Brian welcomes on two guests.
First is Ron Camilleri, who performs as a hugely successful Elton John tribute band. Local resident Ron Camilleri has had a storied history in the Canadian music business. He’s succeeded in three sides of the business - as a record industry executive, as an original music composer for television and film but perhaps his greatest success has been his recent foray as a performer. His band "Elton Rohn" has been called the best Elton John tribute in the world. They perform in Markham next week.
Next is Janet Lopinski. Dr. Lopinski, Senior Director, College of Examiners and Academic Programs at The Royal Conservatory has enjoyed a multi-faceted career as a pianist, teacher, adjudicator, lecturer, and author, and has inspired and mentored students and teachers across North America. She is also the founder and president of the Canadian Chopin Society, which presents the Canadian Chopin Piano Competition every five years. The Sixth Canadian Chopin Piano Competition will be held from January 9 - 13, 2025 at the TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning in Toronto.
First is Ron Camilleri, who performs as a hugely successful Elton John tribute band. Local resident Ron Camilleri has had a storied history in the Canadian music business. He’s succeeded in three sides of the business - as a record industry executive, as an original music composer for television and film but perhaps his greatest success has been his recent foray as a performer. His band "Elton Rohn" has been called the best Elton John tribute in the world. They perform in Markham next week.
Next is Janet Lopinski. Dr. Lopinski, Senior Director, College of Examiners and Academic Programs at The Royal Conservatory has enjoyed a multi-faceted career as a pianist, teacher, adjudicator, lecturer, and author, and has inspired and mentored students and teachers across North America. She is also the founder and president of the Canadian Chopin Society, which presents the Canadian Chopin Piano Competition every five years. The Sixth Canadian Chopin Piano Competition will be held from January 9 - 13, 2025 at the TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning in Toronto.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
Saga nine sixty Am or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Brian Crombie Radio Hours.
So I thought it would be really good to get
off politics for a while, which has been something we've
all been focused on with what's going on in the
United States and what's going on in Canada right now,
and focus on a little bit of fun. And the
guy that I know in Mississauga that puts on a
lot of fun is Elton Ron, who is a Elton
(00:39):
John tribute band leader, and the man is Jess Spectacular,
a lot of fun and he's had an incredible year
touring around Canada, United States and he's got a dick
coming up in Markham in a short while. So Elton Ron,
Welcome to the show, sir.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Hi Brian, I hope you're doing well.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I'm doing great.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I had I got to tell you, yeah, a great time.
On New Year's Eve, I went to Other Than You,
a favorite band of mine called that seventies band in
Long Island, New York. They played in a place called
the Suffolk Theater, all seventies disco music, all night long covers,
Oh wow, of every great seventies disco song that I loved,
dancing all night long, it was just spectacular. There's something
(01:21):
about dancing to the music that you know and you
remember and you love from whether it's your teenage years
or young adult years, that makes things special. And I
think it's one of the things that I love about
watching you tell me how you got into doing Elton
john music.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Well, there's a direct line cord to the music of
the old days, and as I got older, I kept
going back to the to the to the old music
because that's what I listened to most of the time.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
It's not that I don't like the new acts.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
I do, and I listened to them as well, but
those old albums are just spectacular.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
So growing up I.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Always had the Elton Johns and the Billy Jewels and
Bruce Springsteen's and Chicago's always on my playlist all the time.
And in life, as I started working, both my brother
and I worked for a record company. And after I
left the record company and my brother had just left
the record company, he was at Kenwst Global and I
was writing music for television which I was just having
(02:14):
a blast.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
I put a recording studio in my house.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
I could get up every day in my pajamas and
go down to the studio and work all day. That
was the kind of job I had, so I was
quite content. But we decided, just for fun, one Sunday.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Night, we would go to a bar and play.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
And when we did it, everybody loved it, and the
owner said, hey, if I flip you some more dollars,
will you play longer? Then he said you got to
come back next week, so we decided the following week.
I was a guitarist at the time. We decided to
bring a piano and I put the piano down and
halfway through the night I played Rocketman and the place
went crazy.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
So that was kind of the start of it, and
then we decided we got to ask back again.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
That the following week we did a whole night of
Elton John music and from there it just grew and grew.
Next thing you know, we got invited to play the
Elton John Convention in Las Vegas, when I said, I
better take it seriously and get some sequin outfits and piano.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Covers and the whole bit. So I went the whole.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Nine yards, and it's just it's expanded ever since. It's
so now we're playing like the big venues. Were constantly
getting asked to travel and it's an absolute blast.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
It's really not work. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
The work part is now when I'm home and I'm
on the computer and I'm booking the dates and I'm
doing the paperwork.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Once I hit the road and we get into the venues,
it's just a blast.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
And everybody in the world knows Elton John's music, so
it's kind of easy if you go up there.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
We do it pretty well. And then we played the
tell me like.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
You play like him, you look like him, you sound
like him?
Speaker 3 (03:39):
What like?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
What happened?
Speaker 4 (03:41):
What happened was I was a guitarist, all right, and
I always used to have idols when I was a kid.
Terry Cath was my idol from Chicago, Chicago. My dad
worked for CBS Records, so Chicago were his buddies and
they would come to Canada and they were very close.
So my dad was a big fan of horns. He
always loved listening to horns and music. Bloodweat and Tear Chicago,
(04:01):
And when Elton John released Honkey Cat the Honkey Chatau record.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
It had the horn riffs in it.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
My dad loved the album and brought it home, so
he put it on the turntable and I just gravitated
to it.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
I just thought it was the best thing I'd ever heard.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
I became a huge fan of Elton John's so I
got all of his albums and I started listening.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
And what every kid usually does.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
I don't know if you did this with your kid,
but I certainly did, was I'd stand by the record
player and I close my eyes and I'd sing along
with Elton or whoever your favorite artist was. I'd pretend
I was playing an instrument in the band. You just
let your mind go, because back then we only had albums.
We didn't have videos or anything. We would get maybe
one picture on the album, and we would just let
our imaginations go. So I actually pretended I was with
(04:43):
Elton's band, and I would sing all the background vocals
with them. And then years later, after I was playing guitar,
decided to buy piano. I wanted to teach myself how
to play, so the best way to do that was
just listening.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
To all those Elton albums again.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
And I actually play like Elton because that's the way
he plays, very per cussively.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I don't play classically. I don't play like a lot
of other players.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
I could never play like a chick corea, but I
could certainly play like Elton because he pounds the piano
and I loved it. So even if you gave me
a piece of classical music, I would pound the piano.
I'm totally Elton John on piano. And then everyone started
telling me how much I look like him and when
I would sing, because I grew up with his albums,
singing the albums with him, I had all the inflections
in the voice.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
So after a while.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
People started telling me, Boory, do you ever sound like
Elton John. We just put it all together and voila,
there it is Elton Ron.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Fantastic. Tell me about the rest of your band, because
you've got a couple of other very good musicians that
you perform with, don't you.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
Oh are They're great musicians. A couple of the guys
that have played in some other big bands. I have
Lori Engles in the band, played with Bob c. GREENI
Rest in Peace Bob, and he's played around the city
of Toronto. Sammy b Samie Posibis is a fantastic guitarist.
He's very good friends with Kim Mitchell and Mike Tilka
from the Max Webster days. And he actually get some
(06:00):
overdubs on the old Ronnie Hawkins album that was recorded
at Massey Hall.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
He's there.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Ian Turner is a big musician in and around Toronto.
He's so versatile. He started as our sub bass player
and now he's our drummer, so he plays multiple instruments.
Matthew Maren's also another multi instrumentalist. He plays bass in
the band, but he also plays piano and guitar, and
he can sing. Everybody sings in the band. Everybody's very talented.
(06:27):
And we have Lester McLean who joins the band about
probably about eighty percent of the time. He plays saxophone
and percussion and acoustic guitar. And as I said, all
the guys sing live. We all do all the harmonies live.
