The Triomphante Reeds Of The Cascadia Reed Quintet
Wednesday, February 04, 2015
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| Marea Chernoff, Colin MacDonald, A.K. Coope, Olivia Martin & Shawn Earle |
When I attend a movie at a local Multiplex I am offended by the stink of fast food, loud soundtracks and that constant repetition to “enjoy the show”. I cannot understand why we must be exposed to commercials. When I leave a Multiplex I am smothered in guilt.
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| Jurgen Gothe |
That is not the case when I go to a good local concert. And this particularly applies to the longstanding tradition of Wednesday Noon Hours at the UBC School of Music. The school features concerts by top notch musicians (many are instructors and or principals in varied BC orchestras) for $5.
Today I
attended a performance of the Cascadia Reed Quintet
Marea
Chernoff: oboe/English hornShawn Earle: clarinet
ColinMacDonald: soprano/alto saxophone
Olivia Martin: bassoon
A.K. Coope: bass clarinet.
Part of the
La Triomphante was movement Fanfarinette which for many years was the opening
theme for the popular afternoon CBC Radio show Disc Drive hosted by JurgenGothe.
Any program
that includes anything by Arvo Pårt and finishes with a jazzy (Colin MacDonald
on his alto saxophone) Day Dream by Billy Strayhorn has to be unusually good.
And it was. We left refreshed (without guilt) and I had enough time to
photograph Chernoff’s beautiful shoes. I suspected they may have been an
expensive purchase at Gravity Pope. I was wrong. Chernoff, who plays as the
principal oboist for the Kamloops Symphony bought them there!
Colin MacDonald explained that the inspiration for the Cascadia Reed Quintet came from the Dutch group Colefax. So much good stuff in dance and in music comes out of the Netherlands. It is not generally known that many of our city musicians and dancers have studied there.
So many
inhabitants of this city complain that it is a “no fun” city. I think
otherwise. And consider that having fun here is not always even expensive.Colin MacDonald explained that the inspiration for the Cascadia Reed Quintet came from the Dutch group Colefax. So much good stuff in dance and in music comes out of the Netherlands. It is not generally known that many of our city musicians and dancers have studied there.
Because Bateson and I arrived early we went for a walk. I pointed out to my friend that in a city where it rains a lot there are few covered walkways at UBC. One of the rare ones is outside the UBC School of Music and leads to the Belkin Art Gallery and the Frederick Wood Theatre. At the end of the walkway there is a replica sculpture, Asiatic Head, by Otto Fischer-Credo. It would have to be sheer coincidence that he was not dancer Cornelius Fischer-Credo's father. Cornelius Fischer-Credo now lives in Florence. I wrote about him here and here.
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| Cornelius Fischer-Credo |
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| Asiatic Head - Otto Fischer-Credo |
Asiatic Head, 1958
concrete
190 x 70 x 51 cm
(UBC Archives photos #1.1/15927-3 and #1.1/1416)
A replica was made in 1977 by Gerhard Class. Made of marble sand and polyester resin it is now located at the north end of the covered walkway between the Music Building and Lasserre. It was donated to UBC by Mrs. Astrid Fischer-Credo and exhibited on the UBC campus as part of an exhibition of outdoor sculpture organized by the Northwest Institute of Sculptors.
Fischer-Credo was born in Berlin in 1890 and died in Vancouver in 1959. He studied at the Akademie der Kunste in Berlin from 1908-15 and the Royal Academy of Art in Paris from 1919-21. Fischer-Credo lived in the Philippines, Mexico, Cuba and the United States before coming to Vancouver in 1957. His first solo show was in Manila in 1926. A major commission in Vancouver includes a life-size crucifix in yellow cedar for Our Lady of Sorrow Church at Little Flower Academy.And communication from Cornelius via facebook:
2:28pm
Cornelius Fischer-credociao Alex, wow blast from my past. W've been living in Florence for the past 11 years. Ironically 'm moving back to Vancouver this summer.
Yes Otto was my father, born in 1890, he was a sculptor,
studied at L'ecole Des Beaux Artes in Paris in the teens and early twenties
(his painting instructor was Gaugain). He lived and worked in Asia for 8 years,
China, Japan and mainly Manila. there's an interesting blog about architecture
in Manila that speaks about him that I can send you.
He and my family were living in New York city (the west
village) when WW2 started and they were forced to go back to Germany. He was
indoctrinated into the Third Reich and did war art (even a bust of Hitler that
I recently found out still exists). After spending 5 years in a French prisoner
of war camp in Algeria, he did restoration work for a number of years in Bonn
and then in the late 50s my whole family immigrated to Vancouver. He died in
1958.There you have a brief history of my father Otto. I will send you the link.
