Hi there and welcome to Notes from the Stage,
a show from the musicians of the Calgary Philharmonic.
We're the people playing our hearts out every
week of the orchestra season. I'm Adam Zinatelli.
Usually I play first trumpet in the Calgary Philharmonic,
but today I'm your host and I'm here with Maria
Vandersloot, section first violinist in the orchestra
and star, one of the star players, they're all
star players in Calgary's own critically acclaimed
Lands End Ensemble. Hi Maria. Hi Adam. Thank
you so much for having me. How are you coping
with the adjustment back to being at work? Pretty
well. I mean, every year, it's always a bit of,
how can I put this, a shock when you come back
to work after a whole summer off. Exactly. My
thoughts, exactly. And by off, of course, we
mean unemployed and free to do whatever we want
with our time, I suppose, work or otherwise.
Mm -hmm. Yeah. You know, but it's also exciting
in a way because I find that by the end of the
season, I'm usually really tired and you know
you're artistically a little bit drained and
then the summer you do other projects or you
just take time off you travel whatnot and then
when you come back you feel refreshed and ready
to go again yeah absolutely absolutely maria
you're one of the few musicians in the orchestra
who is from calgary you're a hometown player
in your hometown orchestra actually i have to
correct you i am sorry sorry to correct you oh
that's okay um i'm actually from medicine hat
oh i'm sorry very important distinction i'm I'm
sorry that I'm guilty of medicine hat erasure.
It's OK. We're here. We're here to set the record
straight. Yeah. Notes from the stage. Yeah. Setting
the record straight. I was born in medicine hat.
I did move to Calgary when I was six. So, you
know, for all intents and purposes, I am Calgarian.
But when in Alberta, I have to specify medicine
hat. So not many people in our industry get to
work, you know, at home or close to home like
you are. And your family has deep, deep musical
roots. in this part of the world. Can you tell
us about that? Sure. Well, I suppose it all comes
back to my grandma, who I have to thank for the
fact that I play violin today. My grandma Helen
was a force of nature and she had 10 kids and
insisted that all of them learn an instrument
and learn it well. And I want to say about half
of them are now professional musicians. My dad
included, he's a violinist and he actually taught
me when I was growing up. He taught me the violin.
My mom is also a violinist and Yeah, so growing
up in a musical family, it just didn't feel like
an odd or unusual or even, to be honest, special
thing to do. To be a musician, it just was kind
of part of our, I don't know, our whole culture
and how we lived life. And it was a matter of
not, do you want to play an instrument? It was
choose which instrument. Yeah. So coming from
a musical family, like you were saying, it must
be a bit of a different look at things now because
big news, Maria got engaged. Woohoo! And your
fiance is not a musician. No. So what's that
been like? Yeah, good question. It's been actually
really eye -opening in a very good way. Yeah,
many of the things that I sort of take for granted
as a musician are really new to my fiance. Before
we met, he'd actually never been to an orchestra
concert or a classical music concert in his life.
And when we met, it was interesting because he
had all these questions like, what do I do if
people are clapping in between the movements?
You know, why are you always looking at, you
know, Diana or at the conductor and how do all
these various things work? You know, let me just
pause there for a second. This is this show is
for a general audience, right? So I'm really
curious. How how did you answer those questions?
It's a bit controversial, I think about the clapping
between movements. I personally feel that if
the spirit moves you, you should just clap if
you're really excited. But. there are those moments,
too, where there's sort of this palpable tension
in the air after, you know, a really exciting
moment or the end of a slow movement where you
want to preserve that silence. So I would say,
you know, you got to kind of use your intuition.
Yeah, read the room. Yeah, read the room. Exactly.
You know, some specific questions like why are
all the violinists staring at Diana? And, you
know, that's so that we can follow her so we
can make sure that we're playing in the same
part of the bow, that we're changing at the right
time. Because, you know, from that center stage
where she is, where she's right by the conductor,
you move backwards chair by chair, and it's almost
like the game of telephone, where things can
really devolve by the end. So if you're at the
back, you want to be looking way up ahead so
that you can stay together and know exactly what's
going on. For sure. Sound travels fast, but when
it comes to an orchestra on stage, the distances
really matter. Yep, in a way that I think would
be surprising to anyone who hasn't done it, right?
Like I'm sitting at the back of the stage and
the way I hear and can react to things happening
at the front is really different. And when two
people are far apart, each sounds delayed to
the other. So the visual aspect of playing together
is really important. And it's the whole thing.
