Longtime Stratford Festival music director Bert Carrière and friends headline the SSO's concert version of H.M.S. Pinafore this Saturday, November 12, at Central United Church beginning at 7:30 p.m.

 

Starring in the popular Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera are Douglas Chamberlain (Sir Joseph Porter), Eileen Smith (Buttercup), Barbara Dunn-Prosser (Josephine), Marion Adler (Hebe), Brad Rudy (Dick Deadeye), Van Abrahams (Ralph Rackstraw), David Dunbar (Captain), Kelly Walker (Boatswain) and Scott Wentworth (narrator).

 

Members of the chorus have been drawn from across the Stratford community and beyond.

 

Assisting Mr. Carrière, who was with the Festival for more than 30 years, are two other Festival veterans, Barbara Young (associate director) and Nora Polley (facilitator). Ms. Young, now in her sixteenth season, worked closely with Mr. Carrière for 13 years. Ms. Polley is in her thirty-seventh year as stage manager. Most of the lead singers have also been Festival performers.

 

All the headliners are donating their services to help put the Stratford Symphony on a firmer financial footing.

 

Tickets are available online and at Fanfare Books and Anything Grows in Stratford, Stewart Books in St. Marys, Music in Sebringville and Perth County Welcome Centre in Shakespeare.

 

 

The drawing together of this talented, accomplished cast of artists, all of whom have donated their services to support the Stratford Symphony Orchestra, is testimony to the affection and esteem they hold for Berthold Carrière.

 

Bert Carrière's investiture to the Order of Canada in 2002 included these words: "Known for his generosity of spirit and his professionalism, he has shared his expertise as a teacher at numerous arts education institutions and with theatre companies throughout Canada and abroad." His willingness to offer his time and considerable talents in support of the Stratford Symphony, and to ask his friends and colleagues to join him in this cause, is more than generous and the orchestra is deeply grateful. Bert has agreed to serve, beyond this concert, as an advisor to the orchestra as it strengthens and expands its contribution to the community. We relish this opportunity to work with him.

 

His work with the Festival is well known. His 1981 production of Pinafore for the Festival toured the United States. During his 38 years with the Festival he composed and arranged music for more than 80 productions, including several other Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas: The Mikado, Iolanthe, The Gondoliers and The Pirates of Penzance. The Mikado played on Broadway as well as at London's Old Vic. He has won a number of honours for his work.

 

Not as well known is what he has been doing since leaving the Festival in 2007. He is seeing a lot more of his wife, Nancy, whom he met when he was 18 and producing his first musical in Ottawa. She was "doing props," he recalls. Over the years, with Nancy - not a musician - teaching in high school from fall through spring and Bert immersed in Festival productions from spring through fall, they didn't see a lot of each other. Now they do.

 

They live in an 1860s stone house in St. Marys that they bought in 1975. They have restored it and filled it with antique furniture. Nancy is "very much into" yoga and pilates, Bert says. He is still writing music and begins his workday in his home studio at about 10. Right now he's working on a piano and orchestra piece. While his Festival writing mostly consisted of short pieces, he now has a chance to write longer ones, and he is studying orchestration in a way he never had time for previously. "It's like painting," he says. His to-do list includes writing a suite about the breathtaking beauty of Quebec's Gaspé region, the home of his ancestors.

 

Travel is high on their agenda. They bought a motorhome two years ago and have taken it through Florida, Texas, Gaspé, New York State and Northern Ontario. At the end of January, they'll trade the open road for a rail trip through Africa on the luxurious Blue Train ("only 70 people; it's like the Orient Express") combined with several safaris.

 

"We're now making up for lost time."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baroque Again: Bach, Handel and More 

Saturday, December 10, 2011, 7:30 p.m.

St. James' Anglican Church, Stratford

 

Conductor              Daniel Warren

Organ                     Ian Sadler

Harpsichord            Marlin Nagtegaal

Flute                        Laurel Swinden

 

G.F. Handel              Arrival of the Queen of Sheba from Solomon HWV 67

                                            'Per il santissimo natale' (For the holy birth)

G.F. Handel               Organ concerto op. 7 No. 4 in d minor HWV  292        

G.F. Handel               Organ concerto op. 4 No. 4 in F major HWV 309

Playing for passers-by at the SSO table at the Stratford Farmers' Market a few weeks ago, Andrea Barstad spotted a little girl in her mother's arms, eyes wide in rapt attention at the music coming from Andrea's violin. Andrea rushed over, greeted the little girl and played music just for her, engaging her and her mother in conversation between passages.

 

"That is what I love most," said Andrea, referring to the process of introducing someone to the beauty of music. She has been a violin teacher for 30 years, 25 of those years in Stratford. She calls herself "one of the first Suzuki kids in North America." (At age 10, living in Athens, Ohio, she and another student played the Bach Double Violin Concerto for violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman, to demonstrate the potential of the Suzuki Method.) The Suzuki Method is built on the belief that every child, if properly taught, is capable of a high level of musical achievement. Her current students range in age from three to 80-plus.

 

Laura Bates began lessons with Andrea when she was three, and her younger sister, Lisa, became Andrea's student as well. Laura went on to become the first violinist in Canada to earn a Bachelor's Degree of Applied Music in Jazz and Contemporary Studies. Both are now professional musicians. "[Andrea] was an amazing teacher," Lisa says. Laura calls Andrea "a great influence on me as a person." Andrew Chung, artistic director of INNERchamber, and Chris Stahlke, well-known Stratford violinist, were also Andrea's students.

 

In addition to playing first violin for the SSO (she has been a member of the orchestra since it began), Andrea is concert mistress for the Blyth Festival Orchestra. She plays often for events throughout Stratford. "I come and go in all the different churches," she says. Her repertoire is eclectic, including classical, pop, rock, improvisation and more. She also does studio work, laying down tracks for recordings.

 

One of her favourite memories is playing with the Salzburg Civic Orchestra, in a live broadcast, when she was a 19-year-old exchange student. She was practicing when a member of the orchestra walked past her window, heard her practicing and invited her to play with the orchestra.

 

She has four children: Tristam, 20; Erik, 17; Cecilia, 15; and Stefan, 12.