an interview with violinist James Ehnes

Canadian-born violinist James Ehnes is already a seasoned pro at the ripe old age of 23. A child-prodigy-esque solo debut, competitions, a Julliard education, critical acclaim, and a CD that garnered him the distinction of being the youngest classical artist (at 19) ever nominated for a Juno award have pushed this musician to the forefront of his profession.

Ehnes joins Orchestra London September 29 and 30 to perform Max Bruch's Scottish Fantasy Op. 46, and Scene Magazine caught up with him over the phone during a brief layover at his New York home.

Scene: What is one interest that you have that is as far in people's minds as you could get from classical music?

Ehnes: Well, they'd be very surprised at how much hockey I watch (laughs). And how much wonderful practising I get done during the Stanley Cup playoffs! I'll just have the TV on mute and hack away for hours. I watch a lot of sports on TV and I try to play as much as I can.

Scene: Did you ever want to give up music?

Ehnes: Not really. There was a time near the end of my competition circuit where I decided (to quit). I actually remember making the decision onstage. I was at one of these competitions and thinking, I hate this. That was a step for me, almost like deciding what it is I do and why I do it. It wasn't, "I don't want to play the violin." It wasn't even, "I don't want to compete so much." It was that moment of recognizing that the philosophy of the music competition didn't appeal to me.

I was very lucky, though, that through the competitions that I did do I was able to meet enough influential people to allow me to get out of that scene. It can be a real burnout for a lot of people.

Scene: If classical music goes the way of the Dodo, do you think it would matter?

Ehnes: It's not a valid question. Not gonna happen. I think it has always mattered a lot to a few people, and it still matters a lot to a few people. And it's always going to be in trouble, but in my lifetime it's not going to go. And I hope to do as much as I can to preserve it for the next generation after myself.

Scene: Your manager Walter Homburger handled Glenn Gould when Gould was alive. What's the best advice he's ever given you?

Ehnes: Patience. He's taught me that sometimes you have to be patient and wait and see how things will pan out. And he's taught me that anything that you don't earn, you never really have at all. Anything that's given to you without really earning it and deserving it becomes as unimportant as if it was never there.

And conversely I've also learned from him that there are times in life and in business when you have to just go for it, right then. He's certainly like that as a business manager. He really is a fascinating guy.

Scene: Tell me about the Bruch piece you're playing with Orchestra London.

Ehnes: It's got incredible beauty and these soaring lines, and it's got a lot of virtuoso pyrotechnics and whatnot, so you get your money's worth if you're looking for the violinist to play a lot of notes.

I can't imagine that it would be a disappointment to anyone, because no matter what you're looking for in a violin concerto, you'll find it in the Scottish Fantasy.

September 23, 1999

copyright 1999, Michelle Lynne Goodfellow

an interview with cellist Yegor Dyachkov

Before I spoke to cellist Yegor Dyachkov over the phone from his home in Montreal, I curled up in my room with his press kit and read it with the enthusiasm generally reserved for bedtime stories.

Dyachkov will perform the Dvorak Cello Concerto Op. 104 with Orchestra London on October 27 and 28. When this 25-year-old dynamo steps onstage at Centennial Hall, Londoners will be treated to the sounds of a young man who has traveled half the world (and half a lifetime) to get there.

Born in 1974 and raised by musician parents in Moscow, Dyachkov entered the Russian conservatory system at a surprisingly advanced age (eight-and-a-half), in a country where students with any hopes for a professional career are expected to begin their studies at the age of four.

Four years later the family's exit visas finally came through (after a 10-year wait, during which time Dyachkov's parents had been unable to work as musicians), and they left Russia for good.

They settled in Canada when a world-renowned cellist told them that Montreal resident Yuli Turovsky was the best teacher for the already extraordinarily talented young student. Dyachkov also had the privilege of studying with the legendary Boris Pergamenschikow in Cologne for three years.

Dyachkov began performing professionally at 15, as a soloist with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, and with the Montreal-based chamber group I Musici. His star has continued to rise on the international music scene, and he released his first CD, entitled Arensky Glazunov, in 1997.

With this high drama swirling in my head, I telephoned Dyachkov to learn more. He told me he started playing the cello almost by accident. His parents thought it would be a good instrument for him, but he wanted to be a zookeeper. His mother told him that the animals loved cello music the best.

He then sobered me with tales of the competitive Russian conservatory system, and admitted that his dissatisfaction with some of his early training has influenced the way he teaches the students he now meets in master classes.

We got to talking about music competitions, and Dyachkov admitted that although he excelled at the competition game during his teens, he saw little value in it, except as a way to reward those who were good at competing, not necessarily the best musicians.

Dyachkov says he has no favorite repertoire - he prefers to be a musician proficient in every style and period.

If he does have a preference, it's for performing chamber music, because he likes the intimacy that can develop between the players. As a soloist he also finds chamber work enjoyably humbling - he must continually strive to find the balance between emphasizing individual lines of music and playing a supporting role.

I closed our conversation by asking him what he would wish for if I could grant him one wish, and Dyachkov was touchingly straightforward in his response.

"To be able to play with colleagues with whom I would enjoy playing - on a regular basis - at nice venues. Is that too much to wish for?" (Dyachkov laughs)

"I think, really, the wish is to be able to make music in a livable setting with wonderful musicians. And to be able to do that without worrying too much about whether you survive or not."