It's like it shouldn't really work. Right. You
know, like from the percussion in the back corner
of the stage to the back of the first violins
in the far corner of the stage like that's a
long way that's milliseconds and milliseconds
apart sonically right so how do you play so that
it comes across together and unified to the audience
it's a it's a real magic trick Yeah, and it's
sometimes this illusion where, yeah, you think
you hear something and you think, oh, I must
be, I must need to play at this moment based
on what I hear. And then you look up and you
go, oh my gosh, nope, not even close. Yeah. So
when you were a kid, you know, I assumed that
a lot of your siblings played violins. Did you
all play violin or did some play other instruments
too? No, actually, not by design, but in a weird
twist of fate, all of my brothers play the cello.
Okay. Yep. So you didn't have to fight over like
the best violin or anything like that? No, it
was really actual actually sort of serendipitous.
I got very lucky that I I just, you know, got
to play the violin is a special instrument. It's
my mom's violin. Oh, wow. Mm hmm. I play on my
mom's violin and my dad's bow. Wow. Oh, that's
so lovely. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's it feels special.
So my mom's violin, it's a, dare I say, it's
a French violin from, I believe, 1855 or 1856.
I should really know this better. But it won
an award. It won the gold at the World Expo in
Berlin. And then it was bought, I think, into
a private collection. And it just sat there for
many years. Like, do you think it was unplayed
mostly in that time? Yep. Wow. Yep. Unplayed.
And then my, my data, my, my mom's dad, he bought
it for my mom as a, you know, family gift. So
she was really the first person to play it, I
believe kind of full time. And then, you know,
she, um, ended up moving away from performing
more into teaching and, you know, raising a family
and one of five kids. So it was pretty busy.
Yep. So she wasn't playing as much. And then
when the time came and she said, you can play
on it. So, yeah, so it's pretty cool. It looks
like a new violin because. Well, all of the scratches
on it are because of me. Yeah. So I try to be
really careful with it, especially knowing that
I can't blame it on a previous owner if something
happens to it. Yeah. So it's sort of a baby in
a way. And at the same time, it's also very old.
That's amazing. That's really amazing. And so
you've obviously been playing this instrument
for a long time now and you've gotten to know
it. over years and years. Yeah, it's so interesting.
I find that some of our colleagues turn over
instruments more quickly, and some have a really
long -term relationship with an instrument. And
this goes even beyond that. It's a generational
thing in your family. That's wonderful. Yeah,
it's so personal. It's one of those things where
you get attached to an instrument. And I think
because I've been playing on this one for a really
long time, it becomes almost your voice. So earlier
this summer, you performed at the Sound Atlas
New Music Festival with Lenz and Ensemble, the
contemporary music ensemble that you're part
of. But I also, I heard you play a piece written
by your brother. Can you tell us about that piece?
Oh, sure. Oh, that was so much fun. That's Creepy
Crawly by my brother, Michael van der Sloot,
who is also a cellist, but a composer as well.
That was so much fun. That piece was written
for us as part of our residence at Mount Royal
University. at the conservatory there where the
ensemble in residence. So we commissioned him
to write this trio for us. And it's a prelude
and a fugue. But my brother's sense of humor
has always been a little bit dark and twisted.
So it takes influences from heavy metal and funk.
And it's very dark in its sort of sound. And
he's put into it all these little jingles, twisted
versions of nursery rhymes, of corporate tunes
and they're sort of interspersed throughout the
piece, which is a lot of fun. It begins in a
really cool way. It's got the the lid of the
piano is completely off and the pianist, our
pianist Suzanne Ruber Gordon, she's in there
and she's got, I believe, some foils and she's
got a ruler and she's tapping on the strings
and it's creating this really eerie almost like
a nail on a chalkboard type of effect and it's
a fun piece yeah yeah it sounded like yeah i
i really enjoyed hearing it and there was another
piece as well a moto perpetuo yeah so moto perpetuo
is this piece for violin and piano that my brother
wrote he actually didn't write this one for me
but i have been fortunate to play it a number
of times it's short it's very fast um you know
a moto perpetuo the idea being that it's this
virtuosic piece and inspired by Paganini, one
of the greatest violin virtuosos of all time.
