Jonathan Stuchbery

Dropping the statement, 'I am a professional musician' at a social gathering, or at the dinner table with the extended family is almost always met with these two responses: *surprised, smiling face* "It's great to hear that you are doing something you love with you life", and then "What do you do then?" That second statement (the question) often gets this response: blank stare, half open mouth, thinking what the simplest way to describe my life is. I can't simply bombard them with, "well I played for this ensemble's' concert last week, and I am playing a reception next week, and I am collecting research data, and then I have this accompaniment gig, etc etc etc etc" on and on for ever. And that is maybe not even the best description of what it IS that I do. If were to explain what it is I am always striving to do I would say "spread joy, through music, performance experience and education" I would have the follow up question "Great, but what's your job?" as if to imply that I can't earn a living that way! I know....if you are a musician reading this I'm sure you've had similar experiences. 

Well folks, I'm going to try and answer the question "What do musicians do?" through a series of blog posts including interviews with guests specializing in different areas of the music world. This series' purpose is to give some insight, not simply into how a musician earns a living, but how our craft interacts with our lives, how the experience of working in this field effects us and those around us, and most importantly to demonstrate the great variety of things we do and how we all become interconnected through our areas of expertise.

Many people who know me, know that I am an outgoing person, and I love to host, but when attending another's social gatherings I turn out to be quite shy to speak and find it frustratingly difficult to hold a conversation, let alone begin one! In these situations, sometimes I just want to hide in the corner, take my instrument out, please myself by playing music and ignore the fact that I can't seem to connect with anyone around me. Well I did just this the other day at a holiday party, and what happened but a elderly man who hadn't been speaking much either came up to me and told me he had brought his harmonica and asked if I'd like to play with him. Of course I said yes and we played half a dozen or so old tunes which I was able to improvise accompaniments to. Suddenly I'd made a connection with someone. Both of us were smiling, enjoying ourselves, along with the others in the room. After that we put the instruments down; I learned that he often played and danced at some of the local dance events and I shared a bit about my experience at community dances. The ability to improvise and be spontaneous that I work on and value so much with my musician colleagues in 'performance land' became the means to make meaningful connections in the big scary and intimidating area of  *real world human interaction*. What I'm trying to demonstrate here is that in my life, even if I pursue it as a career, music is not merely something to be shared through performance and concertizing, it is an art, activity, whatever you like to call it, that brings people together. And thank god for that! It means that I can step out of the performance spotlight and play with anyone in any situation and continue to create something of real value.  

 

Next week I will be in conversation with composer Arie van de Ven about his life as a music creator. Arie is a good friend of mine and a wonderful composer. Currently I am working with the Cygnus Trio towards a February world premiere of his piece Algoma Miniatures for flute, violin and guitar; an image rich four movement piece depicting towns in the Algoma region of Ontario. Keep posted, we will be updating our performance schedule very soon to include the date and venue of this performance in Toronto.

As always you can keep up do date on my performances and recordings via my website www.jonathanstuchbery.com but do consider joining my mailing list and you will have all the most recent information sent directly to your inbox and which will soon feature exclusive links to recordings. 

You can also follow the Cygnus Trio at www.thecygnustrio.com

THANKS FOR READING

Here is a blog I wrote last month on the Cygnus Trio website that talks about our continuing journey finding and playing new repertoire for flute, violin and guitar.

The original post can be found here https://thecygnustrio.com/2017/07/07/music-to-play-music-to-enjoy-music-for-all-2/ on the Cygnus Trio website.

I'm currently at work on a new blog series project with a focus on deciphering the world of a professional musician, with some super guest contributions!

Music to Play, Music to Enjoy, Music for All

Two things. 

“Hey isn’t this great, we have an unusual instrumentation people are going to love it, we are so trendy and new!” GREAT! But. “Hey come to think of it, I’ve never heard of this ensemble before either…and I’m part of it….what are we going to play? Is there anything for us to play!!!?” 