We don't rehearse that much anymore because everybody knows the songs.
So really, when we get on stage, we haven't seen
each other for a while. That's why it's so much fun.
(06:48):
Every time we see each other. We're all smiles. We
get on stage and we just let it rip. It's
so much fun.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
And you've got an event coming up shortly and Mark
and I understand.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
Yes, were there on January sixteenth, and it's a Thursday
night and we're going to play the Flatto Theater.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Last time we sold it out.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
There's a few tickets left, so if anybody wants to
come to the show, it's gonna be fantastic. And I'll
let you know that we have a special guest that
we're going to bring in. Her name is Talia Schlanger.
Some people may know Talia because she is the sub
co host of the radio show Q with Tom Power.
Talia's subbed in there. She's interviewed some of the big
(07:26):
stars like Sting and she just did a great interview
with Katie Lang. But she also toured. She did American
Idiot and before that, We Will Rock You. She's a
fantastic singer. She's recorded her first album and it's phenomenal.
We one time we were playing a venue and she
was there and we invited her up to sing and
she does an incredible Kiki d So we asked her
(07:48):
if she was around on the sixteenth and she is.
So she's going to open for the band and come
join us for a few songs. So that's going to
be a nice added attraction. If you haven't seen her
with the band, it's magical.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Well what's that duet that Elton John does?
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Don't go break in my heart. It's a real it's
a real crowd. Please. The crowd goes crazy when we
do it, and we'll do it. We'll do it for sure.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Fantastic, wonderful. If people want to get tickets, how do
they get them?
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Where do they go?
Speaker 4 (08:13):
We can go to the Markham Flatto Theater page and
under the events you'll see all the bands listed that
are playing there.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
You can just click on there and buy tickets.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
And if you're not sure where to go, you can
always go to my site, eltonron dot com. Just click
on dates and then find mark them. Click on it.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
It'll take you right to the ticket box office.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
That's great. You've had quite a year touring. Tell us
about some of the places you've gone last.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Ye, yeah, we've we always you know. It's funny because
at the start of the year I always think the
same thing. I said, Gee, I hope I can get
enough dates for next year. I'm looking at the schedule
for next year and we've already got between forty and
fifty dates, and last year we did forty to fifty dates.
In twenty twenty four we played just seventy thousand, a
little bit more than seventy thousand people, which just blows
my mind. And like I said before, everywhere we go,
(08:57):
everyone's singing the songs with us, so it just it
just it really easy. And the more we play, the
more people see us, and the more gigs we get,
I'll all get phone calls. We just played New Year's
Eve in Chicago. While you were out there playing disco,
we were in Chicago doing Elton and from that show,
I've already got three phone calls from people that were
at the show. One of them was a CEO for
(09:18):
a company. They want us for a corporate party. Another
one wants us to come play their amphitheater. So everything
always kind of spins off off of the shows that
we play. We've had a great a great deal of
success in America. That's where most of our shows are.
We've played everywhere from Michigan, Illinois, Ohio. We're going back
to Kansas City and Iowa, it's crazy.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
We're going to Myrtle Beach. It just the phone just
keeps ringing.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
So as long as it's ringing, I'm picking it up,
and as long as I can sing and hit the
high notes, We'll keep doing this song.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
We'll keep doing the shows.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Fantastic. You talked last time we chatted about tribute bands
and that some people, you know, the negative attitude toward
tribute bands for some reason, and yet other people love
them because it brings back the memories of their days
gone by, their wonderful teenage years.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Whatever.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Tell me a little bit about why tribute bands are
successful and also why some people don't respect them.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
Well, I think the reason they're successful is because there's
a lot of people today are kind of struggling with
the new music. They either don't get it or like
they turn on the Grammy Awards and they don't know
who the artists are. Back in the day, in the seventies,
we really only had radio and television. It was a
very It was much smaller amount of places you could
go to get you music, and when you turned on
(10:37):
a radio station in Toronto, you heard everything.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Now everything is so fragmented.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
There's five hundred stations, you really don't get to hear
a lot of everything else. So what's happening with people
is they're getting their one or two favorites and that's
kind of all they're being exposed to. But when people
get exposed to those great albums of the sixties and
the seventies, it's like a new exploration for them. And
all these kids today are just discovering James Brown and
(11:02):
even early you know, the Jackson five and all that
Motown stuff, and they're discovering Elton John.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
That's why Elton John is so iconic.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
Today that he's got a whole new wave of new
people that love his music. And he's kept it relevant
by doing you know, the Disney movies, and he keeps
going and now he's got to do a loop of thing.
But I think in general, the tribute acts, if you
do it well, you can really strike a chord, because
a lot of tribute acts now can actually surpass from
what the what the artists.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Today can do.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
A lot of them are in their seventies, almost eighty
years old. They can't play it the way they used
to play it, nor would we expect them to. So
if you get some thirty year old kid coming along
who can sing led Zeppelin. There's going to be a
lot of led Zeppelin fans that can connect with that,
and that's that's what's happening. So if you're good at it.
The problem with tribute acts is that there's too many
of them now. Everybody's doing it because anybody can put
(11:53):
on a costume. But if you we through all that,
all the kind of average talented ones and you pull
out the plumb, really good tribute acts. There's some spectacular
shows going on out there, and some people have big
budget touring shows. A couple of Pink Floyd shows have
massive trucks that come in and do the whole thing.
So I think it kind of hits a chord and
it lets people kind of re experience everything that they
(12:17):
did when they were in their teens. Like for me,
when I was in the seventies, I got to see
all the great bands. So for me to go to
see a tribute now of someone who's going to play
Queen or Pink Floyd, it really can take me back
to the days that when I really saw them live.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
And for a kid.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Today who never got a chance to see Pink Floyd,
but really maybe listen to the Dark Side of the Moon.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
They can go and now see a band.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Play the thing live and it's sort of reminiscent of
the way Pink Floyd played. It won't quite be on
the same scale, but it's pretty close. So for our shows,
we hit all the high notes, we hit everything the
way Elton used to play it, and there's a lot
of energy. We do everything live the way Elton used
to play, so we can give people a little bit
of the taste of what it was like back in
seventy four Gardens when they went to see Elton John
(13:02):
Rock and by the way that show he did it
make belief Gardens was only a couple of weeks before
he went to Madison Square Gardens with John Lennon for
the famous last show that John Lennon played, which I
kind of put together in my head a couple of
days ago when we were talking about anniversaries. So those
days for me were the most spectacular days of music.
You know, a seven dollars ticket you could go see
(13:23):
Freddie Mercury and Queen, so you can't really see that anymore.
You could see the New Queen if you want, with
Adam Lambert. For me, I really am a Freddie fan,
so I'll go see my friend and simply Queen who
just nails Freddy and verage.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Is a funny job too.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Yeah, there's a lot of.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Really really good bands out there and tributes, but the
problem is there's too many of them now. It's kind
of watered down and a lot of the average talent
is I want to say this polightly, a lot of
them are trying to put themselves into like a lot
of theaters and biger venues and it's not really taking.
Like some of them will play the half a house
and what happens is it kind of waters down the
whole tribute mark. So at some point something's got to give.
(14:03):
Either some of the acts kind of have to weed
their way out or it's just gonna explode with like
everything all the time, all tributes, which I don't think
we want. We still want a lot of a original
artists up there. I still like to go see a
Tom Cochran and I still like to go see the bands,
like you know, I see Kim Mitchell, Burton Cummings. They
have a great original song, so I still want to
see that. But there's a market for the tribute so
(14:24):
we're playing all the same venues that Burton Cummings is
playing now. Larry Gallon, we kind of joke about it that,
you know, here I am on the same poster on
the same wall as these guys. We follow Bachman turn
Over Drive out in Edmonton. What we're going to be
out there.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
So it's just it's just really fun.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
So people can go and see a serious artist like
a Randy Bachman, and then they can go have fun
the next night and see a Begi's tribute. It's just
it's music. It's just there's either good music or bad music.
