It is a truth universally acknowledged that a musician must sometimes cancel an appearance.
When Chris James, a flutist with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, heard that his friend Cassandra Bequary had to cancel an upcoming concert in Sidney, he volunteered to step in.
And so, on March 4 at 2:30 p.m., concertgoers at St. Paul’s United Church will hear a flute instead of a violin. It will be James’ first visit to Vancouver Island, and he said he is excited for the last-minute opportunity.
“I kind of love it,” he said, speaking from a practice room at the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s School of Music, right beside the Orpheum Theatre. “It’s sort of a rush.”
Though the instruments are different, one piece is the same. The Prokofiev violin sonata on the program was originally written for flute. That way, pianist Jannie Burdeti does not need to learn a new piano part.
James will play a varied program spanning centuries and continents. The first half will feature a C.P.E. Bach sonata and a piece by Polish-American composer Robert Muczynski, both of which he played in competition in Japan.
He will also include a set of three Philippe Gaubert pieces, which James described as “three short gems” that aren’t often heard. Finally, he will play a piece by R. Murray Schafer, “the grandfather of Canadian composers.”
Schafer has the distinction of being the only living composer in his program. It is an excerpt from And The Wolf Shall Inherit the Moon, “a real firework of a piece” that features the lowest and highest notes a flute can play. It is meant to be played in the forest near Ontario’s Algonquin Park as the sun rises, and it is still played each year as part of a week-long festival.
“It helps to visualize yourself waking up in the woods. You’re living in a tent, day is breaking,” said James. “There’s a noise that’s repeated in the beginning that you could interpret as the performer warming up his instrument, sort of exploring the woods are like around you.”
James was born in Toronto and went to music school in the U.S., playing in orchestras there and teaching before moving to Vancouver to become assistant principal flute and piccolo chair. He was a part of three different orchestras while taking other engagements as they came up.
“That was the fun thing about the freelance life,” said James. “You never knew when the phone was going to ring and where you were going to be.”
However, James said most American orchestras have no full time positions. He was dividing his time between three symphonies and fitting freelance gigs in between, so coming home to Canada and having a full-time job provides welcome security.
“It’s a dream to be in one place.”
The concert is March 4 at 2:30 at St. Paul’s United Church. Tickets are $20, $15 for students and available at the door, with ten per cent of the proceeds going to the church.
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