It’s time to pick repertoire, it’s time perform, what are we going to do? As an ensemble this it the issue we’ve had to work with over the years. We’ve learned to love our abnormal instrumentation and how it ties in very well with our vision to bring composed music to relatively unknown spaces and audiences. I’d like this blog to encourage any of you to follow through on something that isn’t necessarily easy to put together, because in our process of finding and creating new repertoire we have learned a lot about ourselves, and about the people in our community. 

So! 

Step one. Find out what is already out there. For this I had the advantage of a former guitar teacher, Selwyn Redivo, who has lots of experience with chamber groups and was able to recommend some repertoire. Our first piece was Joseph Kreutzer’s Trio in D Major (yes for flute, violin and guitar! YAY!), a classical trio. We also found Paul Angerer’s 1961 trio for recorder, violin and guitar. These two pieces are important parts of our repertoire, but two pieces is not enough for a concert program! What else is there? Trios for treble instruments and guitar? We’ve done our fair share swapping instrumentations for pieces for two recorders and guitar, or two violins and guitar to fit our trio. We have found some beautiful music this way and have been able to bring a new sound pieces by Cesar Bresgen, Folk songs from different cultures and more. Certainly when we play music from the 19th century and earlier the possibilities of interchanging treble instruments are greater. Many pieces in the repertoire were published for flute (or violin) and guitar of vice-versa, so we have found a delightful choice of repertoire from the baroque period of music for treble instruments and continuo. Music by Telemann and Rosenmuller for example. The keyword for our initial search is certainly diversity, it would have been practically impossible for us to have started a concertizing ensemble with this instrumentation trying to specialize in one area of music, there simply was not enough repertoire in a certain area. This taught us to enjoy playing music of many styles and solidified the unusual trajectory of this abnormal ensemble! Pairing folk songs with 19th century music wasn’t only a matter of taste, it was even a necessity! 

Step two. Arrangements! This was a really fun step for me because it challenged me to engage myself more in the creation of scores and to think more seriously about the roles of each of our instruments. It has also been liberating because it engages more of the composer side of me, which has been otherwise relatively dormant in the past few years. I enjoyed arranging several folk tunes (allowing myself to be quite liberal harmonically and structurally) for the ensemble, and Erica also worked on rearranging a part for violin in a trio version of Astor Piazzolla’s “Le Grand Tango”. Arrangements are an opportunity to provide a fresh perspective on existing tunes, a way that we can relate personally with the piece, especially if it is being expanded from a single melody line to an ensemble. Questions like, “which instrument does this line belong to?” I think about timbre and variety, or “what harmony belongs here?” I love this work, and it allows the ensemble to be a new part of this wider, ever-changing and shifting world of music. 

Step three. New music. I think I can easily say that this has been at once the most exciting, challenging and rewarding part of the process. We believe that it is our duty to expand the repertoire, to collaborate with amazing artists, and to inspire artistic creation. Our first experience of this type was in 2013, before Erica had joined our group. My teacher Selwyn had commissioned music with his trio “Wind in the Woods” a few years earlier for the Meadowlark Festival, a weekend nature festival in the Okanagan Valley. One of those pieces was by Okanagan composer Anita Perry titled “Trio for two recorders and guitar”. With movements “Through the Valley Soaring”, “Desert Plains Shimmering” and “Of Rivers, Streams and Waterways” it is a beautiful musical portrait of the landscape of the Okanagan Valley. Selwyn recommended we try it with our instrumentation, and Anita was happy to tweak the score to accommodate this. The effect was magical, we were hooked on creating new music. We continue to perform this piece now, which was renamed “Okanagan Vignettes” last summer. Now when the three of us were planning our 2016 concert series, Erica proposed we engage composer Charles Zoll to write us a piece. Eagerly we agreed, and in May we had fresh parts and a score. There is nothing quite like getting brand new music in your inbox and printing it off to read through it the first time. The piece pushed us as an ensemble and getting to work with Charles was such a privilege. We premiered AMALGAM by Charles Zoll on August 13th 2016 in Montreal and continued to give four more performances last year. Having Charles with us for three of the concerts to introduce his piece and take questions from an interested audience made the whole experience a huge success. We learned that though this new music didn’t have the advantage of being well known and loved like music by Beethoven or Bach, what it did was expose audiences to something they’ve never experienced before and were maybe uncomfortable with, so when we had time for questions, there were lots, and it is still something we hear back about, very positively, from the communities we have played for. New music has this wonderful ability to arouse curiosity in people, you feel a direct connection to the time at which it was written, which can be a very powerful tool when programming a concert. Since then we have worked with three other composers. We participated in the 2017 Fresh Inc festival, whose emphasis on collaboration between composers and performers (not to mention collaboration IN general) really appealed to us when we were applying. We were paired with Patrick Walker who wrote “Trio for four Instruments” (flute/recorder, violin, and guitar), which was an elegant and clever way of using the instruments available to us. We also worked with Karalyn Schubring on her quintet for flute, oboe, guitar, cello, and violin entitled “Music for a Particularly Sparkly Afternoon”. With both of these composers we benefitted from many opportunities to rehearse together and learn about their pieces and personalities. It was an amazing experience! Currently we are working on a brand new piece “Algoma Miniatures” by Arie Van de Ven, a close friend of mine whose music I admire. We will be premiering this in our 2017 season. Something that is truly inspiring about all the composers that we’ve been able to work is they are all the pieces are so different from each other, yet each one is beautifully composed. We have the delightful pleasure of being able to perform these pieces and create an incredibly diverse program that is yet unified by honesty of the composers’ creations. We are certainly not done collaborating, and are always on the hunt for new music! 

