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CONTEST CIOC Pipe dream turned reality Christian Lane, 2011 CIOC Winner by CRYSTAL CHAN christian Lane didn’t think he’d be back. It was just around the time that he left Montreal after placing as a semi-finalist at the inaugural Canadian International Organ Competition (CIOC) in 2008 that the competition-fatigue kicked in. “I was mentally done with competitions,” he explains. Not surprising, as Lane had been playing the competition circuit with the degree of seriousness more commonly seen in his fellow keyboardists, the piano players, from a very early age. He first tried his hand at the organ at age five. He was learning seriously by grade two (he had easy access to organs while growing up, as his father was a United Methodist pastor in Hampstead, and then Walkersville, Maryland). Before turning 21, he had won four major competitions: the Albert Schweitzer OC/USA, the American Guild of Organists Region III Competition for Young Organists, the Augustana Arts/Reuter National Undergraduate OC, and the Arthur Poister National OC. He then went on to place second at the prestigious AGO National Young Artist Competition and Miami IOC. Lane, now 30, is Harvard University’s associate university organist and choirmaster; he’s been with Harvard since fall 2008, where he not only plays but also teaches the repertoire of the great masters: from Frescobaldi to Messiaen. He’s also taken a keen interest in commissioning new music, especially alongside frequent collaborator, soprano Jolle Greenleaf. “I think that a good organist has to be well versed in all styles of rep,” says Lane. “Trends come and go. If you were to look at the 60s and 70s, there was a huge movement away from anything that is Romantic. It was all about performance practice, and [early music] was the only good true music. I think that that’s absurd; as organists we need to embrace our repertoire. And we are blessed with the common[ly-played] modern instrument with the widest repertoire; there are people writing really inventive music for the organ today but people also wrote for it back in the 15 th century!” Why did he jump back on the competition wagon for the CIOC? “It’s such a high class affair,” explains Lane. “They really know what they’re doing.” The Notre-Dame Basilica’s Casavant organ is “huge and fun to play.” And he was eager to meet fellow organists—some of the top in the world. All this seems more exciting to him than his winning first prize, although he acknowledges it “opens a tremendous number of doors.” “Since I’ve gotten back everybody has been asking me if I’m on cloud nine,” he continues. “And I’m not. Because for me, this is what I do—I play the organ. I set a goal: to go to Montreal and play as well as I could. But for me winning this goal isn’t this life-changing event. It’s always luck to a degree. I was shocked. I never feel like I play well enough.” He shrugs off the suggestion that, in fact, his winning so many competitions points to his playing very well, saying: “My strength is not playing all the right notes and having the most perfect technique. It’s definitely not.” He “Everybody is asking me since I’ve gotten back if I’m on cloud nine. And I’m not. Because for me, this is what I do—I play the organ.” pauses, then concedes: “But I think that I have something to say. And I know how to tame this instrument that is so untamable—even for really fine technical players.” The trick involves solving how to convey rhythm with an instrument that does not convey dynamics between notes. “So much of playing the organ comes down to finding a way to communicate through really vibrant rhythm,” he claims. “We usually perceive rhythm based on strong beats being louder, but you can’t do that on the organ. The organist must come up with ways to make the listener perceive loudness.” Techniques include holding notes on strong beats a little longer. “I think conveying that rhythm and therefore being able to communicate is probably my biggest strength,” he adds. Ultimately, communicating to others through the organ is also intensely personal. As he says: “For me, music in general and organ being one vehicle for that is how I both center myself and also have some spiritual grounding.” LSM Solo Organ Recital on May 18, 2012, at the Organix Festival in Toronto at the Metropolitan United Church www.organixconcerts.ca www.christianlane.com 48 DECEMBER 2011 / JANUARY 2012