Because my brother's got this twisted sense of
humor that he's had for as long as I can humanly
remember. The piece is inspired by the idea of
Paganini coming back to life to possess the,
um, with his spirit, a meat grinder or a piece
of heavy machinery. So it's, it's a little bit,
um, I don't know what the word would be. It's
a, it sounds grindy. Yeah. Oh, that's so much
fun. It's very evocative and the music sounds
that way to reflect it. That's really neat. So
with Land's End Ensemble, can you tell us what's
the guiding principle behind Land's End? What
are you setting out to do? Oh, so tell us about
who is Land's End Ensemble. So Land's End Ensemble
is a contemporary piano trio with the main focus
of commissioning, recording, and performing,
you know, bringing to life new works by mostly
Canadian composers, but of course, living composers
from around the world. And that's really the
heart and soul of the ensemble. The piano trio
format is an interesting one because it's not
easy to write for. I would say compared to something
like string quartet, there's less music written
for the group as a whole. So, you know, we really
make an effort to commission and to have composers
write works for us. That's great. So I joined
the ensemble in 2022. That was my first season
with them, and it's been so much fun. And I joined
after John Lowry, who is our associate concertmaster,
left the group. And so, obviously, I had big
shoes to fill, so I was very nervous about it.
Yeah, and John was a founding member. Yes. Right?
As well as Beth and Suzanne? As well as Beth,
Ruth Sandvoss, our cellist. And I don't believe
that Suzanne Rubrik... Gordon was the founding
pianist, but she's been there for a while now.
And when I joined, she had been there. And they're
wonderful. They are such great musicians and
inspiring to work with. And yeah, it's been a
lot of fun to be in this trio with these two
women that I find extremely inspiring also outside
of music and just to have the chance to work
with them and learn from them and their experiences
in the industry. we joke that we're a girl power
group sort of thing. And part of our mission,
of course, is also to seek out music and commission
works by composers of color, composers who are
minorities, composers who are women, and really
try to get better representation in the music
that we play. That's wonderful. That's really
wonderful. And that's one of the beautiful things
about playing contemporary music, right? You're
not stuck with... sort of a fixed array of things
to choose from, you can make things happen, and
you can give opportunities to people to make
something new. What have you found are some of
the challenges and some of the joys of playing
contemporary music, as opposed to, say, playing
in the orchestra where we mostly play music that's
been around for a while? That's a very good question.
I would say it's almost like you have to... re
screw on your head a little bit when you're playing
contemporary music, at least in the way that
we do, because we're not often playing things
that have already been recorded or are easy to
find if they have been recorded. You know, you're
working with a slate that is much blanker than
it would be if it's in the traditional canon.
So something that I love is that it gives you
this freedom to be a little bit more exploratory.
It also I think pushes you to go further into
the music because many of the things that we
take for granted due to, you know, sort of the
tradition of how people play and being able to
look back and see this discourse on, you know,
how to play a work that's been around for hundreds
of years, you don't have that when you're playing
something that is new, it's absent. So it's up
to you to really actually go deep into the music
and ask a lot of questions yourself. about what
the music is saying. Maybe if you are fortunate
to work with a composer to ask them, you know,
what are you envisioning? Is this the sound that
you want? How can I really bring this to life
in a way that is meaningful and exciting and
accurate to what the composer is asking for?
Yeah, it's a different sort of freedom, but also
a different sort of responsibility to find things
in the music in a different way. I agree. I find
that when I'm playing contemporary music, I'm
using my brain in a whole different creative
way. that I find really rewarding. Yeah. No,
I love it. And it's, for me, it's a good challenge
too, because I tend to play more on instinct
and feeling. And again, that idea of taking for
granted that we have this whole, at least as
a violinist, you know, we've got these schools
that go back back and you can trace your teacher's
teacher's teacher's teacher was someone who ended
up writing, you know, was a violinist who wrote
this piece. So you have these really strong lineages
and ways of playing that. become sort of ingrained.
It's a method of looking at the music. And when
it's something new that doesn't have that and
you're doing it yourself. And as I said, I tend
to kind of just go based on what I would call
instinct, but it's probably just a deep learning
of that lineage. All of a sudden I have to use
my brain so differently. I have to think a little
bit harder about everything. So Lenzen just released
a new album, the music of John Corleano. Yep.
And a trio by Vincent Ho, who is our artistic
director. Great. Yeah. Vince is a local composer
here in Calgary. Yeah. He's wonderful. We love
him. We love his music. Um, and the Corleano
is an incredible work. It was a lot of work to
put together. Um, and great, greatly rewarding,
I would say it's poems actually of Bob Dylan.
I don't want to say re -imagined because they
sound completely different. from how you would,
you know, if you know, if you know Bob Dylan's
music, you think blowing in the wind. And then
when you hear what Corleone has done with the
text, it's just I have no words to say other
than it's completely like a reinterpretation
of it. Yeah, it's a new setting of the poems,
like many, you know, Schumann Schubert, you know,
a lot of them are drawing on similar sources
for for text for art songs and things like that.
