Other Writings - Newsletter

CORNER BROOK, Newfoundland: Future Wisdom of Dying Hope?" By D. Bratuz (Canadian Music Teacher, May 1972, 8-10)

"… a model of clear thinking and concise expression" Keith MacMillan

On the way to the Corner Brook from the Deer Lake airport, the conversation with the Festival Chairman proved to be more than the usual pleasant exchange between host and unknown quest: it was for me a revelation. Until the (April 1971), wherever I had served as an adjudicator I had used my new-Canadian accent and my old world subtleties to say with impunity the most outrageous things; at least, the participants, their teachers, and even some parents always nodded and smiled in approval.
There had been a headline in the Ottawa Journal a few days before, Adjudicator Speaks Out Against Competition, and I carefully mentioned it to the Festival Chairman; he simply replied "Ours in a non-competitive Festival." It was so new I was afraid I had not understood him correctly. "Oh, yes, you won't have to give marks." Was this possible? For the first time in my experience, here in an isolated, poetic place, a "festival" really meant what the word implies, a celebration, a series of festivities, and not a musical trial. "We would lose all the kids from the outports if our Festival were a competitive one; they would not dare to appear." I could hardly contain my ecstatic surprise, my relief. "But of course, we are under great pressure to make it competitive, as it is elsewhere."

WRONG EMPHASIS
Competitive: that would mean for Corner Brook too, to help perpetuate what Pierre Boulez calls the "upside-down pyramid" of the musical world - in which the young are all trained as if young seminarians were trained to become pope, rather that entering a way of life if, and because, they were called for it, because it was good; it is as senseless as cultivation any sport for the sake of becoming an Olympic champion and no other reason. In Canada, as anywhere, musical communities cannot absorb the concert activities of all the "winners," local and provincial, national and international, of this year, and of past and future years. Meanwhile the soil is not being fertilized to produce all the strata which can create a top and sustain it. Canada is blessed with musical talent amount the young, but because Competition is the primary propelling force they recognize, it is a difficult task for it teachers to instill in them a sense that music can be, and needs to be, served on many levels, and not only at star-level; because the get-rich-quick attitude is the only one they know, it is hard to awaken in them a sense of dedication, the need to take time to assimilate, and especially the need to broaden their total cultural foundation.

ROLE OF THE MEDIA
The task appears a hopeless one as long as so-called festivals further encourage young students to channel their energies, and their aspirations, toward winning; it is a waste of their best formative years in effort after effort to "prove" themselves by beating someone else. Furthermore the national press confirms for them that only a "star" is considered successful and his or her work alone is meaningful. (Two recent examples in the Globe & Mail: the article and the advertisement for Van Cilburn's appearance - "The First Ever Tchaikovsky Competition Winner" "performing the equally brilliant 'Emperor' Piano Concerto". (Italics by Snoopy the Red Baron and by a shrieking Schroder). Comparison appears to be greater force in the psychological make-up of music students than a healthy awareness of their own uniqueness.

NEED FOR TEACHERS
This sense of uniqueness was present among the youngsters from Corner Brook and nearby villages. I did not have to explain it to them, as I often do, that if a rose were to compar itself to an orchid, it would never bloom; why should a violet compare itself to a rose? Let it discover and then develop; it should love its own shape and perfume. I did not need to reassure them, placate, and justify marks; the time could be spent in short-cut lessons, miniature master classes, which was then rewarded by the joy of discovery in their eyes. Their talent is vocally oriented - singing, being in the air of Newfoundland; for the instrumentally gifted child, however, there is hardly anything to grow on. Adequate instruction ceases for the upper grades: teachers come and leave - winter is long and salaries low. One of the most advanced piano students, 16, played an incredible first movement of the Moonlight Sonata, fast as a Czerny etude. This student had never heard it and had been without a teacher for a year. Elsewhere, when confronted with remarks about how much easier it is for a European to "know", to grow up knowing repertoire and styles, I always retort that on this continent there are fairytale-like "facilities" which can compensate for the lack of libraries, music libraries, films, and practice rooms.
None of the applied to Corner Brook; not yet, but the seeds are there. I urged teachers and parents to create a network of exchange, of records, books, music; to see that their youngsters played together in ensembles of all kinds, reading four-hand transcriptions of symphonic literature, etc. It was so easy to speak of cooperation in the non-competitive atmosphere. Will it remain so? Will the seeds grow? There is only on Gary Karr, but are there no college graduates idealistic enough to spend a few years in creative, rewarding isolation, building a small center of musical radiation where young talent is waiting?
What concerns me as a new-Canadian teacher is another form of "upside-down pyramid", the fact that o much talent comes to university too late to acquire proper training of mind and working habits, and so much time is spent in dealing with fundamentals which should have been absorbed in much earlier stages of development. But until serious, non-competitive, non-just-fun, broad, training is available to the gifted child, the annual musical festival will remain a crucial vehicle, especially in small communities, by which to "Call attention" to what is most important:

• The necessary sense of participation, the being a part, no matter how minute, of something which gives life to music;
• The necessary patience to cultivate one's gift to the utmost in order to best serve music, and not in order to be considered the best in relation to others; as in other fields, the soil must be fertilized to eventually produce genius; although it takes centuries for the proper combination of genes and environment to produce a Bach, a composer whose name should be as familiar to school children as those of hockey players. In order to play one's piece well, one should attend concerts and listen to lot of recordings of other works by the composers on studies. The Canadian "soil" is blessed with promise;
• Above all to the fact that the world of music, of concerts, is changing too, and it will require a new type of musician, not of the traveling virtuoso type, but one prepared for a variety of demands. There are new avenues of service in music: radio, television, recordings, and one of special need in Canada, and that of the trained music critic.

  In Corner Brook, Newfoundland, they have the wisdom to use their music festival as a vehicle for learning, for participating, for the joy of it. If some of the participants ever develop into artists, they may have an audience to perform for, some day, but should their festival, too, become competitive, degrading their efforts, the joy to perform may die among the children from the outports, and there may not even be fast Moonlights to be heard anymore.