Nov. 16, 2005 - Issue #526: Sex, Lust & Love
Going solo
Esteemed soloists Amanda Forsyth and Jessica Linnebach look forward to playing
for a hometown crowd
Along with their visit to the Winspear Centre for the Arts this Saturday, two rising soloists will also be coming home to visit friends and family. For cellist Amanda Forsyth and violinist Jessica Linnebach, Edmonton is more than just a stop on the National Arts Centre (NAC) Orchestra’s prairie tour; it’s an opportunity to visit with their fathers, who are in turns both prominent Edmonton-based music personalities.
Juno award winner and principal cellist Amanda Forsyth will be soloing in her father’s composition “Electra Rising,” backed by both the NAC and the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. According to Forsyth, the piece by her father, world-renowned Canadian composer and three-time Juno winner Malcolm Forsyth, was inspired by and written for his daughter. “It’s actually biographical; the story of my life through his composing ,” she explains. “It goes through birth and innocence, trials and tribulations, and then the calm before the storm, then the storm, and taking flight into full-fledged artist.”
In another sort of homecoming, “Electra Rising” also has roots at the Winspear. “I actually recorded it in the Winspear centre before the audience seats were in,” Amanda recalls. “It’s one of the first things that was done in there.” And though it has been eight years since the debut, she hasn’t grown tired of playing her father’s composition. “It’s very beautiful, and each time I play it, I always have different ideas.”.
Fellow soloist and violinist Jessica Linnebach is also excited about performing in her hometown—“I’m always going to be an Alberta girl,” she smiles. Linnebach will play Bach’s “Concerto For Two Violins in D minor” with the NAC’s conductor and co-soloist Pinchas Zuckerman. Linnebach’s skills have taken her all over the world, both with the NAC and the Zuckerman Chamber Players, a quintet of NAC members.
The path to success has seemed natural for Linnebach. “It just sort of happened,” she says. “When I went away for school at Curtis, I didn’t even know what it was.” (The Curtis Institute of Music just so happens to be one of the premier music conservatories in the world.) “When I got there it just sort of kept going,” she explains. “I never made the choice that I wanted to become a professional musician. I always feel very lucky.”
One might assume that globetrotting musicians like Forsyth and Linnebach would find a tour through the prairies anticlimactic, but nothing could be further from the truth. A central component of the NAC’s musical mandate is education, and Forsyth feels that it is important to expose children and the heretofore uninitiated to classical music. “Playing for people who don’t have access is sort of our job; it gets rid of the whole snobbery of classical music,” she says. “Making sure that everyone has access to it is very Canadian of us, I would say! We take ourselves to them.”
Whether the audiences are made up of children or long-time classical music lovers, these artists share a commitment to music. “It’s my life… it’s everything,” says Linnebach. “It’s the way I express myself. I can’t imagine not playing—it just seems like the most natural thing.”
“It never turns off; you don’t turn off the musical brain,” Forsyth agrees. “It just keeps going, the brain and the soul… you’re feeling, listening and learning.”
No matter whether novice or seasoned concertgoer, all those lucky enough to be in attendance are sure to hear something special as these two rising stars and massed orchestras come together in a special treat for the hometown crowd. V
Sarah Forsyth and Jessica Linnebach
Conducted by Pinchas Zukerman • Winspear Centre • Sat, Nov 19 (7:30 pm)
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