PORTRAIT Raymond Cloutier One passion, Many Domains by ROXANA PASCA atheatre and cinema giant, Raymond Cloutier has worn many hats over the course of his career: actor, director, writer, teacher, and radio personality. Since 2007, he has been the head of the Con servatoire d’art dramatique de Montréal. It’s a role tailor-made for this enthusiast. Fiction and Reality Born into a family of hoteliers, Raymond Cloutier attended boarding school from a young age. It was there that he discovered theatre. “From the age of five or six, I was on stage all the time,” he recalls. At first, theatre was merely a way to relieve boredom at school, but it soon became a refuge. “Thanks to theatre, my life at boarding school became more comfortable,” he says. “It made life a little more meaningful.” His youth was spent, as he puts it, “not in the reality of a family, but in the reality of fiction and theatre.” When he was offered a place at the Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Montréal, Cloutier thought he had found his happy ending. “I didn’t know what else to do,” he says. “I was stuck in this fictional universe.” At the Conservatoire with teachers such as François Cartier and Georges Groux, he learned the art of performance and how to push the limits of his gift as an actor. “Everything was interesting to me,” he says of his four years at the Conservatoire, one of which was spent in Quebec City with Jean Valcourt and Marc Doré studying creative theatre, improv, and experimental theatre. Cloutier graduated from the Conservatoire in 1968 with great distinction and a wealth of knowledge. The wait for success was short. Noticed at an improv night, he was offered a series of unexpected contracts: a role in Le Drap, a play staged in Strasbourg, and another in Les quinze rouleaux d’argent presented in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. “I had one contract from October to late November in Strasbourg, and another one from January to May in La Chaux-de-Fonds in addition to a tour in Switzerland, eastern France, and a few performances in Paris. It was a dream year.” Anything but Ordinary In addition to being an enriching experience, Raymond Cloutier’s year in Europe introduced him to the secret life of a theatre troupe. This “communal and bohemian” lifestyle was based on a cooperative and egalitarian model in which everyone—the director, the technicians, PHOTO Alain Tremblay and all the actors in between—earned the same salary. The experience sparked the Grande Cirque Ordinaire, an extraordinary adventure for the emerging actor. With collectively created shows, the troupe wanted to make theatre that was “absolutely not alienating,” he says. Supported by Albert Millaire and the Théâtre Populaire du Québec, the Grande Cirque Ordinaire staged nine productions between 1969 and 1978, including T’es pas tannée, Jeanne d’Arc ? (1969), La famille transparente (1970) and T’en rappelles-tu Pibrac ? (1971). The latter tells the true story of a small village near Jonquière that was to be flooded. However, in the shadow of the recent October Crisis, it was judged too outrageous and political. Raymond Cloutier and his friends were therefore dismissed from the Grand Cirque Ordinaire. The setback didn’t discourage the young actor, so full of ideas and ambition; a few years later he would produce two solo shows, Mandrake chez lui in 1976 and Le Rendez-vous d’août in 1977. From the Stage to the Screen Alongside his fledgling theatre career, Cloutier also pursued a career in cinema. He started big with a role in Gilles Carle’s Red (1970), followed by another in La tête de Normande Saint-Onge (1975). Working with Carle was not at all easy for the actor, as the director’s methods were not always compatible with his own. Gilles Carle, influenced by the documentary school of the NFB, was an adept at cinema vérité. “He thought that by putting me in real situations, I would become a better actor.” As a result, Cloutier often found himself in unexpected situations, such as the time Carle had him attacked by fifteen men during shooting in order to capture the most authentic fear possible. “For an actor who had been on stage since the age of five, who did four years at the Conservatoire followed by a European tour, it was an absolute insult.” Following this somewhat disconcerting collaboration with Gilles