And if you do it well, I think there's a
lot of people that want to hear it.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Why is music resonate with us so much?
Speaker 4 (14:56):
Well, I think there's a new study that's just coming out.
I saw something on the news the other night that's
saying that they're really studying music for what it does
to the brain. I think that it's funny because there's
a lot of things. I can't remember where I put
my car keys, and I can't remember maybe what I
was going into a room to go get or what
I was going to do, or when I pick up
the remote. I can't remember what TV show I wanted
(15:17):
to watch, but I can remember lyrics from the nineteen
seventies for my favorite albums, So you kind of wonder,
how does that happen.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
There's something that's formatted in our.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
Brains that music strikes a chord and a lot of people,
like they say, it's really good for anxiety.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
It's really good. It can consothe animals, it can make
them calm.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
There's something about music that I think still is undiscovered,
that it just it does something to us that most
of our life can't do, and that's it gives us joy,
it gives us calmness, it gives us inspiration.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
There's a whole bunch.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
Of things in the brain that they're studying, and I
think they're going to find that music is the best
therapy that the world's ever seen.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
What's your favorite John song?
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (16:01):
So my favorite songs are maybe not the ones that
we play in concert, but I now I'm trying to
put them in there. There's two songs that I love.
The song good by Eler Brick Road ever since and
the reason I love it so much. A lot of
songs when they hit the radio, there's a lot of copycats,
and there's a lot of songs that it sounds like
or that it was inspired from. Good Bye Old Brick
(16:22):
Road is so unique. I've never heard another song that
sounds like it. He wrote it, it was totally original,
then it's totally original now it still sounds good when
it comes on the radio. So good Bye Eli Bick
Road would be one. And then there's another song from
Blues for Baby and Me, off of Don't Shoot Me.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
I'm only a piano player. We just started playing it.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
Oh my god, the feeling I get when I play
that song on stage. I used to listen to that
song for hours and hours and now I'm fobably I
put it into our set. We'll probably play it Markham
now that I think about it, just because I enjoyed
that song so much. And maybe the third one would
be Funeral for a Friend Love Life's Bleeding from good
Bye Eli Brick Road. It's like ten or eleven minutes long.
(17:01):
Every second of its joyous for us to play. We
as a band, we're looking at each other, we're smiling
the whole time.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Just a great piece of music and a wonderful achievement
from Elton John and Birdie.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
That song, what do you think about when you're putting
on some of those outrageous costumes.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
Well, okay, so here's my theory on that, because I
had some people tell me, they said, are you gonna
wear the duck outfit? And are you gonna wear that?
And Elton John said something. He said that when he
turned thirty, he thought he started looking ridiculous in the
crazy outfits. And here I am, I'm much older than that.
So I said, I will never wear a duck outfit,
and I will never wear the feather bow. Is the
(17:38):
crazy crazy stuff. If ever a twenty two year old
Elton John comes along in a tribute artist, he can
wear all that crazy stuff. I'm gonna stick to my
Sequin outfits, my Sequin jackets. So I'm more like a
little bit like Elton looks like today, but I sound
like Elton back in the seventies. So I'm all about
Like every time I go out down to the States, especially,
they have these stores that have like four and fifty
(18:00):
racks of jackets, and I buy like six or seven
new Sequin jackets my closet. I Am going to have
the garage sale of all garage sales when I'm finally
done with this Helton thing. I have a whole room
full of jackets and shoes and glasses. I don't know
what I'm gonna do with it when I'm done.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
And the glasses, yes, no question, he.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Had lots of glasses.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
What's the biggest event you've played.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Too as far as people, We've set a couple of
records for attendance. So we did a show in Pennsylvania
just this past year. They have most of the big
festivals have a policy if they don't repeat acts, but
they repeated us two extra years, so we played three
years in a row there. Any given night when they
(18:44):
have a show, they get about twenty five hundred people.
When we played there, we got twelve two hundred people.
It was over the hills and the police had to
close the streets. We got so many people there that
they're not inviting us back this year because they couldn't
handle the crowds. We're too big for the venue. So
that was like spectacular. Then I would think something like
Peterborough Music Fest. We had eleven thousand something there. We've
(19:07):
done about ten to thirteen thousand about you know, half
a dozen times. Those are the bagels. We haven't done
any twenty thousand people. Yet that's a lot of people.
So I think ten to twelve is big enough.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
What's it like sitting down at a piano singing in
front of twelve thousand people? Like, what's that like?
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Okay, the words. I don't get nervous when I play.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
I remember Mick Jagger once said something and they asked him,
do you ever get nervous when you have to go
out and do a show? And he said no, he
goes I have it in my mind that I can't
wait to go out and show people what we can do.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
So in my mind is we're getting ready to go
on stage.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
I keep thinking like, I can't wait to hit the
piano and let them hear how much I sound like
Elton John. Because my guitarist always says it. If we
open with your song, my guitarist always says to me,
you had him at It's a little bit funny because
everybody's waiting to hear if.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
This Elton John guy sounds like Elton John.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
And by about the end of the first song, we've
got them because we sound just like Elton and they're
they're not expecting it, and they're not.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
It's just something that kind of comes out of the field.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
So if people have seen this before, they're right into
it and they're excited and they're cheering, and if they
haven't seen this before, there's a bit of a shock factor.
But that's that's my favorite thing. So when I'm on stage,
it's all about have we won over the audience and
how long does it take to win them over. Lately,
it's taken like a song and then the rest of
the night's of party.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
I've never had a problem. We've never had a bad show.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
We've had some shows where maybe it takes a couple
of songs to get them into it. But generally, when
people come to an Elton John tribute show and they
find out that the tribute band's pretty good, they're in
party mood from the start.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Well, you've been to our shows. You see what people do.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
I gotta tell you, I've seen you not half a dozen,
but almost half a dozen times so far, and it's
always been spectacular. You're an incredible performer. You do sound,
look and act, it's crazy play like Elton John and
and frankly, I've had a wonderful time every single time.
So I'm so glad that you're playing somewhere nearby. Yeah,
we've had people to check you out.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
We've had people see it's like a dozen times and
they keep coming and they always say, Hey, I want
to bring my sister. When are you coming back? So
that's why we keep playing. We returned to venues about
ninety percent of the time. We get rebooked into the
same venues over and over. We don't play Toronto all
that much, so this show at Markham Theater is going
to be one of the few times we're gonna be
in Toronto this year. I made a list and I
think we're only playing Toronto once in twenty twenty five
(21:32):
so far.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Maybe another one will come up, but we're everywhere.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
We're gonna be in New York I'm looking here, Illinois,
Kansas City, Iowa. We're going to Winnipeg, Regina, Pennsylvania. We're
going to moose Jaw for the first time. We're gonna
play Gravenhurst. We're gonna go to Edmonton. We're going a
big charity in New York City. We're gonna go to
Myrtle Beach. It's crazy, Stratford, Wisconsin. The list just keeps
getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And at some point
(21:55):
it's like I have to cut off the number of
shows we're playing because we have just not enough day
in the weekend. We generally mostly play weekends, so once
our weekends are full up, I can't I can't play anymore.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
What's the website people should go to if they want
to check.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Out the schedule eltonron dot com, E L T O
n R o HN dot com and just click on
dates And anytime we can announce something, we'll put it there. Generally,
I'm going to do a big announcement very soon that's
going to have our twenty twenty five schedule. I'm just
waiting for the okay from some venues, and I'm still
waiting to hear back from a couple of the especially
the casinos. They kind of ask us to wait for
(22:30):
a certain date to announce the show. So I'm just
waiting for the clearance of when I can announce the big,
you know, the big tour for next year, and and
then I'll post everything up. But there are some dates
up there now on the site and people can always
go back and check.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
On a daily basis. We update the site.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
So you're on.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Thursday, sixteen sixty Misday, January sixteenth, eight pm.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Elton Ron, thanks so much, appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Oh thanks Brian. It's always a pleasure talking to you.