It's it's simply a new setting of these texts.
I mean, Bob Dylan. won a Nobel Prize for poetry,
for literature, right? Yeah. It's really just
a fresh look at that text in a different musical
idiom. Totally. But I'll tell you a little bit
about Mr. Tambourine Man is the title, but it's
set for amplified soprano, piano trio, plus flute
and clarinet and percussion. So it's quite a
big ensemble. There's a lot of variety within
the different songs. So we worked with Dr. Laura
Hines as our soprano, and she's just phenomenal.
She's just a world -class, outstanding singer.
Yeah, I heard you play this at Sound Atlas a
year ago, the performance of this, and it was
a wonderful, wonderful performance. Yeah, yeah.
And that's, I think, I mean... Everyone that
we worked with was wonderful, but Laura really
just takes it to that next level as, you know,
the one who's carrying the text. And we also
worked with Carl Hertz, who is our former associate
conductor. And that was really special too, because,
you know, I have known Carl for years and worked
with him in the CPO. And this was just a different
context. And, um, he's, he's terrific. Absolutely
terrific. So. They'll both be back in town for
our official album launch concert. Oh great,
tell us when is that? That'll be in November,
November 23rd at the Rosé Center at the University
of Calgary and we will be playing selections
from the Corleano, not the complete work, as
well as part of Vincent Ho's trio, which we also
recorded, which is Griffin Realms. and then we'll
have a few other works on there for soprano and
piano trio. Great. Well, that sounds like a lovely
concert. Yeah. But that's only part of Land's
End's 2024 -2025 season. Yes. We have the November
album launch. Then we are in February, February
22nd. We have a concert at Mount Royal University.
at the Bella Hall and that's the second year
of our residency as ensemble in residence at
the University Conservatory. That will feature
a new premiere, a commissioned work by Alan Gordon
Bell. Oh great. That'll be really fun and that'll
be for our ensemble plus students. So it'll incorporate
and include students from the conservatory playing
with us on stage and you know, in our first year
of the residency, this past year, we had them,
you know, playing from the balcony and from off
stage. And it was this big, really spectacular
show. So I'm really excited for that one. And
that will also feature another new trio by my
brother, Michael. Oh, wonderful. You know, I've
always liked Alan's music, but every time he
writes something new, I like it more than what
he's written before. So that's really exciting.
I should put that in my calendar. Speaking of
calendars, All these Lands End concerts you can
look up on the Lands End Ensemble website. I'm
also going to put them on the CalgaryFilmmusicians
.ca concert calendar where you can see performances
outside of the CPO by members of the orchestra.
What else is on for next season? Every year for
the past several years we join with the School
of Creative and Performing Arts at University
of Calgary for their annual Alchemy Festival.
This season, our concert will be on March 29th
at the Rosé Center as part of that festival.
And we're really excited about it. We don't have
everything a hundred percent solidified yet on
our exact program, but we will be working with
Andy Lin, who is an ARHU player and a violist
based in Vancouver. Yeah. That's great. It will
be a lot of fun. I have actually never played
with an ARHU player before, so I'm really looking
forward to this. It'll be a new, something new
for me. Can you tell us a little bit about the
Alchemy Festival? Sure. So I believe that the
festival as a whole sort of highlights a lot
of the creative things going on at the school.
And the concert that we put on is interesting
because we always feature works by student composers.
Oh, that's wonderful. So earlier in the year,
we have workshops and sessions with these students
and we help them to figure out how to write for
a piano trio, really. So they write and we give
them feedback and they go back to the drawing
board and they make adjustments. And on the concert,
we end up programming usually, I think it's three
to four of their works, along with the rest of
our program. It's a really special opportunity
to work with the next generation of composers
and for them to hear their works played by a
professional ensemble, which is really, really
rare as a student. And there's no substitute
for that, right? working away on their own, they
can have it in their mind's ear to some degree.
If they're writing on a computer, the computer
can play it back in some sort of form. But as
far as how it actually sounds, how a thing actually
works, how the music breathes, these are things
that you can't simulate. Every year, the CPO
takes a little bit of time to play U of C students'
compositions as well. And I always find that
really exciting. a really exciting time at work
because these are the first times that these
pieces are, you know, real acoustic things happening
in the air in the room. You know, I think the
composers really learn a lot by actually hearing
how the concept meets reality. And there's no
substitute for that, really. I completely agree.