October 21, 1999

copyright 1999, Michelle Lynne Goodfellow

an interview with Marion Woodman

One of my favorite articles I ever wrote was about Jungian psychoanalyst Marion Woodman. I had long been an admirer of Woodman's work (including Addiction to Perfection: The Still Unravished Bride, The Maiden King: Triumph of the Feminine (with Robert Bly), and Bone, a memoir of Woodman's battle with uterine cancer). When I discovered Woodman was going to be giving a rare lecture in her home town, I approached an editor of The London Free Press (where I had never sold a story) and in a moment of uncharacteristic boldness got my story published.

When I spoke to Marion Woodman last week, I could look out my window and see this season's first snowfall covering everything with a blanket of white. Woodman, who was leading a conference with Robert (Iron John) Bly at the William and Mary University in Williamsburg, Va., was delighted to hear that it had snowed, and asked me when the weather in London had turned cold. "Winter is coming!" she said, with anticipation.

Well-known for her work on eating disorders, addictions, and the psychology of the feminine in both men and women, this Jungian analyst, called a "national treasure" by University of Western Ontario's Alumni Association (which recently awarded her its Professional Achievement Award), will be returning home to London to give the annual George Goth Memorial Lecture at Metropolitan United Church on Wednesday night.

The lecture series, set up following the 1990 death of Metropolitan's beloved minister emeritus, has previously featured University of Alberta sociologist Reginald Bibby, Canadian historian Michael (Right Honorable Gentlemen) Bliss, and CBC Radio's Ideas host Lister Sinclair, among others. Committee chairperson Josephine Wilcox admits that the choice of Woodman for this year's lecture was not without controversy.

"There are, you know, some people who are totally opposed to any thought of Jungian analysis. We had one person who refused to contribute to the (lecture) fund, on account of we'd asked (Woodman) to speak."

Many members of the Metropolitan community are quick to point out, however, that the presence of Woodman on the speaker's podium this year is right in line with the spirit of the lecture series.

Says Metropolitan senior minister Robert Ripley: "The tone of the George Goth lectures is set to match the tone of George Goth's ministry, which was, for many years, to engage people in thoughtful debate. That was one of the main goals of his preaching and ministry. And so the committee in charge of the lectures has always sought to bring in people who will simply carry on that tradition of challenging people in their thinking."

Longtime Metropolitan member and friend of Goth, Jim Guest, concurs. "George Goth was provocative. Very much so. He was stimulating, he was colorful. Some people would say eccentric. Outspoken. Fearless."

He continues: "Marion was a good friend of George Goth's, too. George was a great admirer of hers. Marion, of course, has her own way of being outspoken, and in the forefront of opinion, and in that sense they're kindred spirits. So it seemed a nice fit to have somebody who's not afraid to say what she thinks, and George would admire her for that. He wouldn't necessarily agree with her, but he would admire her for her right to speak."

Raised in southwestern Ontario, Woodman spent nearly 20 years as a high school English teacher at South secondary school before becoming an analyst. Since closing her successful Toronto practice a few years ago, she has been teaching and lecturing and is currently working on her eighth book.

About Wednesday's lecture, titled Recognizing Advent, she says: "I'm looking at Christianity at the end, and the beginning, of a new millennium." Interestingly enough, it wasn't until this minister's daughter left for the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland, in the mid-1970s that she began to understand the significance of Advent.

While in Switzerland, she found that many of the households and churches kept beautiful Advent wreaths. And through the ceremonial lighting of the candles Sunday after Sunday during the four weeks preceding Christmas, Woodman "became very aware of the 'coming of the light,' symbolically."

She adds: "I think that a spiritual preparation for Christmas is so important in our commercialized society, because without it, (Christmas) ends up being just an exhausting time. I'm going to try and say that instead of Christmas just being a time of spending so much time buying presents, and cooking food, and becoming exhausted, so that you're not even there on Christmas Day, it can be a time of new birth, where a whole new value system is possible."

When asked what attracts people to Jungian psychology, Woodman suggests that many "are finding terrible emptiness in their lives right now. They are losing some of their old beliefs. They see institutions that they have trusted all their lives collapsing. And many are losing jobs that they could never have imagined they would lose; they are being declared redundant.

"They experience the framework of their lives collapsing. And they are very frightened. So they are trying to find something inside that can be a bulwark of strength. And the Jungian work leads them to soul. Once they learn how to work with their own dream imagery, they have treasures for the rest of their lives."

Sunday, November 1, 1997

copyright 1997, Michelle Lynne Goodfellow

an interview with violinist Lara St. John

Google my name (Michelle Lynne Goodfellow) and you'll find this article in the top ten results. I wrote it for the September 27, 1998 issue of Scene magazine, a London, Ontario arts and entertainment bi-weekly.

She was a child prodigy. She's posed half-naked on CD covers. She plays a 1702 Stradivarius violin. Lara St. John is a provocative 27-year-old London native and she is returning to the city this weekend for Orchestra London's season opener, where she'll perform Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1.

St. John recently spoke to Scene writer Michelle Lynne Goodfellow from Vancouver, where she was crashing before a performance after a 30-hour travel ordeal.

Michelle Lynne Goodfellow: You'll probably never have another interviewer be able to say this, but I used to play the violin with you when I was little. I took Suzuki, and when I was about six or seven I was in group concerts with you and your brother (Scott St. John, also a well-known concert violinist).

Lara St. John: Really? I've seen pictures of that, but I don't remember it. I was, like, two and three or something. I was really young. Wow! Do you still play?

Goodfellow: No! Are you kidding?

copyright 1998, Michelle Lynne Goodfellow

Read the rest of the article at:

www.larastjohn.com/reviews/interviews/londonweekly.html

(The truth is, I was a horrible violinist as a child...)