Braid busier than ever during pandemic pause
That is, before and after he was laid low by virus
When David Braid returned from the Czech Republic on March 3, he had two instructions for his wife and young daughter.
“I asked my family to unlock the front door and await my arrival in another room,” said the Hamilton-born, Toronto based piano improvisation a list composer who’d been inUn host,20 kilometres west of Prague, for a four-day recording session with the Epoque Chamber Orchestra and Canadian singer Patricia O’Callaghan.
“I went straight upstairs to a room to quarantine for two weeks. I was symptomless for about 10 days before a fever hit and I was down for a couple of weeks. I didn’t do much but sit in a chair and drink (water) for the first while. I was totally better after about a month and reintegrated with my family a week or so after that.”
Had Braid contracted the coronavirus in Europe or during his travels there or back?
“I never got tested so I’ll never know for sure, but once this thing got into my lungs and I had trouble breathing, I was concerned,” said Braid. “I had a doctor and nurse check in on me regularly on the phone. Both instructed I should phone 911 if I started feeling like I’m suffocating.”
Whether Braid had or hadn’t contracted the coronavirus, its global aftermath has certainly put the kibosh on a touring career that’s taken him just about everywhere from Australia to
Uzbekistan.
“I was supposed to go to Winnipeg in early March to be present for the completion of the recording session (of “Alliance” for soprano and jazz orchestra on a text by conductor and University of Liverpool music lecturer Lee Tsang), but I cancelled ‘just in case’ based on my quarantine,” said Braid. “At the time of cancelling, my symptoms hadn’t yet emerged.”
In April, Braid and his group The North — Percy Pursglove on trumpet, longtime sideman Mike Murley on sax, Johnny Aaman on bass and Anders Mogensen on drums — were booked to perform with venerable British vocalist Norma Winstone in Copenhagen, Aarhus, and Odense, Denmark. Those concerts have now been postponed until April 2021.
And those Danish dates weren’t the only ones zapped from Braid’s 2020 itinerary.
“I was supposed to be teaching right now at the Banff Centre as part of a cool new program called ‘Classical Evolution,’” said Braid. “From there I was headed straight to Lithuania, Estonia, and Sweden for some concerts. Sweden is not locked down. So, I’m still advertised as performing there next month, although they know I can’t possibly get there.”
After the Swedish dates, Braid was slated to be in London, England to record his new work for string quartet and narrator. Then he was to have gone to Italy to teach a summer course and return home in August. In September, he was to have premièred a new work in China, followed by concert dates in
Scandinavia in October and November.
“At this point, I don’t see travelling as a possibility,” said Braid. “So, I suspect these will also be suspended to some future time.”
Fortunately, and especially crucial for these coronavirus times, Braid is no one-trick pony, but a freelance musician with other work-from-home irons in the fire.
He has commissions to compose sizable works for the Trio Exchange, True North Brass, Gryphon Trio, British trumpeter Anthony Thompson, and others. When not composing, he can turn his attention to editing “Dark Butterflies,” the album recorded in Unhost, and to completing that previously called-off recording session of “Alliance,” a work commissioned by the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra and co-written with Philippe Côté, a Montrealbased kindred musical explorer who straddles the jazz and classical realms.
In addition to this, some of Braid’s former students have reconnected with him for online lessons, and he’ll be on the faculty for Piano Week, an itinerant international festival and summer school this year running online for six days in late July.
“Besides this, I’ve been keeping a very low profile with minimal time online, focusing on things at home,” said Braid. “I’m busier now than before this (pandemic) started.”