the attention of our eyes, ears
and app-posable thumbs.
I’m referring of course to the latest incarnation of what used to be
good old-fashioned talk radio, where hosts and guests sit and bicker
amiably over things they care about – and you and I get to overhear
the conversation, while we go about our business, all senses
other than our ears, and maybe our minds, undistracted from
cooking, or driving or jogging, or whatever else it is that we need to
continue doing.
And what, you ask, is this greatest new medium since CBC Radio?
Podcasts, of course. And the main point of this story is to tell you that
The WholeNote is now on the podcasting bandwagon and we’d love to
have you along for the conversational ride!
Conversations TheWholeNote Podcasts:
All you have to do is find your way to the Conversations
TheWholeNote podcast page, where you will not only discover our
most recent episodes for your listening pleasure, but will also be able
to scroll through audio-only versions of almost three dozen video
interviews conducted over the past four seasons.
Who’s on first? Edwin Huizinga:
The most recent guest in our studio was violinist
Edwin Huizinga, who graces the cover of this issue,
and who not only brought two violins to the interview
but even contrived to play one of them during
a wide-ranging half-hour conversation. He spoke
of his work as a period violinist with ensembles
like Tafelmusik and Cleveland-based Apollo’s
Fire. And about his working relationship with
California-based steel guitarist William Coulter,
with whom he has just recorded an album, Fire
and Grace, that doesn’t so much break the boundaries
of classical, folk and world music as allow the
two players to wander from realm to realm. Other
bases touched included Huizinga’s intimate concert
series, Stereo Live, co-curated with COC violist
Keith Hamm at Campbell House; his involvement
with San Francisco-born “Classical Revolution” that
seeks to take the music out of its traditional venues;
touring Versailles with Opera Atelier; all this and
more in a freewheeling chat with an individual for
whom clearly “serious” is not a description of one
type of music or another but rather a description
of the kind of love a listener or player brings to the
experience.
Here’s just a taste from the podcast itself:
WholeNote: You do a lot of period playing and a lot of other stuff. Do
you have two violins for that?
Edwin Huizinga: Always. Nowadays I just always perform and tour
with a double case. At the moment I’m performing about 50 percent
on my modern violin and about 50 percent on my Baroque violin.
That’s really exciting for me.
WN: The recent recording you did with William Coulter, guitarist –
steel string guitarist, is that steel and gut [strings] or steel and… .
EH: That’s steel and steel…in that project, even though we are
exploring music from around the world, Baroque music, classical,
Celtic, Argentinian, Bulgarian, I’m performing that almost exclusively
on my modern violin. The project was sparked in Cleveland of all places;
we met because a really great friend and colleague of mine, Jeannette
Sorrell, who is the artistic director of Apollo’s Fire, actually suggested
that Bill work with me on a project that he was directing in Cleveland
with Apollo’s Fire…eventually a YouTube video of me jamming with
Mike Marshall was the ticket to Bill, who had not met me yet, understanding
that I could break the boundaries of classical music and really
get into fiddling and bluegrass…Then this past year we’ve basically dedicated
a lot of time together to record this album of all kinds of classical
and folk repertoire and it’s coming out in just a couple of weeks.
Ivars Taurins, conductor, Tafelmusik Chamber Choir: this conversation,
October 11, 2016, was occasioned by the fact that the Tafelmusik
Chamber Choir is celebrating its 35th anniversary, kicking things off
with a concert right at the beginning of November (November 2 to
6) that draws on repertoire and composers that have made a mark
on the choir over the years. The charm of this kind of chat is that
it can range far and wide, as this one did. Why violists make good
conductors, if indeed they do; how Taurins’ “Herr Handel,” who
conducts Tafelmusik’s renowned annual sing-along Messiah at
Massey Hall, came into being (thank you, Ottie Lockey!); the Choir’s
10 | November 1, 2016 - December 7, 2016 thewholenote.com