All the best and rock on. We'll hope to see
at a show.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
SIP fantastic. You got to check them out. Everybody performance
is unbelievably spectacular. You walk out there singing yellow bit roape.
We're gonna take a break back in two minutes.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Stay with us, everybody, stream us live at SAGA nine
to six am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Brian Crombie Radio Hour.
So this coming weekend, I've got a really interesting a
series of events. It's not just one event, it's a
series of events to tell you about. It's the sixth
Canadian Chopin Piano Competition that's being held from January the
ninth to the thirteenth at the Telecenter for the performance
and learning. And to talk a little bit about this event,
(23:50):
a little bit about chopin, a little bit about music
a little bit but piano, a little bout teaching a
little bit about what to do when you're a kid
or a teenager and you got some extra time and
you want to become musically involved is doctor Janet Lipinski.
Janet Lipinski is the Senior Director of the College of
Examiners and Academic Promos at the Royal Conservatory. She's enjoyed
(24:10):
a multifaceted career as a pianist, a teacher and adjudicator,
a lecturer and author, and she's inspired and mentored students
and teachers from across North America. She's also the founder
and president of the Canadian Chopin Society, which presents this
Canadian Chopin competition every five years. Doctor Janet, welcome to
the show.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
Thank you, Brian, thank you so much for having me.
I'm delighted to have this opportunity to share information about
our wonderful event and more broadly speaking about the music
of Chopin.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
So tell me why Chopin?
Speaker 5 (24:45):
Why Chopin? Well, because everybody loves the music of Chopin,
and why does everybody love the music of Chopin is
a great way to start our discussion. I think the
music of Chopin has a universal appear. It is rare
to find a pianist who doesn't have the music of
Chopin in their repertoire. It is rare to find a
(25:09):
piano teacher who doesn't include it in their work. It's
rare to find a piano student who doesn't play the
music of Chopin, and a music lover who doesn't have
Chopin well back in the day LPs, now CDs and
now music in their streaming written by Chopin. There's just
something special about his music that speaks, i think, to
(25:32):
people from all over the world, all different backgrounds, all
different ages. It's a mixture of just the brilliant virtuosity
that comes from the fact that Chopin himself was such
an amazing pianist by all accounts, the beautiful lyricism. He's
been called the poet of the piano. People say he's
(25:55):
the one who taught the piano to sing beautiful singing lines.
On top of that, he was a patriotic poll There
is the element of Polish nationalism in his music, and
there is just the ability to convey timeless feeling and
emotion through his music.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
That's a little about his life. When did he live?
Speaker 5 (26:17):
He was born in eighteen ten in a small village
just outside of Poland. He spent the first thirty years
of his life in Poland, and then he went on
what was meant to be a concert tour of Europe
and ended up in Paris and stayed there because of
the political turmoil in Europe, and became an important part
(26:39):
of Parisian society. He associated with all the great artists
and musicians of the time. He played many, many salon concerts,
not so many public recitals, just because of his temperament,
and he was a very important influence on not just
(27:01):
the musical life in Paris at the time, but of
course on the work of generations of other composers to
follow him. His life story is very interesting. I think
his music itself reflects the story of his life in
many ways. There is a large number of works that
(27:24):
show that Polish connection, the dances like the Mazurkas and
the Polonaises, the songs set to poems by Polish poets.
But the importance of the salon recital that I mentioned
the waltz is, the nocturnes, the smaller pieces that miniatures
that were well suited to that venue, as well as
(27:44):
the large scale works like the concertos and sonatas, and
all of these works, of course are featured in the
upcoming showpen competition that I know. We'll talk about a
little later, but you'll have great opportunities to hear all
of these people. Is played by young pianists who are
coming to this music fresh full of new ideas.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
They tell us. So why the competition made and why
every five years?
Speaker 5 (28:12):
So the competition is held in conjunction with the International
Showpen competition that happens in Warsaw, Poland, every five years
on a five year cycle. Ever since the nineteen twenties,
and the five year cycle has only been broken a
few times during the Second World War and in the pandemic.
(28:32):
There was a one year delayed during the COVID pandemic,
but other than that it's five years like every five years,
like clockwork. And since nineteen ninety nine here in Canada,
there was an idea put forward in Mississauga, Ontario actually
at the Polish Cultural Center that it would be great
(28:52):
to have a competition in Canada to identify Canadian pianists
who then the Canadian Ship and Society could sponsor their
travel to go to Poland to participate in that international competition. Now,
the international competition itself is like the Olympics really of
(29:13):
piano playing. Young pianists come from all over the world
to compete. They plan years in advance, just as Olympic
athletes do, and they train for it. And interestingly enough,
the origins of the competition came in the nineteen twenties
in Poland from the idea of making it more appealing
(29:34):
for young people to want to prepare and work hard
to practice music, just as athletes did to prepare for
sports events, and the element of the competition would make
it more exciting and more interesting for pianists to prepare.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
And the first couple of days are free and then
the final performance is a ticketed performance. Is that correct?
And where can people go to get information?
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (30:01):
That's correct. Here in Canada, I'll just give a little
more background, which is that we started off at the
Polish Cultural Center in Mississauga and gradually, as the competition
expanded and grew, it has moved now to the beautiful
venue at the Royal Conservatory, the Telescenter for Performance and Learning.
So for the first three days we have preliminary rounds,
(30:23):
quarterfinals for the seniors, semifinals for the intermediates, and these
are all held in Mattzileni Hall, the smaller hall, beautiful
performance venue, and there is no tickets for that you
can come. I advise people to come early because it
will probably fill up, but you can come and walk
in and listen to portions of it as your schedule permits.
(30:46):
On the thirteenth, we have the finals for the Intermediate
and Senior division in Kerner Hall, beautiful, magnificent performance venue,
world class hall.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
That artists all.
Speaker 5 (31:01):
Love to play in, and I'm sure that the pianists
will enjoy it. It will be during the day for
the finals, and in the evening there will be a
gala winners concert where we will announce the winners and
highlight them with their performances. And those are ticketed events.
You can go to Canadian Chopin Society dot c a
(31:23):
for more information about those tickets, or directly to the
Kerner Hall box office.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Fantastic sounds like a great event and a great event
to promote and to encourage young musicians to participate in.
So thank you very much for doing that. We're going
to take a break for some messages and come back
in just two minutes and talk a little bit more
about music and playing the piano and chopin with doctor
Janet Lipinski, the senior director at the College of Examiners
(31:51):
and academic promate programs at the Royal Conservatory and talking
with the Canadian Chopin competition. Stay with us, everyone back.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
In two minutes, No Radio, No Problem stream is live
on SAGA ninety sixty am dot c A.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian Crommey Radio. We're talking
tonight about a competition going on this weekend and culminating
in the final performance on Monday night at Corner Hall,
downtown Toronto, the Canadian Showpen Competition with the organizer of it,
Janet Thepenske, doctor Janet Lipinski, who did her doctoral thesis
on the preludes to Chopin. Fascinating Doctor Lepinske, I wonder
(32:39):
if we can elevate for a second for all of
our listeners. Do you think learning the piano is still
something that people should do. You know, when I was
growing up, almost everyone took piano or guitar lessons, and
it seems like those lessons have not as popular today,
when you've got a when you've got streaming music services,
(33:02):
when you've got all these different ways that you can
get music. I tried to sell a piano recently and
it was like I almost couldn't give it away. What's
going on? Is it something that's still relevant in today's
in today's youth for people growing up today.