Carle, Cloutier continued his cinema career with, among others, Jean-Claude Labrecque’s les Vautours (1975) and l’Affaire Coffin (1980), Lionel Chetwynd’s Two Solitudes (1978), Jean Beaudin’s Cordélia (1980), Brigitte Sauriol’s Rien qu’un jeu (1983), Jean-Marc Vallée’s Liste Noire (1995) and more recently, Simon Lavoie’s Le déserteur (2008), Michel Monty’s Une vie qui commence (2010) and Sylvain Archambault’s French Kiss (2011). It’s also worth noting that he has also portrayed a number of prestigious figures on television, including Louis Riel in the Georges Bloomfield series Riel (1979) and Jean Drapeau in Alain Chartrand’s series Montréal ville ouverte (1992). A Passion for Writing “I always told myself that I should write a couple of novels in my lifetime,” Raymond Cloutier confesses. The dream became a reality in 1998 with the publication of Un retour simple, an improvised novel written in the same manner as the shows of the Grand Cirque Ordinaire. One year later, it was followed by Le beau milieu, an essay on the structure of the diffusion of Montreal theatre. In 2000, he published his second novel, Le Maître d’hôtel. “It’s the divine side of writing that interests me, that pure and unlimited freedom,” he says. This passion for writing and literature led him to host literary shows on Radio-Canada’s Première chaîne from 2004 to 2008. During this period, he had to read five novels per week. From this experience, he concluded that “too many people write too many novels.” “It was a bit inhibiting,” he says. “I thought, if I want to write, I’d better write something really good, or else it won’t be worth the trouble.” Nevertheless, his desire to write remains and he has not ruled out the possibility of publishing another novel. On top of his creative pursuits, Raymond Cloutier has a long history of teaching. He has taught the art of improvisation—“spontaneous creation”—to generations of actors. “It’s quite moving to see these young people who couldn’t get up and improvise a few months ago becme masters of substance, balls of invention,” he remarks. A passion for youth and the dissemination of knowledge persuaded Cloutier to resume his post as the director of the Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Montréal in 2007, a prestigious position that he had held from 1987 to 1995. While he recognizes the talents and aptitudes of Conservatoire graduates, he confesses that he has little confidence in their futures. “We need a network of companies, especially permanent theatres, throughout Quebec,” he says. That way, young actors, at least the best among them, would have the chance to be on stage and live their art. “I’m hoping to get the Minister of Culture to help create stepping stones for these young actors,” Cloutier says. “We’ve focused so much on the survival of [the French language], but a language doesn’t survive all on its own. It survives thanks to literature and theatre.” LSM TRANSLATION: REBECCA ANNE CLARK DECEMBER 2011 / JANUARY 2012 49
Page 2 and 3: CONTENTS DECEMBER 2011 — JANUARY
Page 4 and 5: y CAROLINE RODGERS PHOTOS OF ANA SO
Page 6 and 7: ON THE COVER SVADBA PHOTOS John Lau
Page 8 and 9: N TES by CRYSTAL CHAN, REBECCA ANNE
Page 10 and 11: discovery cd Transposing Tradition
Page 12 and 13: PORTRAIT ALEXANDRE DA COSTA A passi
Page 14 and 15: MUSICULTURE to create music for a f
Page 16 and 17: MUSICULTURE IN MEMORIAM Maryvonne K
Page 18 and 19: PHOTO Philippe Jasmin PORTRAIT NÉZ
Page 20 and 21: OPERA HIROMI OMURA will play Leonor
Page 22 and 23: PORTRAIT LAN TUNG Taiwanese-born er
Page 24 and 25: CONCERT Previews by RENÉE BANVILLE
Page 26 and 27: PREVIEWS A GREAT LIEDER PERFORMER A
Page 28 and 29: 2011 DECEMBER in QUEBEC TO LIST YOU
Page 30 and 31: TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY S
Page 32 and 33: PREVIEWS Elsewhere in QUEBEC OPERA
Page 34 and 35: Mozart: Don Giovanni. McGill S.O.;
Page 36 and 37: SALUTE TO VIENNA Salute to Vienna b
Page 38 and 39: jazz Jazz is particularly fond of h
Page 40 and 41: JAZZ REVIEWS News from Europe Dutch
Page 42 and 43: REVIEWS » cds • dvds• books A
Page 44 and 45: REVIEWS CDs they had already record
Page 46 and 47: variations ON A THEME Looking for a
Page 50 and 51: ARTS THIS WINTER ΩDance by TAO FEI
Page 52 and 53: ARTS THIS WINTER Visual Arts by JUL
Page 54 and 55: ADISQ 2011 NOMINATION ALBUM OF THE

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