Volume 24 Issue 8 - May 2019

They also know the time-honoured Syrinx concert formula: main
works drawn from the standard classical chamber repertoire; always
a piece by a Canadian composer; and, as often as not, an opportunity,
in at least one work on the program, to collaborate with another
musician from Sandler-Glick’s always renewing circle of musical associates.
For their April 2014 visit it was Dohnányi’s Piano Quintet with
one of Sandler Glick’s favourite Toronto-based collaborative pianists,
Gregory Oh. This time it is Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-flat, Op.44
with rising Israeli pianist, Ishay Shaer.
And it is with the introduction of Shaer to this story that an explanation
of Sandler-Glick’s state of mind starts to become clear, because
hard on the heels of Shaer’s May 26 guest appearance with the
LeBlancs, his June 6 solo piano recital will take Syrinx, for the first
time in their history, out of the cosy confines of their Heliconian Hall
home into unfamiliar surroundings – Mazzoleni Concert Hall at the
Royal Conservatory of Music.
It’s a short journey – just a few blocks – but it’s a major departure.
It’s also, Sandler-Glick says, a risk worth taking. “We’ve promoted
or presented Ishay a few times already,” she says, “and I’ve just seen
his evolution. You could say I’ve become somewhat of a groupie. I’ve
gone to Holland to hear him, this last time was a Brahms festival in the
Hague. And I also went to Paris to hear him do a solo concert. Over the
years I’ve kept track of him and been in touch, and have read reviews
that have been just superb. Last year I heard him at Bristol and it was
just top of the mark. So I thought ‘I have to do something more for
him.’ And this is the best thing I can do. I can’t get him into Koerner
Hall. I don’t have the wherewithal for that, either the money or, as
important, the audience.”
Even Mazzoleni, at double the capacity of Heliconian, is no cinch, in
terms of drawing an audience. Does double the capacity mean double
the cost? I ask. “I wish!” she says, ruefully, and itemizes all the areas
where the increases are exponential. So she will invite people, vigorously,
beyond her faithful subscriber base and, with luck and good
management, draw on the relationships she has started building with
two other salon series, both home-based, one, with a following of 80
to 100, the other with 40 or 45. “I used to worry about the question of
having our own audience cannibalized,” she says. “But not any more.
The reward is in both directions. We are all happy about it.”
Ishay’s June 6 concert program is a hefty one: Beethoven’s Piano
Sonata No.32 (his last); selected Debussy Etudes (which the composer
warned pianists not to attempt “unless they have remarkable hands”);
and Chopin’s Piano Sonata No.3 in B Minor, Op.58, considered to
be one of Chopin’s most difficult compositions, both technically
and musically. And, yes, telltale Syrinx fingerprint, there will be a
Canadian work on this program too – Image Astrale by pioneering
composer Jean Coulthard, one of three Western Canadian women (the
others were Violet Archer and Barbara Pentland) who left their formative
mark on the 20th century Canadian musical landscape. “It was on
his 2017 program for us too,” Sandler Glick says. “There is something
about her music that I think he really gets.”
“So is the Canadian work on the program ever the starting point for
building a program.” I ask. A quick shake of the head. “This is the part
of it that makes me a dictator, and I love it. I have a lot of say. I get to
suggest repertoire, and I suggest what I want to hear; and a lot of what
I want to hear is the familiar, the music I love. It’s a lot of what the
audience wants to hear too. So if there’s enough of what’s familiar on
either side, at least they are not going to complain. And at best they
are going to be receptive.”
Out of context, one could take the comment as dismissive of Syrinx’s
bedrock commitment to Canadian work. But to do so would be to miss
a fundamental point. Chrylark/Syrinx was founded in 2003, one year
after the death of Sandler Glick’s former husband, composer Srul Irving
Glick, with the express mission of creating an artistic context in which
his music would be kept alive. Over time the mandate spread to include
other composers, notably in the early years, Oskar Morawetz and Walter
Buczynski who were part of Srul Irving Glick’s own circle.
“At first we tried programming one composer for a whole season,”
she says. “But life is not long enough for that! So it became one
composer per concert, and we have heard some wonderful pieces over
the years.” Srul Irving Glick’s own work has not been neglected over
This part of the work is what makes me
a dictator, and I love it. And many of the artists
who come to us appreciate it too.
the passing years. But neither has it been thrust forward, although
with the coming season being the 85th anniversary of his birth, there
might be a case for doing so again in the near future. “It’s a balance
you have to find,” she says.
April 23, 2017, 15 years after Srul Irving Glick’s death almost to the
day, was one such beautifully balanced moment: both in terms of
his legacy and, as important in terms of defining the complex skill
set that Sandler-Glick brings to keeping Syrinx a significant part of
Toronto’s musical life. The concert that night was a live CD recording
of all six of Glick’s Suites Hébraïques, the first time that all six suites
had been performed together. The roster of musicians assembled for
the event reflects Sandler-Glick’s priorities: Susan Hoeppner, flute;
James Campbell, clarinet; Wallace Halladay, saxophone; Elissa Lee,
violin; Barry Shiffman, violin; Sharon Wei, viola; Cameron Crozman,
cello; and Angela Park, piano – established, mid-career and emerging
artists, a testament to her commitment, above all else to putting the
interests of the musicians ahead of everything else.
Easy to lose sight of in talking about her curatorial role, is Sandler-
Glick’s own lifelong passion for the piano, starting at age four,
studying under Alberto Guerrero at the RCM, continuing in Paris
where she gave recitals and taught while studying herself, then upon
her return performing professionally with orchestras and in solo and
chamber music recitals, live and for CBC radio, premiering many new
works by Canadian composers along the way. And, from the latter half
of the 1990s, maintaining a vigorous teaching career, both at the RCM
and privately. “I had to get a real job after Srul and I separated,” she
says. “Now I only teach my grandchildren, which is a bit of a mixed
thing. I can’t make them practise. But they are all musical and all
interesting people to know.”
You won’t ever find her name among the pianists in her own series
though: “I was never a very happy performer” she says. “Not as a soloist
nor even as a chamber player.” One could surmise that part of what she
brings to her relationship with musicians, and to forwarding the musical
aspirations of “top of the mark” performers like Ishay Shaer, stems from
her own understanding of just what it takes to get, and stay there.
As for her own musical and pianistic journey, it has taken a recent
and happy turn. “It was after I turned 80, I told myself I wanted to do a
concert again,” she says. And did, late last year. At the Schubert House
in Vienna, no less, after a trial run at home salon in Toronto. I wasn’t
there, but if the concert went as planned it included a Mozart sonata,
three Schubert Impromptus a Brahms Capriccio and Ballade and
Schubert’s Sonata in A Minor for Arpeggione and Piano.
And, of course, a Canadian work: Sonata for flute and piano by,
who else, Srul Irving Glick.
David Perlman can be reached at publisher@thewholenote.com
Schubert House in Vienna
20 | May 2019 thewholenote.com