Friday, May 30, 2014

Lady Fiddler in The Big Smoke or, Trying Not to Buy Fluevogs on Queen Street

Note to self: never attempt to update the blog on a smart phone. I seem to have deleted the first bit of what I wrote earlier. I'm in Toronto this week for work and have brought my fiddle, as always. Only this time I didn't get to play it at all during the working part of the week as there was little to no free time, morning, noon or night.

 We did get to go for a bit of a walk, spotting quintessential Torontonian things.


 An incredibly talented busker let me take his photo: brass and strings at the same time!

Friday afternoon we were finally free! I moved my things to the Hostel on Church Street and went in search of National Ballet tickets, Fluevogs and finally, The Sweater Place, owned by Nancy, a woman of very excellent taste who manages to keep her tiny storefront free from duplicates. Not a single sweater is the same and she always has new seasonal stock.

My main goal this trip is to sit under a tree in a park and practice my fiddle. I deliberately did not bring any music, hoping to memorize and speed up tunes I already know.

The National Ballet of Canada was performing its final shows of the season, three modern pieces umbrellaed under a theme of Physical Thinking. Standing Room Only tickets were the tempting price of $12 so I jumped. The view was excellent and I stood next to a gentleman who had the poise of a former dancer and who indeed knew a little too much information about the great Canadian dancers to be an ordinary Joe Canadian Public. We spoke the same language. It was very refreshing!

Friday night dinner was at a cafe resto called bannock, next to The Bay. I could see the mannequins through the back window as it was attached. Fireweed honey is what I think the server said was in the huge artisan butter tart before me with whipped cream and a wild berry compote. Main course was a squash stuffed with wild grains, walnuts, fried cheese, sitting on a bed of steamed spinach and pomegranates with some kind of mildly spicy sauce. Heck, I'm no food critic but it sure was good!

Painting in a boutique in the Distillery District
The Hostel was hot and the bed kind of smelly. I was in one of the 10-person co-ed bunk rooms having forgotten to conclude my booking a month ago one frantic day at work and took what they had left when I arrived. At one point some idiot spent a half an hour making unpleasant noises in the toilet directly on the other side of the wall from me. I told myself it must have been food poisoning and waited to use the bathroom until the sound of a custodial cart had come and gone in the morning. But no harm done. I've stayed in places on the Camino with unbelievable bathrooms.

Saturday I intended to go right to the ferries and explore Toronto Island, fiddle in tow. However I got sidetracked after websurfing at my breakfast Starbuck's on King Street and discovered at www.nowtoronto.com that the Sing! choral festival was currently on and that Cantabile: The London Quartet would be playing that night. Tickets were available at a certain place in the Distillery District, which turned out to be a great little touristy area full of shops and historical buildings related to the - well, booze-making history of Toronto. And there I found the other Fluevog store! But alas, no shoes for me. When the only boots I want cost the same as a plane ticket, I need to save for that plane ticket.
Now that's a sign I like to see!

A long-ish walk along Lake Shore Drive landed me at the Jack Layton Ferry. $7 and 10 minutes after boarding, a ferry deposited about 100 people at the westernmost point of Toronto Island. I wandered until I found a swing set and a nice tree, sat, had lunch, and finally - got to play me fiddle! Swans abounded.







Reluctantly caught the 4:30pm ferry back and had enough time for a dinner of soup and quinoa salad at The Sultan's Tent & Cafe Moroc at 49 Front Street near the hostel.

A 15 minute walk after ditching the fiddle landed me at Little Trinity Church and a brilliant concert by The London Quartet - From Montiverdi to Monty Python. Plus some hilarious tricks of their own including a sung version of the Cricket rules in the manner of Estonian minimalist composer, Arvo Part. A lot of "the player is innnnn" and "the player is ouuuuuut" in that one. They delivered Beatles classic Penny Lane with fun and beauty, and had us in tears with a completely forgetful spoof of "Memory" from Cats by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

A highlight of the evening was to meet the gents and nab a photo with them.

Flying home Sunday at 6pm. Should I take in the Songwriting workshop with Dan Hill, Alan Frew (former lead singer of Glass Tiger) and Lorraine Segato (former lead singer of the Parachute Club) in the afternoon?

Turns out it was a good idea to return to the Sing! Vocal Arts Festival on my last day: met Paul Sanderson, Canada's top entertainment lawyer and author of the country's most (only) comprehensive textbook: Musicians and the Law in Canada. Then caught the Harlem Boys & Girls Choir Alumni Ensemble - breathtaking! and finished with the songwriting workshop - no Alan Frew but a whole lot of up-close and personal Dan Hill and Lorraine Segato.

I was one of about six people attending and being in the front row, was the object of their focus as they told story after story about how they came to write this song and that song that made their Grammy-winning careers. Intense and inspiring! It was really hard to make a dash for the street car when all I wanted to do after was chat with Lorraine. She said she loved writing songs but not singing - but someone in The Parachute Club had to sing so the job fell to her. Dan interrupted to tell her, "You need more confidence - you can do it - you just need more confidence." I felt like he was speaking to me. Witnessing him mentor her was incredible.

Lorraine Segato and Pat Silver hold mics for Dan Hill as he sings a song he just wrote dedicated to his late sister.
Never before has it been so hard to have to get on a plane to come home.