Alexandra Lee says it was the pull of family and the push of serendipity that led her and her husband Nicholas Ross to move with their two young children from Sudbury, Ont. to Nanaimo last month.
Lee, formerly the principal cellist for the Sudbury Symphony Orchestra, was teaching at a string instrument camp in Ottawa when she was approached by the mother of Hannah Wilson, cello instructor at the Nanaimo Conservatory of Music. Wilson was stepping down from her position and her mother asked Lee if she wanted to take her place.
“It sort of started to percolate in our minds,” Lee said of the offer.
Lee’s family had been gradually moving from Ontario to B.C., starting with her sister, who moved to the West Coast to become a marine biologist, followed by her godmother and her husband. Once Lee’s parents heard from multiple sources about “flowers in February” they decided to move to Campbell River.
“They’re getting up there in age and since we had kids I was thinking more and more about wanting to be closer to my family, wanting my kids to know their grandparents more,” Lee said.
“So it was this mixture of my family being in this area and then by chance just happening to hear that they were looking for a cello teacher and making the dive of, ‘OK, we’re going to move the family across the country and try this out.'”
Ross, formerly the principal second violin with the Sudbury Symphony Orchestra said, “It was a bit of a leap of faith and an adventure,” to uproot their young family, but added that he already knew some members of the Vancouver Island Symphony, which made it a “comfortable decision.”
Now the musical couple is teaching together at the conservatory. Ross said working together under the same roof comes naturally. They operated a home studio in Sudbury and have always incorporated music into their lives. The pair even met through music when Ross, working as a personnel manager, hired Lee to play with the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra.
“It’s interesting bringing the musical and teaching side of things and the family side of things together because we like our children to be involved in music, too. And they see lessons happening as well and they’re picking up on that, too, that music is a part of our life,” Ross said.
“That’s part of the way we want to teach, as well. We want to say to students, ‘Music is part of life and make it a part of your life. Just have music in your house and listen a lot and pick up your instrument and play a lot,’ and that’s the way in which family and our jobs come together.”
Lee said she sees similarities between Sudbury and Nanaimo, as each city has industrial roots and later experienced artistic blooms. She said the Northern Ontario city has a new school of architecture and as they left construction was underway for a new arts centre.
Ross said the move is “new start” for their family, but at the same time he sees it as a continuation of their work contributing the culture of their community through performance and education.
“We know that there are some wonderful musicians here already and we want to connect with them and we hope to work with them and I’m sure we will because that’s what musicians do: We seek each other out and then make music,” he said.
Lee said she’s felt a “warm welcome” since arriving in Nanaimo and she’s eager to explore and be a part of the community of the Island as a whole.
“So far I think our lives have been enriched a lot by the musical colleagues that we’ve had and the influence that we’ve been able to have in our students and in our communities that we’ve worked in and I’m just looking forward to being able to do that here, too,” she said.
“It’s been a really exciting and revitalizing move for us.”
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