So as you can see, we have built a repertoire for ourselves. At times it has been challenging to program. How do we find a way to put so much variety in a cohesive program? But this challenge has developed our ideas about music and performing, and we have certainly become a much better ensemble by exploring so many possibilities. I also think, that because we are not a group that people are used to seeing, we are given more freedom from the audience to show them something new. So if we play a baroque trio sonata, we can follow it with a brand new composition, and then maybe some folk music, and the public will be enjoying themselves. It’s been great for us, since each of us have very diverse tastes in music, and would really love to play all the music ever! 

Who knows what we will discover next? There is so much out there if you are willing to look. 

We’d love to hear what you think about these subjects. Do you have experience creating something new? Have ever been worried how that might be received? Are you a musician with a similar ensemble and have ideas to share?

The past two weeks at the Fresh inc festival have been incredibly fulfilling for me as an artist. I am currently with the Cygnus trio along with approximately 50 other performers and composers and members of the Fifth House Ensemble, at the beautiful University of Wisconsin-Parkside campus. Here we have been enriching our lives as musicians not only through performing and rehearsing but also through taking part in workshops that cover aspects of life as a musician ranging from rehearsal techniques to business models to film and video game scoring. At the crux of the festival is the repetition and performances of sixteen brand new pieces written by composers attending the festival. I have the priviledge to be playing two excellent pieces: Patrick Walker's Trio for four Instruments (flute doubling recorder, violin, guitar) and Karalyn Schubring's Music for a Particularly Sparkly Afternoom for flute, oboe, guitar, violin, and cello. Getting to know Patrick and Karalyn has been a lot of fun! Both are very skilled composers and have some extraordinary musical talents. Patrick in addition to being an organist plays the bagpipes, and we had the opportunity to perform some traditional celtic music together with him on the penny whistle. Karalyn composes exciting music, including some very flashy latin jazz inspired tunes which she performed for us this last week.

In addition the rewarding musical experiences, the weather has been absolutely gorgeous, and with a long system of forest trails just across the street I can very easily say this trip has been idyllic.

 

The festival has also had us perform in a wide array of venues, including the Milwaukee art Museum, the Golden Rondelle Theater, the HobNob restaurant and bar, and the Kenosha Public library. The Cygnus trio also presented a music and story telling workshop to 3rd to 6th graders at the Sealed Air YMCA. At all of these different venues we've been able to forge personal and meaningful connections with all sorts of audience members. It is really rewarding to see an engaged public, where there becomes a mutual sharing of ideas and interest between us on the stage and everyone in the crowd.

The premiere performances for Fresh Inc take place Saturday June 17 and Sunday June 18; detailed information is provided on my events tab.