Speaker 5 (33:22):
Well, thank you for asking that question, and I hope
that I can contain my thoughts to the time that
we have, because this is a really big topic for me.
And my answer is, first absolutely it's relevant and more
so than ever before because of all of the all
(33:44):
of the options that are open to kids and all
of the uh, the time we spend on devices, kids, adults,
everyone in between. You know, we spend so much of
our time looking at screens, whether it's you know, to
to communicate with people or to learn about information. And
(34:05):
there's something about the discipline and the focus and the
beauty of learning to play an instrument that takes us
away from all of that. I have to say that
for myself when when times when things are busy and
I've made it home from a long commute or I've
(34:27):
finished my day of work out a screen, there's nothing
that brings me more joy than to go down to
my piano and you know, either get out some music
or just improvise and just spend some time listening to
that sound in a in a in a in a
vacuum away from everything else. But now going back to
the importance of the study for children. We we all
(34:49):
know about the transformative power of music, and how I've
spoken about the power of the music of Chopin and
other composers to take us to places that we can't
find otherwise and to communicate in ways that words can't communicate.
But the process of learning about music also has incredible, incredible,
(35:15):
incredible positive effects on children and adults, like children in particular.
You know, a lot has been written and a lot
of research has has shown recently about the value and
importance of music study, and it's how it affects cognitive
abilities of children, how it affects confidence, communication, skills, building discipline,
(35:41):
so many things beyond just developing that skill of you know,
being able to play, as I say, I'm dating myself,
but back in my day, it was being able to
play Doctor Chevago for your parents' friends. I remember when
I was a child, just about like you say, just
about everybody took piano, and if your children played the
kind of well, you trotted them out after dinner when
(36:02):
guests were over and had them play something for your friends.
And it became sort of a social thing. I remember
many times playing for my parents' friends, playing for family,
you know, playing in church, leading carol sings. It was
sort of a part of the way people interacted. And
you know, now we're more likely to plug up a
(36:22):
device and have some music playing rather than have that
that that sharing of music as part of part of
our our social times.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
You mentioned that they've got to memorize these these competitors
have to memorize two hours of chopin music and not
have sheet music to follow. If you tried to memorize
a two hour speech, it would be impossible. What is
it about music that makes it such that we can memorize?
And you know, we all have got the experience where
(36:55):
we hear a song again for the first time in
a decade and we know all the words. We know
that we know, we know, we know the lyrics, and
we know the music that goes along with it. What
is it about music that makes it so much easier
to memorize or so embedded on the mind?
Speaker 5 (37:11):
Yeah, I and I don't want to make it sound
like it's easy easy, You're I agree, of course, it's
it's still a lot of hard work. But I think
one of the things about it, and without getting into
sort of scientific explanations, is we're dealing with a combination
(37:32):
of different ways of remembering. So we're dealing with oral memory.
Sometimes we hear something many times and we can have
never looked at the sheet and we can reproduce it
just because we know how it sounds. Our ear tells
us that we can sing it. If we can sing it,
then it's just, you know, a walk to the piano
to be able to play it. So there's that oral memory.
(37:54):
There's also a sort of we sometimes think of this
as like motor memory, where in order to be able
to get to the point where you can play Chopin
atude or Chopin ballade, you've had to repeat it so
many times just to get it into your fingers. And
if you're learning it wisely, there's some choreography that goes
(38:14):
into it. You plan the gestures how you get from
this place to that place on the piano. So now
you're working with your ear, you're working with your body
the physical memory, and you're working with the music literacy portion,
where you've seen the music on the page. You know,
(38:34):
you read about stories about concert pianists who realized halfway
to a concert that they've prepared the wrong piece, and
they get out the music and they review it mentally
and get the memory back, not of course for a
piece they haven't known before, but get the memory back
just by looking at the page. And I had a
(38:55):
piano teacher who used to say to me many times,
and I don't think I understood it then as a teenager,
but she used to say, when you're preparing for a concert,
right before the concert, make sure you're not only practicing
like that. But sometimes she used to say, take the
music and sit in a chair with a cup of
tea and review the music away from the piano. I
(39:18):
always found it amusing that there had to be a
cup of tea to go with that, but that I
recall being my early before I studied the pedagogy of it,
and as a teacher myself learned how to reinforce all
the different elements of memory, not just the motor memory,
not just the oral memory, but also the visual or
(39:42):
cerebral sort of memory of taking the music away. So
I think to answer, as a fairly long answer to
your short question, is that there it's when I think
of memorizing a speech. I'm looking at words on a page,
and I may break them down into chunks, and I
may have some you know, visual cues that I'm looking
(40:05):
at thinking of where I am on the page, But
I don't have you know, the sound of the music
and that that that that.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (40:13):
The different methods of memory that work together are very powerful.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
There is something you know, even when you hear hip
hop or you know my favorite politician speech Jesse Jackson,
who who speaks like he's singing, Uh, you can memorize it.
It comes together far better, far more easily, when it's
got a cadence to it and a rhyme to it,
and a and a and a musicality to it, even
(40:40):
if it's not music, it's just speaking. So you know
these people they're going to be performing and competing on
stage in the senior division. Are they conservatory students? Are
they from across Canada? Give us a sense of of
who we might see and and where are they going
to go? Are they going to go work for a
symphony or going to go teach? What? Like, what's the
(41:02):
future for one of these people? So tell us who's
going to be on stage and what's their future.
Speaker 6 (41:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (41:07):
So in the Senior division there's twelve competitors. They were chosen.
We had a field of one hundred and thirty eight
applicants narrowed down to forty in each division, who participated
in a virtual preliminary round. And if any of the
listeners are you, Brian, are interested in sneak peek on
(41:30):
our website, Canadian Chowpin Society dot ca. If you go
to competition and virtual preliminary round, you can actually see
the performances, the recorded performances that were submitted by each
of these students and were judged in the virtual preliminary round.
We had applicants from all across Canada, literally from coast
(41:50):
to coast, and from those distinguished international jury selected twelve
who will come to Toronto. Twelve in each of the
three divisions. And in the Senior division we have somebody
from Nova Scotia, we have a number from Vancouver, we
(42:11):
have some from Alberta, we have one from Saskatchewan, several
from Quebec, and of course a core group from Ontario.
Speaker 6 (42:18):
You asked if.
Speaker 5 (42:19):
There are Royal Conservatory students. There are, in fact, spread
across the three divisions. We have sixteen students from the
Royal Conservatory, many from the Taylor Academy which is the
preparatory program, some from the Glenn Gould School who have
been admitted to the in person competition. So wearing my
(42:41):
RCM hat very proud of that to see so many
RCM students, but also many students from wonderful music schools
across the country as well.
Speaker 6 (42:48):
How old would these competitors be, So the senior division
competitors can be as young as fifteen through to twenty
nineollowing the age division.
Speaker 5 (43:01):
That's the age requirements for the international competition. Because naturally
we want to ensure that our top three winners, as
part of their prize, they are automatically accepted into the
preliminary round for the international competition, and the Canadian chip
In Society also sponsors their travel costs to participate in
(43:23):
that competition.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Fifteen or sixteen one.
Speaker 5 (43:28):
Now this is really interesting story because our in our
fourth Canadian Chipen Piano competition, our second prize winner, Tony
yuk Yang, who was fifteen at the time, went on
to compete in the international competition. He was admitted to
the preliminary round. He was successful in being admitted to
(43:52):
the main competition and he won the fifth prize, and
he became the youngest laureate in the history of the
International Showpin Piano Competition, the youngest. Now, you also asked
what do they do when they go on and that.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
What becomes with someone that's fifteen to twenty? Do they
become a piano teacher? Do they go work for a symphony?
What's the future for some of these people.