There's no substitute. And often we get these
moments where we'll play it back and we'll say,
are you sure this is quite what you were hoping
for? Say, well, you know, more or less. And we
say, okay, what if we tweaked it? So, you know,
the cello moves to here or we have a little bit
of a gap. You know, sometimes one of, um, one
of the things when you have a playback on, on
a, on a digital scoring software is the playback
is, you know, done by. MIDI or, or some other
electronic sound. So things that aren't really
possible on an acoustic instrument, they work
in the software. but once it's a living breathing
thing, as you were saying, it's so different.
So we'll say, oh, maybe we need a second here
to let this speak or whatever and play it back.
And they go, their eyes just light up. And it's
like, yes, that's the sound. That's what I was
looking for. And, you know, they're students,
so they're new to it. So it's not so much that
we're, we're not exactly telling them, you know,
go fix this, do this, this, that, but, but it's
just a little bit of. Just just helping them
to to understand what they're writing for exactly
Yeah It's not like we the professionals are the
we have a monopoly on the truth of these things
and the students come to us And we tell them
what it's actually like no as we play this This
music like we're all discovering it together
Yeah for the first time right and and everyone's
learning and everyone is you know, we're all
in the same team Yeah, trying to figure out like
what is this thing that we're trying to do and
how can it be great? Exactly. It's a really exciting
process Yeah, and it's inspiring to see also
what creative things students come up with. I
find this in our work with Land's End and also
in my teaching, that it's just a recurring theme
of, oh, wow, I've actually never looked at this
this way before, until a student points it out
and you go, huh, I'm learning too. Yeah, absolutely,
absolutely. So as an audience member coming to
an orchestra concert or a chamber music concert,
you were talking about as a performer, you have
to put your head on a little bit differently
for each of those. What do you think the differences
or similarities would be as a listener? Well,
I think it's just an entirely different experience.
You may go into an orchestra concert knowing
the repertoire already. Let's say it's Beethoven's
Ninth Symphony, right? And in that regard, you
know what to expect. You have an idea of what
the music's going to sound like, you know, how
it's going to make you feel. If it's contemporary,
especially if it's a premier, you know, you have
no idea. So I think as a listener, it requires
a very open mind and just a willingness to be
really present with the music and let it take
you wherever the music goes. You know, sometimes
it's tonal, sometimes it's not. Being willing
to be immersed in something that is new. I would
say, is important. And that really enhances,
I think, the experience for the listener and
for the performer, because then you feel this
chemistry between the performers and the audience.
It's really palpable in new music, and it's also
really palpable in the orchestra hall, when there
are those moments where just, you know, everyone,
you can feel the hall is electric. Yeah. Yeah,
those are special moments when they happen. You
know, one of the magical things that happens
on stage with the CPO as a player is we're surrounded
by so many great musicians. I wanted to ask you,
Maria, who is a player in the CPO who's playing
you admire? Oh, that's a that's a good question.
And I feel like kind of a mean one because then
I have to pinpoint one person. I know. Blame
me. I'm asking you to pick one person out of
the out of the constellation of stars of the
CPO. OK, as a section violinist. You know, I
rotate who I sit with pretty much week by week
So you get to know all of all of the first violinists
pretty well when you're sitting together So it's
a bit of a cop -out answer, but I want to say
all of my section mates I'm surrounded in my
section by players who are all Inspiring as people
and also fantastic players who all have different
strengths and skills and who I can learn from
so it's a lot of fun and I would say it's the
whole section first violinists that are my favorite.
Well, it's great to have so many people who's
playing you can admire and who you get to sit
with. I sit by the same people every day, but
you get to rotate a little bit. And that's probably
pretty fun and a perk of being in a string section.
Well, Maria, thank you so much for sitting down
with me today. It was great. Thank you for having
me. Notes from the Stage is an independent production
of the Calgary Philharmonic Players Association.
The opinions expressed here are our own and do
not reflect those of the Calgary Philharmonic
Orchestra. Our thanks to Nathan Chandler for
his technical expertise. The music you heard
on this episode was Mr. Tambourine Man by John
Corleano and Griffin Realms by Vincent Ho, both
from Land's End Ensemble's new recording available
now anywhere you get music. Let us know what
you think of the show and check out our concert
calendar at calgaryfilmmusicians .ca to see what
we're all up to outside of our regular performances
of the CPO. On our next episode in two weeks,
I'll be talking with bassist Matt Heller. Talk
to you soon!