 

There's nothing quite like collaborating with other inspiring individuals to create something beautiful. I'd be delighted and curious to know about any collaborations you've done in your life that have been really meaningful, be it an artistic one, or any other. How have other people helped you do something meaningful?

 

 

It's been a busy winter for me this year in Montreal, and the summer is shaping up to be very active as well. Finally I am sitting down to share a bit of what's going on with you! Where do I start? 

I've continued my work performing early music, playing baroque guitar and archlute as a solo and continuo player. You can check out some recordings made in March and April on the music page of this website. The solo baroque guitar and archlute tracks were recorded by the inimitable Phillip Tock, and the Ciaccona performed by myself, Magdalena How, Mikayla Jensen-Large (Sopranos), and Tristan Best (viola da gamba) was recorded by Jon Kaspy. I had the pleasure of performing in two concerts "The Stag, the Pilgrim and the King" and "Monstres & Héros" of Les Méandres first season. This is an ensemble founded by recorder player Jérémie de Pierre and keyboardist Justin Luchinski which focuses primarily on the french baroque repertoire. Life and work as a historic plucked string player is just starting and is growing at an exciting rate!

Highlights for the modern guitar have included performing the Villa Lobos guitar concerto in the final round of the McGill concerto competition in February and performing April 1st for the live at CIRMMT series on classical and electric guitar. I was part of a sectet who premiered Brice Gatinet`s "Conversons" and performed the incredible piece "Quid sit musicus?" by Philippe Leroux. Both pieces were written for ensemble (SATB, guitar, cello) and spacialized electronics which required a huge amount of set up. It was the third piece of Brice's that I have premiered and I understand and feel his musical style very well now, it's a pleasure to work on his music. 

And what's next? June 1st I travel to Wisconsin for the Fresh Inc Festival run by Chicago based contemporary music group the Fifth House Ensemble. There, with the Cygnus Trio and other musicians and composers in attendance I will be part of a number of performances premiering new works for ensembles and receiving training from some of the best musicians in this area. I am also very much looking forward simply to travelling a little bit.

Remember to check out my recently updated music page which now includes two pieces played on baroque guitar: Toccata por la X by Giovanni Battista Granata, and Chaconne by Henry Grenerin, one piece on archlute: Toccata septima from Girolamo Kapsberger's first book of lute music, an anonymous piece Ciaccona di Paradiso e dell'inferno performed with two singers, gamba and archlute, and of course AMALGAM by Charles Zoll written for and performed by the Cygnus Trio

I've been enjoying a very fruitful and inspiring year of music making. The August series of concerts with the Cygnus Trio proved to be a lot of work and a *great* deal of fun! The high point for us was premiering AMALGAM by Charles Zoll, which was written for us. Charles came to Montreal from Arizona for the premier on August 14, and we got to spend the next weekend together as he attended the next two performances of the piece. A huge thanks to Charles for being not only a top-notch composer but for sharing time with us and really enjoying ourselves! Other memorable events we had were playing for a room full of kiddies and taking a trip together down to Syracuse NY. We certainly felt tired after our final concert which was at St Barnabas in St. Lambert, which closed up a month of 12 performances (with a lot of diverse repertoire!) 
The Cygnus Trio will be continuing to perform, and dream up new and wild ideas! Our next performance will be December 1st in Kingston, Ontario. We are also busy collaborating with more composers to create new repertoire for our ensemble.

Some other new projects for me this fall have included reprising the Triptych guitar project, which was an artistic endeavour by Montreal Luthier Jeremy Clark in 2012. He built three absolutely gorgeous guitars, each with a unique blend of woods, and a special sound. He asked Mark Charles Smith to write a piece, Triptych, for these instruments, which was performed and recorded in 2012. This September I have, along with Josephina Lee and Daniel Karrasch, become a part of the Triptych story! We performed "Triptych" on September 30 as part of the Journées de la Culture festival and have been enjoying these instruments. We will doing our recording of Triptych in November. 
I would highly recommend checking out some of Jeremy's work. He is a fine luthier and really has a unique artistic approach to his instruments. We love playing his guitars. 

http://52instruments.com

I'm also working hard on some new solo repertoire, including the enormous First Sonata on Shakespearean Characters by Hans Werner Henze. I will be giving a solo recital on November the 20th at St George's Place du Canada where you can see me perform excerpts from this sonata along with some other fantastic music.

