Volume 25 Issue 3 - November 2019

LEGACIES
GROUNDED IN
DISPLACEMENT
UDO KASEMETS
A Centenary Celebration
ANDREW TIMAR
ANDRE LÉDUC
Assessing the legacy of a musician is tricky any day,
but particularly when celebrating the person’s birth
centenary, and especially when he was my teacher,
colleague and then, friend, over several decades. It’s even
more daunting when that person is the prolific composer,
pianist, vocal coach, choral conductor, music journalist
and educator, and mentor to several generations of
Toronto musicians, Udo Kasemets (1919-2014).
Kasemets considered himself a perennial outsider. He also, however,
possessed the entrepreneurial chops to stretch the definition of what
it meant to be a composer – and somehow to survive doing just that
throughout his fascinating, multifaceted and prolific career. For most
of his life he was, as he put it, “always trying to get things going.”
The outlines of his biography may provide a few clues to this enigmatic
man. Born into a musical Estonian family (his father Anton
Kasemets was an organist, influential choral conductor, composer
and musicologist), he was educated in Tallinn and, after WWII, in
Germany. In 1951 Kasemets immigrated to Canada. He made Hamilton
and then Toronto the home where his musical career grew; during his
long life he mentored several generations of musicians, me included.
This is not the first time I’ve written about Kasemets in The
WholeNote. In my 2010 article, In Appreciation of Udo Kasemets,
Robert Aitken, founding artistic director of New Music Concerts calls
him “probably the most uncompromising musician in Canadian
musical history”; while my 2014 article, Toronto’s Musical Avant-
Gardist: Udo Kasemets (Tallinn 1919 – Toronto 2014) A Remembrance
in Five Decades, leaves no doubt about its contents.
A number of organizations have taken Kasemets’ 100th birth year
as a cue to program his extraordinary compositions. We’ll look at
several Toronto concerts scheduled throughout November. To aid us
with background, I’ve reached out by email to Canadian musicologist
Jeremy Strachan, Estonian flutist (and Ensemble U: member) Tarmo
Johannes, Toronto pianist and concert curator Stephen Clarke, and
composer Linda Catlin Smith. They knew Kasemets personally, either
performing his work or writing extensively about it.
I first asked my interviewees why Canadians should care about
Kasemets’ musical legacy.
Jeremy Strachan was the first to reply. “Udo was one of Canada’s
most prolific composers and a trailblazing figure, bringing the avantgarde
to listeners in this country. Although he is remembered fondly
by those he knew and worked with, by and large his work has flown
under the radar, outside of the small circle of enthusiasts of experimental
music scattered across Canada. Aside from being a composer,
concert promoter and writer, he was also a teacher and collaborator
who brought many people together. I’m reticent to say ‘without Udo...’
but he really did an extraordinary amount of work to ensure that
experimentalism in music and the arts had a legitimate place in the
Canadian cultural landscape.”
Tarmo Johannes weighed in with his Estonian musician’s perspective.
“He is a little known in Estonia – unfortunately too little. It has been
our mission in Ensemble U: to introduce him more to our audiences,
draw attention to his music and to situate him as a very important,
very enriching part of Estonian music culture, a figure with no parallel
in the Estonian ‘homeland.’ On the other hand let’s not forget that he
returned to Tallinn in 2006 as an honorary guest of the Days of Estonian
Music festival. There was a concert full of his music, a masterclass at the
Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, interviews, articles, though
there haven’t been many performances since.”
From Stephen Clarke, seasoned interpreter of Kasemets’ piano
works: “Kasemets with Susan Layard, his singer/companion, travelled
to Tallinn where he gave lectures – in Estonian, the first time he spoke
it since the 1940s (!) – and performances. The German pianist Florian
Steininger contacted me some years ago asking for scores of Kasemets’
later piano works. He has been performing them around Europe.”
Johannes further observed: “As an Estonian, I’ve been impressed
by how many people talk about him with deep respect, admiration
and warmth. But first of all, let’s consider his output as a composer.
12 | November 2019 thewholenote.com