Glenn Kubish

  Here a three little things that made for some happiness and gratitude this past week:                                                            1. Snow dome   Shelagh named the tune right away. She’s good at that. She knows what’s playing wherever she is, kinda like a virtual assistant, but real-er. The Pretenders, Middle of the Road, she’ll say, when we’re in a noisy restaurant where I hear only a cacophony of voices and cutlery. This time it was a symphony she picked off. We were in the car driving back from breakfast. The radio was on CBC FM. “Sibelius,” she said.  I first heard his Symphony #2 more than 30 years ago on vinyl at her place in Queen Mary Park, Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic. We experienced the music again in 2019 when Alexander Prior and the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra pumped...

My inbox immunity is low. Still, the message from the Winspear Centre hit home. Soon after Alberta Health Services recommended on Thursday that large gatherings of more than 250 people be cancelled, the Winspear scratched its March concerts. Helping to flatten the curve means instruments down. "The health and well-being of our patrons, staff and musicians are of the utmost importance," the email said. So, for now, the music dies. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that live orchestral music should be maintained in a pandemic. I'm just saying I remember what C.S. Lewis wrote in 1948 in a piece called On Living in an Atomic Age. This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let the bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our fr...

I woke up with sore chest muscles. I have no chest muscles, so this was a different feeling. It was the kind of discomfort that made me go back and conduct a mental inventory of anything done different the day before to have pulled things out of shape. I did go for a good bike ride in the snow yesterday. Nothing out of the ordinary there. At one point I did get off my bike and lie on the ground  to compose a low-angle pic of three miniature cycling figurines in Faraone Park. Kinda different, a bit chilly, but, really, nothing to have stretched my chest. I again didn't do any pushups on a day when I again didn't get to the gym. Nothing strange there either. So, what happened? I remembered. Sibelius happened. My chest this morning still registered the effect last night of my jumping out of seat C-138 in the upper level of the Winspear Centre, walking to the balcony rail and clapping, hands over head, and clapping harder, hands higher over head, while, below, Alex Prior ...

This afternoon, as I sat in a darkened theatre watching a movie I never would have chosen to watch had I known how sad this scene I was watching Amy Madigan in was, I remembered something Alexander Prior had said. Prior is the Chief Conductor of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. He is young, like 24, I think, which means I have two neckties, one suit and an old Trek 750 older than he is. Anyways, there he was above us on stage a couple of weeks ago during an ESO Late Night gig at the Winspear. He was introducing Jalons, a work by Iannis Xenakis. Right. I'd never heard of him either. Prior Before he poked his players to life with his baton, Prior said something remarkable to the audience. He said we probably wouldn't like the music. He said we didn't have to like it. Just listen to it and we could talk about it later, he said. And then they played it. The work was unfamiliar, grating in parts, coming apart in other parts, and soaring. I liked parts, but, overal...

Under the right influence, pedalling along the grid of Edmonton streets can make the bicycle rider feel more than a bit like a musical note. And the right influence was in the air last night as we joined an Edmonton Bicycle Commuters ride to the Winspear Centre for a night of Gershwin music. It's an annual event, but the first time riding with Shelagh that I felt part of a dotted (helmeted) half note. The women on the tandem were two joined eighth notes. The dude on the folding bike? A definite sixteenth note. Together, we rolled adagio along the measured blocks of the city, resting at lights, talking to each other, read by folks on the sidewalk as time took us by. I added a few lyrics: Kickin the clouds away with a nicely composed group, including George and Ira! Chris Chan composed the ride to the Winspear Centre in the key of B icycle. We headed home happy in Edmonton as a way to say thank you to the musical folks on the ride I moved along with. When we rode h...