Speaker 5 (44:19):
Tony is a great example. He did go on to
earn degrees in music and business, and then he is
now traveling and concertizing. He is making a career as
a concert pianist. And there are some who are able
to do that. Many of them combine performing with recording
(44:42):
and teaching. Some may work towards having university teaching positions
in a set way. Some have private studios. I think
we have sort of portfolio careers many of the times,
where people do a bit of this and a bit
of that. But the really top prize winners, for example,
(45:03):
Bruce lou who who was the Canadian winner of the
Unfortunately he wasn't a Canadian Chopin competition winner. He didn't
go in our competition. He went straight into the international competition.
And won the first prize there. And marvelous, marvelous pianist
who is really making his mark. He is ansortizing, He
(45:24):
is concertizing around the world in all the major halls
and is as busy as he wants to be as
a full time concert pianist.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
Concertizing. I've never heard that word before.
Speaker 5 (45:35):
Given concerts.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Yes, fantastic. We're going to take a final break for
some messages and come back with our guest, doctor Jennet
Lipinski and talk a little bit about exactly how one
can get to this event and enjoy it the best.
Stay with us, everyone back in two.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
Minutes stream us live at SAGA nine to six am
dot C.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian Crombie Radio Wire. My
guest tonight is doctor Janet Lipinski, who is the coordinator,
the organizer, the founder of the Canadian Chopin competition that
takes place at the Telescenter for the Performing Arts and
Corner Hall this coming weekend. Doctor Lipinski, tell us how
should we do it? Like? Is it fun to go
(46:31):
to one of the preliminary rounds and find your favorite
and follow them through the competition? Tell us how we
should enjoy this event.
Speaker 5 (46:38):
The first thing you should do if you're interested in
the event is go to our website, Canadian Chopin Society
dot Ca. Join our mailing list, because then we can
send you updates, including updates on the results of each round.
Browse the virtual preliminary round. On our website, you'll find
the competition tab and you'll find virtual preliminary round. You
(47:01):
can already identify your favorites in advance of the actual competition.
Also on our website you can find the detailed schedule
of who will be playing when. If you're more interested
in the juniors, you'll know when to come. If you
want to follow the seniors through all three of their rounds,
you'll know when to come to the earlier rounds in
(47:23):
Massilloni Hall. Most importantly, though, you will want to get
your tickets for the finals and the winners concert that
happen on January thirteenth. You can buy individual tickets to
the finals and the winner's concert by going to Rcmusic
dot Ca or googling Kerner Hall tickets, and you can
(47:45):
buy those tickets directly from Cerner Hall, or if you'd
prefer to have a full day pass, come to our
website Canadian Chopin Soociety dot Ca to purchase your full
day pass so that you can take it all in
from morning till night on the thirteenth. There are also
(48:05):
opportunities to support the event, and I do need to
say that this event is completely organized and put on
by a team of dedicated volunteers and a board of
directors who are doing this because we believe in the mission,
We love the music of Chopin, we believe in wanting
to have this event available for our young pianists to
(48:30):
support their development. But of course it is an expensive endeavor,
so we are still looking for sponsors and partners. There
are still opportunities to support the event in a meaningful way.
We have an eighty eight keys campaign where you can
sponsor one of the keys on the competition as your
(48:51):
way of helping to make it possible, and you can
learn about that on our website as well. We have
a few opportunities still to spawn surprises and we have
opportunities to advertise, so please come to our website to
learn more about all of that. But most importantly, plan
to join us on the thirteenth, because it really is
(49:12):
only every five years that this opportunity comes up and
there's nothing like hearing these wonderful, extraordinary young pianists performing
live in beautiful Kerner Hall.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
So you've motivated me to go listen to some chopin.
What's the one piece that you recommend to put on
my Spotify streaming right now?
Speaker 5 (49:32):
Oh wow, that has got to be the most difficult.
That's like asking a parent which of your five children
do you are you going to take on your next trip?
Let me see, we are we are, we are in.
I'm going to say the chopin Burses, which is the lullaby.
(49:58):
It's a beautiful, pensive peace. It's a series of variations
written or over a beautiful left hand Austinado with some
beautiful right hand melodic figurations. Either Thought or the Ballade
in F minor. Those would be my two recommendations for
you if you want a short little snippet, any one
(50:20):
of the preludes or any one of the A tunes.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
But you know, Skate, thank you so much for joining us.
I really appreciate it. This has been really interesting and
I'm now going to be a fan of show.
Speaker 5 (50:30):
Thank you well, thank you, thank you so that it's
our show for tonight.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
Everybody, Thank you for joining. I remind you I'm on
every Monday through Friday at six o'clock on nine sixty am.
You can stream you online, even from Warsaw Poland at
Triple W Saga nine sixty am, dot C.
Speaker 1 (50:43):
Goodnight, everybody, No radio, no problem. Stream is live on
Saga nine sixty am dot C.
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
Saga nine sixty Am or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Brian Crombie Radio Hours.
So I thought it would be really good to get
off politics for a while, which has been something we've
all been focused on with what's going on in the
United States and what's going on in Canada right now,
and focus on a little bit of fun. And the
guy that I know in Mississauga that puts on a
lot of fun is Elton Ron, who is a Elton
(00:39):
John tribute band leader, and the man is Jess Spectacular,
a lot of fun and he's had an incredible year
touring around Canada, United States and he's got a dick
coming up in Markham in a short while. So Elton Ron,
Welcome to the show, sir.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Hi Brian, I hope you're doing well.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I'm doing great.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I had I got to tell you, yeah, a great time.
On New Year's Eve, I went to Other Than You,
a favorite band of mine called that seventies band in
Long Island, New York. They played in a place called
the Suffolk Theater, all seventies disco music, all night long covers,
Oh wow, of every great seventies disco song that I loved,
dancing all night long, it was just spectacular. There's something
(01:21):
about dancing to the music that you know and you
remember and you love from whether it's your teenage years
or young adult years, that makes things special. And I
think it's one of the things that I love about
watching you tell me how you got into doing Elton
john music.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Well, there's a direct line cord to the music of
the old days, and as I got older, I kept
going back to the to the to the old music
because that's what I listened to most of the time.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
It's not that I don't like the new acts.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
I do, and I listened to them as well, but
those old albums are just spectacular.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
So growing up I.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Always had the Elton Johns and the Billy Jewels and
Bruce Springsteen's and Chicago's always on my playlist all the time.
And in life, as I started working, both my brother
and I worked for a record company. And after I
left the record company and my brother had just left
the record company, he was at Kenwst Global and I
was writing music for television which I was just having
(02:14):
a blast.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
I put a recording studio in my house.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
I could get up every day in my pajamas and
go down to the studio and work all day. That
was the kind of job I had, so I was
quite content. But we decided, just for fun, one Sunday.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Night, we would go to a bar and play.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
And when we did it, everybody loved it, and the
owner said, hey, if I flip you some more dollars,
will you play longer? Then he said you got to
come back next week, so we decided the following week.
I was a guitarist at the time. We decided to
bring a piano and I put the piano down and
halfway through the night I played Rocketman and the place
went crazy.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
So that was kind of the start of it, and
then we decided we got to ask back again.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
That the following week we did a whole night of
Elton John music and from there it just grew and grew.
Next thing you know, we got invited to play the
Elton John Convention in Las Vegas, when I said, I
better take it seriously and get some sequin outfits and piano.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Covers and the whole bit. So I went the whole.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Nine yards, and it's just it's expanded ever since. It's
so now we're playing like the big venues. Were constantly
getting asked to travel and it's an absolute blast.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
It's really not work. It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
The work part is now when I'm home and I'm
on the computer and I'm booking the dates and I'm
doing the paperwork.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Once I hit the road and we get into the venues,
it's just a blast.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
And everybody in the world knows Elton John's music, so
it's kind of easy if you go up there.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
We do it pretty well. And then we played the
tell me like.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
You play like him, you look like him, you sound
like him?
Speaker 3 (03:39):
What like?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
What happened?
