TOVEY'S FAREWELL
LAUDING A LEGACY
The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra has never sounded better. Its affiliated School of Music, which opened in 2011, has given employment to scores of skilled musicians and education to thousands more. Two attractive chamber-music spaces, Pyatt Hall and the Annex, are up and running in a city otherwise chronically short of concert venues. A pair of festivals, one dedicated to new music and the other to the titanic figures of the near and distant past, have opened and expanded our collective ears. And yet when Bramwell Tovey, who is soon to depart his position as music director of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra after 18 years at the podium, reflects on his achievements, he doesn’t single out any of his many accomplishments.
Instead, he takes a typically expansive approach, choosing to celebrate an achievement that encompasses all of the above: putting the VSO at the centre of cultural life in the Lower Mainland.
“There is real artistic value and social value in what we do, and I think there’s now a belief that the orchestra is part and parcel of the social success of the city,” he tells the Georgia Straight, in a telephone interview from his Seymour Street office. “I mean, I love looking out of the window here at the VSO school. This is all built up around here now, with lots of different apartment blocks, and it’s a much less violent area to be in than it used to be.…and I think the orchestra has contributed to that.”
When Tovey arrived in Vancouver, after a successful 12-year run as music director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the VSO’S home base, the Orpheum, was “an island” in a sea of urban blight. His intent was to take a hands-on approach to renovating both the orchestra and the area, but he had no idea that literally getting his hands dirty would be part of the process. “I remember, for instance, when two members of the orchestra had violins stolen from a car when they were parking one morning. The whole orchestra decided to fan out and check all the bins. So we did that; I took a couple of blocks, and I felt incredibly unsafe, walking around looking in wheelie bins,” he explains, using the British term for Dumpsters. “At one point I walked into an alleyway and a bunch of addicts came out who’d been waiting for a pusher. “So it was a different kind of atmosphere,” he continues. “Now, people have residences here, and the orchestra is central to the community with all the programs going on at the school, with the Suzuki lessons, the choirs, the sinfonietta, all the teaching… I mean, none of this existed 18 years ago. This was a derelict cinema, and it’s now got 2,000 people bobbing in and out every week, having lessons. So the orchestra, I think, has been a good social citizen, and every penny of public subsidy that it’s received at any level has contributed to the economic well-being of the area. It’s good investment by government, and a good investment by ticket buyers.” Asked whether he thinks he’s leaving the VSO in better musical shape than it was in when he found
it, Tovey demurs. “That really is a question for other people,” he says. Other people, however, are willing to offer a definitive verdict. An unscientific poll of audience members, from veteran season-ticket holders to composers to adventurous rock musicians, finds universal agreement that Tovey will be handing over a well-oiled machine to Otto Tausk when the Dutch conductor becomes the band’s leader next fall.
Some of Tovey’s most vociferous supporters, in fact, are those who get to work with him every week.
“There’s no doubt that the VSO is sounding better than it ever has,” says Roger Cole, who has had ample opportunity to compare Tovey’s approach to those of his predecessors. “You know, this is my 42nd season, so I will have survived four music directors after Bramwell leaves, and will hopefully survive a few years of the fifth,” the VSO’S principal oboist continues. “And every conductor has his or her own manner when it comes to shaping a performance. I have found Bramwell’s approach to be a big-picture approach. He knows what kind of performance he’s looking for, and he knows what the piece means to him. But it’s very rare that he will nitpick and ask you to do this instead of that—which we, as musicians, can find sometimes annoying. In other words, he’s confident in the people he’s hired, and in that they’ll all do their best playing if he lets them take their own approach. Now, of course, having said that, he’s the one that really shapes the performance. But I’ve always enjoyed working with him over the years, because I feel that when he’s on the podium
I can really do my thing, and he’s not going to try to stifle me, as some conductors do.”
The VSO’S composer in residence, Jocelyn Morlock, is even more effusive about Tovey’s support for her work, and for contemporary music in general— which isn’t surprising, given that Tovey has not only fronted internationally recognized new-music festivals here and in Winnipeg, but is loosely responsible for Morlock’s increasingly successful career.
“Bramwell was an inspiration from the time I was 20-something years old,” the Manitoba native recalls. “The first year of the [Winnipeg] New Music Festival, my first composition teacher, Pat Carrabré, drove a vanload of us out from Brandon to see it, and I was just amazed.… bramwell was bringing in all kinds of new-music things I never imagined that I’d hear in real life. So that was sort of the start of my new-music education, and he was kind of my idol.”
Morlock credits Tovey with a preternaturally acute ability to pinpoint flaws in any performance or score, and an equally useful way of making helpful suggestions without implying criticism. “Because he’s a composer himself, he’s extremely open to trying all kinds of things,” she says, adding that his openness extends to his concert programming. “He’s willing to put as much new music out there as possible. He believes that the audience will come to us if we try to make a connection with them. So it’s not put there apologetically; it’s put there with pride and curiosity.”
Vancouver composers, musicians, and audiences are not going to be entirely deprived of Tovey’s input. After assuming his new position as director of orchestral activities at Boston University, he’ll make regular guest appearances with the VSO as music
director emeritus. He’ll also retain a keen interest in local cultural matters, along with an apartment in one of those downtown towers. “The kids don’t see themselves as being citizens of anywhere else,” he says.
So his departure is not so much a matter of adieu as au revoir, and there are ample options for those wishing to give Tovey a proper sendoff. This week, the VSO will host a farewell gala, with guest stars ranging from mezzosoprano Judith Forst to former VSO concertmaster Mark Fewer. After that, Tovey will reinvigorate classics from Johann Strauss and Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky at the Orpheum and the Centennial Theatre. And then we’ll get to hear the conductor work his special magic on Benjamin Britten’s opera Peter Grimes, before he closes the 2017-18
season by pairing Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in C Minor with the world premiere of Morlock’s O Rose.
It might be best to catch them all: whether he’s basking in the celebratory spotlight, putting a new spin on old music, or interpreting a demanding but emotionally engaging 20th-century masterpiece, Tovey’s social and sonic skills will be as masterful and engaging as ever. And even though they won’t be permanently absent from the local scene, they’ll be missed.
The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra presents Bravo Bramwell! at the Orpheum on Thursday (May 31). Johann Strauss and Tchaikovsky will be featured at the Orpheum on Friday (June 1) and the Centennial Theatre on Monday (June 4). Peter Grimes is at the Orpheum on June 9 and 11. Resurrection: The Season Finale is at the Orpheum from June 16 to 18.