Another new project I've taken on is the Baroque Guitar. I've been interested in early music instruments for a while, and this fall have started taking lessons with lutenist Sylvain Bergeron on the Baroque Guitar. I'm having a great time learning this instrument as well as continuo techniques. Expect to see me perform with this instrument in the future!

That's all for today. Make sure to come to my website to keep up to date on my performances and my musical endeavours!

Another year at study at McGill is over. Time to shake off all the school year stress, and get to work on some exciting new projects. The semester ended well for me, I'm feeling very encouraged by the improvement I made over the past year studying with Jérôme Ducharme, and have worked up some highly enjoyable repertoire. I mentioned some of the endeavours I'll be beginning with the Cygnus Trio in my last blog post, we are currently finalizing our program decisions for our August concert series, which will feature a number performances in and around Montreal. We are very excited to be premiering a new piece by Charles Zoll written for our trio this summer. 
Apart from the trio, I will be continuing to give solo performances, including one in my home town of Penticton on June 11th.
Next Tuesday, the 17th of May I will be on the Tuesday Morning After show on CKUT radio hosted by Jeffrey Mackie. Tune in to 90.3 FM or go online at ckut.ca at 7:30am EST to hear me perform live on air!
As the busy summer season starts to get going I will be keeping you all updated on my musical escapades!

I'm excited to be announcing a new project starting up this summer.  Erica Jacobs-Perkins (violin), Ben Stuchbery (flute), and I have come together again to form the Cygnus Trio!  We will be using our uncommon instrumentation, to bring across new perspectives in music.  Our emphasis is on bringing music TO YOU!  We are on a mission to bring music to a wide variety of venues; to those who seek it, and those who don't know where to start looking. We've been playing together since January 2015, and starting this summer we will be undertaking a number of new projects, including performances at Maison Métivier, Christ Church Cathedral, St. George's Anglican Church, and residencies at Logifem and Chez Doris.  We perform a wide range of music, from Elizabethan dances, to recent compositions.  

If you are interested in booking us for your events, or to come enjoy one of our performances, check out our facebook page and website here 

https://www.facebook.com/thecygnustrio
www.thecygnustrio.com

It's been a busy fall semester at McGill, and busier still with performing.  I played to exciting programs at Christ Church Cathedral in September and October.  One was a solo program, featuring latin american guitar music, and the other was a duo recital with clarinetist Manon Champel.  Both were very successful, with two appreciative audiences.  I also performed with the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble, premiering Juro Kim Feliz's piece "Wilujeng" for Large Ensemble.  My next performance will in Kingston, Ontario on December 3rd.  My brother Ben will be joining me on the flute for a beautiful program as a part of St. George's Cathedral's Advent concert series.  We will be playing some of my favourite music, not just for this ensemble, but overall.  The opening piece is a set of Medieval Christmas pieces arranged for Guitar and Recorder, which are exquisitely beautiful!  If you find yourself in Kingston next month, or know anyone who will be, spread the word!  The following week, on the 7th of December I will be performing in the McGill Guitar Class recital, where I will be playing excerpts from my new transcription of a Sonata by Silvius Weiss.  Keep an eye here to hear about more future events!   Here is a photo from my september recital at Christ Church.

Here I am back in Montreal, after what proved to be an excellent and productive summer! With the academic year now started I'd like to share some of the highlights of the summer.  I enjoyed the opportunity to perform a number of recitals in BC's Okanagan Valley throughout the months of June, and July, which provided me with many things to work on during my practicing time.  It was my immense pleasure to present "Bajo la Palmera" (Under the Palm), a concert featuring music of the Mediterranean, and Latin Americas, alongside pianist Andrew Stoney.  We performed two shows in Salmon Arm, and one in Penticton, to very attentive, and appreciative audiences.  The second program that I prepared was a historic tour of guitar music titled, "The Art of the Guitar".  I gave audiences in Kelowna, and Summerland the chance to hear how composers have approached the instrument, from the four-stringed renaissance guitar, to the modern guitar of the 20th century.  