Speaker 4 (03:41):
What happened was I was a guitarist, all right, and
I always used to have idols when I was a kid.
Terry Cath was my idol from Chicago, Chicago. My dad
worked for CBS Records, so Chicago were his buddies and
they would come to Canada and they were very close.
So my dad was a big fan of horns. He
always loved listening to horns and music. Bloodweat and Tear Chicago,
(04:01):
And when Elton John released Honkey Cat the Honkey Chatau record.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
It had the horn riffs in it.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
My dad loved the album and brought it home, so
he put it on the turntable and I just gravitated
to it.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
I just thought it was the best thing I'd ever heard.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
I became a huge fan of Elton John's so I
got all of his albums and I started listening.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
And what every kid usually does.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
I don't know if you did this with your kid,
but I certainly did, was I'd stand by the record
player and I close my eyes and I'd sing along
with Elton or whoever your favorite artist was. I'd pretend
I was playing an instrument in the band. You just
let your mind go, because back then we only had albums.
We didn't have videos or anything. We would get maybe
one picture on the album, and we would just let
our imaginations go. So I actually pretended I was with
(04:43):
Elton's band, and I would sing all the background vocals
with them. And then years later, after I was playing guitar,
decided to buy piano. I wanted to teach myself how
to play, so the best way to do that was
just listening.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
To all those Elton albums again.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
And I actually play like Elton because that's the way
he plays, very per cussively.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I don't play classically. I don't play like a lot
of other players.
Speaker 4 (05:04):
I could never play like a chick corea, but I
could certainly play like Elton because he pounds the piano
and I loved it. So even if you gave me
a piece of classical music, I would pound the piano.
I'm totally Elton John on piano. And then everyone started
telling me how much I look like him and when
I would sing, because I grew up with his albums,
singing the albums with him, I had all the inflections
in the voice.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
So after a while.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
People started telling me, Boory, do you ever sound like
Elton John. We just put it all together and voila,
there it is Elton Ron.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Fantastic. Tell me about the rest of your band, because
you've got a couple of other very good musicians that
you perform with, don't you.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
Oh are They're great musicians. A couple of the guys
that have played in some other big bands. I have
Lori Engles in the band, played with Bob c. GREENI
Rest in Peace Bob, and he's played around the city
of Toronto. Sammy b Samie Posibis is a fantastic guitarist.
He's very good friends with Kim Mitchell and Mike Tilka
from the Max Webster days. And he actually get some
(06:00):
overdubs on the old Ronnie Hawkins album that was recorded
at Massey Hall.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
He's there.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Ian Turner is a big musician in and around Toronto.
He's so versatile. He started as our sub bass player
and now he's our drummer, so he plays multiple instruments.
Matthew Maren's also another multi instrumentalist. He plays bass in
the band, but he also plays piano and guitar, and
he can sing. Everybody sings in the band. Everybody's very talented.
(06:27):
And we have Lester McLean who joins the band about
probably about eighty percent of the time. He plays saxophone
and percussion and acoustic guitar. And as I said, all
the guys sing live. We all do all the harmonies live.
We don't rehearse that much anymore because everybody knows the songs.
So really, when we get on stage, we haven't seen
each other for a while. That's why it's so much fun.
(06:48):
Every time we see each other. We're all smiles. We
get on stage and we just let it rip. It's
so much fun.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
And you've got an event coming up shortly and Mark
and I understand.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
Yes, were there on January sixteenth, and it's a Thursday
night and we're going to play the Flatto Theater.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Last time we sold it out.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
There's a few tickets left, so if anybody wants to
come to the show, it's gonna be fantastic. And I'll
let you know that we have a special guest that
we're going to bring in. Her name is Talia Schlanger.
Some people may know Talia because she is the sub
co host of the radio show Q with Tom Power.
Talia's subbed in there. She's interviewed some of the big
(07:26):
stars like Sting and she just did a great interview
with Katie Lang. But she also toured. She did American
Idiot and before that, We Will Rock You. She's a
fantastic singer. She's recorded her first album and it's phenomenal.
We one time we were playing a venue and she
was there and we invited her up to sing and
she does an incredible Kiki d So we asked her
(07:48):
if she was around on the sixteenth and she is.
So she's going to open for the band and come
join us for a few songs. So that's going to
be a nice added attraction. If you haven't seen her
with the band, it's magical.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Well what's that duet that Elton John does?
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Don't go break in my heart. It's a real it's
a real crowd. Please. The crowd goes crazy when we
do it, and we'll do it. We'll do it for sure.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Fantastic, wonderful. If people want to get tickets, how do
they get them?
Speaker 3 (08:12):
Where do they go?
Speaker 4 (08:13):
We can go to the Markham Flatto Theater page and
under the events you'll see all the bands listed that
are playing there.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
You can just click on there and buy tickets.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
And if you're not sure where to go, you can
always go to my site, eltonron dot com. Just click
on dates and then find mark them. Click on it.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
It'll take you right to the ticket box office.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
That's great. You've had quite a year touring. Tell us
about some of the places you've gone last.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Ye, yeah, we've we always you know. It's funny because
at the start of the year I always think the
same thing. I said, Gee, I hope I can get
enough dates for next year. I'm looking at the schedule
for next year and we've already got between forty and
fifty dates, and last year we did forty to fifty dates.
In twenty twenty four we played just seventy thousand, a
little bit more than seventy thousand people, which just blows
my mind. And like I said before, everywhere we go,
(08:57):
everyone's singing the songs with us, so it just it
just it really easy. And the more we play, the
more people see us, and the more gigs we get,
I'll all get phone calls. We just played New Year's
Eve in Chicago. While you were out there playing disco,
we were in Chicago doing Elton and from that show,
I've already got three phone calls from people that were
at the show. One of them was a CEO for
(09:18):
a company. They want us for a corporate party. Another
one wants us to come play their amphitheater. So everything
always kind of spins off off of the shows that
we play. We've had a great a great deal of
success in America. That's where most of our shows are.
We've played everywhere from Michigan, Illinois, Ohio. We're going back
to Kansas City and Iowa, it's crazy.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
We're going to Myrtle Beach. It just the phone just
keeps ringing.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
So as long as it's ringing, I'm picking it up,
and as long as I can sing and hit the
high notes, We'll keep doing this song.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
We'll keep doing the shows.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Fantastic. You talked last time we chatted about tribute bands
and that some people, you know, the negative attitude toward
tribute bands for some reason, and yet other people love
them because it brings back the memories of their days
gone by, their wonderful teenage years.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Whatever.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Tell me a little bit about why tribute bands are
successful and also why some people don't respect them.
Speaker 4 (10:16):
Well, I think the reason they're successful is because there's
a lot of people today are kind of struggling with
the new music. They either don't get it or like
they turn on the Grammy Awards and they don't know
who the artists are. Back in the day, in the seventies,
we really only had radio and television. It was a
very It was much smaller amount of places you could
go to get you music, and when you turned on
(10:37):
a radio station in Toronto, you heard everything.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Now everything is so fragmented.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
There's five hundred stations, you really don't get to hear
a lot of everything else. So what's happening with people
is they're getting their one or two favorites and that's
kind of all they're being exposed to. But when people
get exposed to those great albums of the sixties and
the seventies, it's like a new exploration for them. And
all these kids today are just discovering James Brown and
(11:02):
even early you know, the Jackson five and all that
Motown stuff, and they're discovering Elton John.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
That's why Elton John is so iconic.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
Today that he's got a whole new wave of new
people that love his music. And he's kept it relevant
by doing you know, the Disney movies, and he keeps
going and now he's got to do a loop of thing.
