I feel like we�ve sold out.
1:09 p.m.
I was pleasantly surprised yesterday when I got a phone call from a violinist friend of ours whom I had not seen in about five years. He has been teaching at the Orf0rd summer music festival for the past week and-a-half, which is a mere half-hour drive west from here (which is nothing by North American standards) and several of his students were giving a recital at the music camp being currently held at the music department on campus. He was going to be coming for the concert and, apologizing profusely for giving us such short notice, wondered if it would be possible to get together afterwards at the Lion for a beer. I told him we wouldn�t be able to go to the concert, since we had other plans for earlier in the evening, but it would be a pleasure to join him for a brewski later on.
So, after supper, Hubby, Buddy Boy and I watched Kung Fu HustIe which they had rented earlier in the day, in the original Cantonese with English subtitles (well, would you watch a foreign-language film any other way?) and roared with laughter. It had its dark moments, but all in all it was very funny. Afterwards we headed over to the Lion, where we met Stu (not his real name) and we shared a pitcher of amber ale.
We first met him at Banff in 1985 when Hubby and I were making our cross-country trek. He was on the verge of marrying (or had just married) another violinist Hubby had known at university (who had dated a good friend of his who ended up in Vancouver, but that�s another story), and the two of them got to talking about solo violin music and commissions and all sorts of fun things. Hubby ended up writing a solo violin piece for him, which he premiered in Paris the week before I was due to give birth to Little Princess (Hubby missed the premiere, for obvious reasons) and also recorded, and then a couple of years later the violin concerto (the Juno-winning violin concerto) came about.
Stu and his wife were living in Norway for a long time, playing with the Bergen orchestra (concert master and first violin section respectively), then moved to Winnipeg where he was concert master for the M�toba Chamber Orchestra and she played in the W�peg Symphony. During that time, she ended up having both breasts removed due to cancer, and it was very stressful for them and their two boys.
Five years ago they moved to the region of the Nation�s Capital (on the French-speaking side of the river) where Stu is teaching at one of the universities and his wife is freelancing. She is doing fine and he loves his job. It was so nice to see him last night and catch up on old times. I certainly hope we don�t have another hiatus like the last one.
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