Being in the Okanagan Valley, seeing the beauty of the mountains, swimming in the lakes, and breathing the air was very inspiring.  It is not too distant in appearance to the hills of Spain, or Italy, so when delving into the music of Tedesco, Sanz, or Sor, the landscape itself seemed to help me express the melodies.  To me at least, there is music that really *desires* to be played in the summer time.  I am sure this can be said about music in other seasons as well, but there is an apparent ease created by the freedom of summer, and by pleasant weather that calls for another Waltz of Barrios, or a Tango of Piazzola!  I took advantage of the natural world around me to .  experience some exciting hikes, and climbs. 

Finally, now that Autumn is fast approaching, and I'm back at McGill continuing my studies, it's time to look forward to the exciting things coming soon.  I am currently hard at work on a transcription of Silvius Weiss' Sonata 25 in G Minor for Lute, which should prove to be an elegant piece for my repertoire.  Later in the month of September, I will be giving a solo recital featuring music by Villa-Lobos, Brouwer, Ponce, and Barrios, for the festivities at Christ Church Anglican Cathedral for Les Journées de la Culture.  Make sure to check out the information for this recital in my events tab, or look at the Cathedral's Facebook event, and calendar for the whole weekend here https://www.facebook.com/events/477048159123816/ . The next day I will also be participating the "L'Oasis Musicale goes to the Movies", which will be an enjoyable performance of some your favourite tunes from the movies! You can see more details for that event here https://www.facebook.com/events/473648899481932/

All in all, although I had a fabulous summer in BC, I am very glad to be back in Montreal.  Look for more blog posts from me soon!

Jonathan

 

Good day friends and fans!  I'm writing from home in Penticton BC, where I've been settling in over the past 3 weeks after a long (and thoroughly enjoyable) year of school in Montreal.  It's been quite a change of pace, going from hurrying from classes to rehearsals, to gigs, and back to my place for the occasional sleep, to quiet days.  I sure have a lot of time in my hands, and I'd like to share with you what kind of things I've been getting up to with all of it!  If you'll look at my upcoming events, you'll see that I've posted info about 3 performances of a program that I will be doing with Salmon Arm pianist Andrew Stoney.  Most of my time has gone into preparing new repertoire for the exciting program that we have planned!  With the first two dates coming up in just under 20 days, Andrew and I met up over this past weekend to start putting the duo music together.  We had a very productive afternoon discussing and playing pieces for the program.  Figuring out when we will 1 2, 1 2, 1 2, or 1 2 3, 1 2 3 in the second movement of Castelnuovo-Tedesco's Fantasia for guitar and piano, proved to be a lengthy and amusing discussion!  The program, featuring duos by Giuliani, Tedesco, and Ponce, as well as music from our own solo repertoires is off to a very good start!  

On Sunday I had the pleasure of providing musical entertainment for the Theo's at 10,000 Feet event, which is a fundraiser raffle draw for the OSNS Child development centre, in which the lucky winners are taken up by helicopter to a ridge overlooking the spectacular South Okanagan, and are then treated to a 5 course Greek meal made by the chef at Theo's Restaurant in Penticton, accompanied by live music.  This is in fact the second year that I have had the privilege of volunteering my guitar playing for the event.  There's nothing quite like making your way out of a helicopter with your guitar in hand, setting up in beautiful Okanagan air, and playing wonderful music for appreciative ears!  As many musician would say, in all honesty, the background music gig never feels particularly rewarding (regardless of the pay cheque), but playing for 10,000 feet is quite a different experience.  We, the volunteer team (yes even the helicopter trip was generously donated!) welcomed four lovely guests to our beautiful mountain top restaurant, and had a considerable amount of fun doing it!  If you ever are crossed with the opportunity like this I would highly recommend it (just don't forget to apply sunscreen!!).