Toronto in June is lovely!
Posted on 22. Jun, 2010 by Raquel in IWBC, Music, News, Thoughts, Trumpet, Vacation
So I just got back from the International Women’s Brass Conference held on the campus of Humber College in Toronto, Ontario. It was a great week filled with a competition, performances, reuniting with old friends, and great sight-seeing. Here is a short synopsis of my week. It all began for me on a very early Saturday morning. I drove to Springfield, OH for a graduation gig with the Springfield Symphony Brass Quintet. It was a cool gig, I got a good chop workout and some extra spending money. Afterwards, I got on the road to Toronto. I decided to go half way to Detroit, MI. I stayed at a Super 8 hotel in Detroit, maybe not my best decision, LOL! It wasn’t too bad, but I really think my Super 8 days are over, I will leave it at that.
Map of my drive
From Detroit you enter into Windsor, Ontario. From there I had a little over 4 hours driving time. The first thing that was different were the highway speed signs, they are in Kilometers of course, but for a second there I thought I could go 100 miles/hr. Haha, no… Toronto was easy to drive into and around. Something that I had to get used to were the high amounts of cyclists. They were pushy and didn’t seem concerned about cars, they always had right of way I suppose. It was quite annoying. I was excited to go to the International Women’s Brass Conference, many thanks to the NKU music department for funding the trip. The last time the conference was held was in 2006. It is very similar to the International Trumpet Guild Conference in that it has great guest artists, concerts, exhibits, and of course a solo competition. The competition, the 2010 Susan Slaughter International Solo Brass Competition for trumpet, horn, trombone, euphonium and tuba, was held a couple of days before the actual conference. I decided to compete in the trumpet (age 29 and over) division. I checked in Sunday afternoon and rehearsed with my accompanist Monday, and competed in the competition on Tuesday. I received the 2nd prize for my efforts and was happy to receive the $500 award and $60 in gift certificates to use at the exhibits. With the gift certificated I purchased some t-shirts, beer glasses, a cool CD, and other cool stuff. Many thanks to my fabulous accompanist, Alex Thio!
Toronto as seen from the CN Tower
The conference began on Wednesday and it was cool to see more people arrive, it was kind of quiet Monday and Tuesday. I was thrilled to pick up my girl Andrea at the airport Wed afternoon. Once she arrived the conference got a lot more lively! On Thursday, we went and saw an old friend from my Brass Theater days in Toronto. My friend showed us the area with beaches and took us to an Awesome Italian restaurant. She also made a point to show us the house where Glenn Gould used to live, this was cool for me as I am a nerdy historical buff. Friday was tourist day, Andi and I went to the Royal Ontario Museum, CN Tower, and drove around the city for a bit. Saturday was my birthday, and we went to the distillery section of Toronto. We walked around and shopped a bit, then ate at the Mill Street Brewery. The Brewery had wifi which made Andi especially happy as she was finally able to use her iPhone!
Me and Andrea at Glenn Gould's house
We went to concerts every night at the conference. We saw amazing performances by so many artists including the Bella Tromba from England, Japan Ladies Brass, Monarch Brass, Symbiosis Duo, etc. The performance that stuck out for me and really inspired me was Abbie Conant! She is a trombone player with an interesting history. I will include links at the end, everyone should read more about this amazing woman. She presented a concert featuring a six movement work entitled, “Music For the End of Time.” The work is contemporary and utilizes Digital Stills by Norbert Bach and music and video by William Osborne. It was an amazing experience, but not for the faint of heart! Here is a link (Windows Media Player) to an excerpt of a mvt: http://www.osborne-conant.org/MET-video/woman.asx
Me, Susan Slaughter, Andrea Adams
The Conference really recharged my batteries and gave me many ideas about future projects. It was a great experience, I look forward to attending the next one in 2012! I was happy to have Andrea for my drive back, we decided to make a stop at Niagara Falls. We saw the Falls on the Canada side, I would highly recommend seeing the Falls from this vantage point. Here are some pics of the Falls:
Related Links:
http://www.osborne-conant.org/bios.htm#abbie
http://www.osborne-conant.org/End-of-Time.htm
http://www.iwbctoronto2010.com/GuestArtists/tabid/59/Default.aspx
Photos on flickr