But I think in general, the tribute acts, if you
do it well, you can really strike a chord, because
a lot of tribute acts now can actually surpass from
what the what the artists.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Today can do.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
A lot of them are in their seventies, almost eighty
years old. They can't play it the way they used
to play it, nor would we expect them to. So
if you get some thirty year old kid coming along
who can sing led Zeppelin. There's going to be a
lot of led Zeppelin fans that can connect with that,
and that's that's what's happening. So if you're good at it.
The problem with tribute acts is that there's too many
of them now. Everybody's doing it because anybody can put
(11:53):
on a costume. But if you we through all that,
all the kind of average talented ones and you pull
out the plumb, really good tribute acts. There's some spectacular
shows going on out there, and some people have big
budget touring shows. A couple of Pink Floyd shows have
massive trucks that come in and do the whole thing.
So I think it kind of hits a chord and
it lets people kind of re experience everything that they
(12:17):
did when they were in their teens. Like for me,
when I was in the seventies, I got to see
all the great bands. So for me to go to
see a tribute now of someone who's going to play
Queen or Pink Floyd, it really can take me back
to the days that when I really saw them live.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
And for a kid.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
Today who never got a chance to see Pink Floyd,
but really maybe listen to the Dark Side of the Moon.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
They can go and now see a band.
Speaker 4 (12:39):
Play the thing live and it's sort of reminiscent of
the way Pink Floyd played. It won't quite be on
the same scale, but it's pretty close. So for our shows,
we hit all the high notes, we hit everything the
way Elton used to play it, and there's a lot
of energy. We do everything live the way Elton used
to play, so we can give people a little bit
of the taste of what it was like back in
seventy four Gardens when they went to see Elton John
(13:02):
Rock and by the way that show he did it
make belief Gardens was only a couple of weeks before
he went to Madison Square Gardens with John Lennon for
the famous last show that John Lennon played, which I
kind of put together in my head a couple of
days ago when we were talking about anniversaries. So those
days for me were the most spectacular days of music.
You know, a seven dollars ticket you could go see
(13:23):
Freddie Mercury and Queen, so you can't really see that anymore.
You could see the New Queen if you want, with
Adam Lambert. For me, I really am a Freddie fan,
so I'll go see my friend and simply Queen who
just nails Freddy and verage.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Is a funny job too.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Yeah, there's a lot of.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Really really good bands out there and tributes, but the
problem is there's too many of them now. It's kind
of watered down and a lot of the average talent
is I want to say this polightly, a lot of
them are trying to put themselves into like a lot
of theaters and biger venues and it's not really taking.
Like some of them will play the half a house
and what happens is it kind of waters down the
whole tribute mark. So at some point something's got to give.
(14:03):
Either some of the acts kind of have to weed
their way out or it's just gonna explode with like
everything all the time, all tributes, which I don't think
we want. We still want a lot of a original
artists up there. I still like to go see a
Tom Cochran and I still like to go see the bands,
like you know, I see Kim Mitchell, Burton Cummings. They
have a great original song, so I still want to
see that. But there's a market for the tribute so
(14:24):
we're playing all the same venues that Burton Cummings is
playing now. Larry Gallon, we kind of joke about it that,
you know, here I am on the same poster on
the same wall as these guys. We follow Bachman turn
Over Drive out in Edmonton. What we're going to be
out there.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
So it's just it's just really fun.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
So people can go and see a serious artist like
a Randy Bachman, and then they can go have fun
the next night and see a Begi's tribute. It's just
it's music. It's just there's either good music or bad music.
And if you do it well, I think there's a
lot of people that want to hear it.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Why is music resonate with us so much?
Speaker 4 (14:56):
Well, I think there's a new study that's just coming out.
I saw something on the news the other night that's
saying that they're really studying music for what it does
to the brain. I think that it's funny because there's
a lot of things. I can't remember where I put
my car keys, and I can't remember maybe what I
was going into a room to go get or what
I was going to do, or when I pick up
the remote. I can't remember what TV show I wanted
(15:17):
to watch, but I can remember lyrics from the nineteen
seventies for my favorite albums, So you kind of wonder,
how does that happen.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
There's something that's formatted in our.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
Brains that music strikes a chord and a lot of people,
like they say, it's really good for anxiety.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
It's really good. It can consothe animals, it can make
them calm.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
There's something about music that I think still is undiscovered,
that it just it does something to us that most
of our life can't do, and that's it gives us joy,
it gives us calmness, it gives us inspiration.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
There's a whole bunch.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
Of things in the brain that they're studying, and I
think they're going to find that music is the best
therapy that the world's ever seen.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
What's your favorite John song?
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (16:01):
So my favorite songs are maybe not the ones that
we play in concert, but I now I'm trying to
put them in there. There's two songs that I love.
The song good by Eler Brick Road ever since and
the reason I love it so much. A lot of
songs when they hit the radio, there's a lot of copycats,
and there's a lot of songs that it sounds like
or that it was inspired from. Good Bye Old Brick
(16:22):
Road is so unique. I've never heard another song that
sounds like it. He wrote it, it was totally original,
then it's totally original now it still sounds good when
it comes on the radio. So good Bye Eli Bick
Road would be one. And then there's another song from
Blues for Baby and Me, off of Don't Shoot Me.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
I'm only a piano player. We just started playing it.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
Oh my god, the feeling I get when I play
that song on stage. I used to listen to that
song for hours and hours and now I'm fobably I
put it into our set. We'll probably play it Markham
now that I think about it, just because I enjoyed
that song so much. And maybe the third one would
be Funeral for a Friend Love Life's Bleeding from good
Bye Eli Brick Road. It's like ten or eleven minutes long.
(17:01):
Every second of its joyous for us to play. We
as a band, we're looking at each other, we're smiling
the whole time.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Just a great piece of music and a wonderful achievement
from Elton John and Birdie.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
That song, what do you think about when you're putting
on some of those outrageous costumes.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
Well, okay, so here's my theory on that, because I
had some people tell me, they said, are you gonna
wear the duck outfit? And are you gonna wear that?
And Elton John said something. He said that when he
turned thirty, he thought he started looking ridiculous in the
crazy outfits. And here I am, I'm much older than that.
So I said, I will never wear a duck outfit,
and I will never wear the feather bow. Is the
(17:38):
crazy crazy stuff. If ever a twenty two year old
Elton John comes along in a tribute artist, he can
wear all that crazy stuff. I'm gonna stick to my
Sequin outfits, my Sequin jackets. So I'm more like a
little bit like Elton looks like today, but I sound
like Elton back in the seventies. So I'm all about
Like every time I go out down to the States, especially,
they have these stores that have like four and fifty
(18:00):
racks of jackets, and I buy like six or seven
new Sequin jackets my closet. I Am going to have
the garage sale of all garage sales when I'm finally
done with this Helton thing. I have a whole room
full of jackets and shoes and glasses. I don't know
what I'm gonna do with it when I'm done.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
And the glasses, yes, no question, he.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Had lots of glasses.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
What's the biggest event you've played.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Too as far as people, We've set a couple of
records for attendance. So we did a show in Pennsylvania
just this past year. They have most of the big
festivals have a policy if they don't repeat acts, but
they repeated us two extra years, so we played three
years in a row there. Any given night when they
(18:44):
have a show, they get about twenty five hundred people.
When we played there, we got twelve two hundred people.
It was over the hills and the police had to
close the streets. We got so many people there that
they're not inviting us back this year because they couldn't
handle the crowds. We're too big for the venue. So
that was like spectacular. Then I would think something like
Peterborough Music Fest. We had eleven thousand something there. We've
(19:07):
done about ten to thirteen thousand about you know, half
a dozen times. Those are the bagels. We haven't done
any twenty thousand people. Yet that's a lot of people.
So I think ten to twelve is big enough.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
What's it like sitting down at a piano singing in
front of twelve thousand people? Like, what's that like?
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Okay, the words. I don't get nervous when I play.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
I remember Mick Jagger once said something and they asked him,
do you ever get nervous when you have to go
out and do a show? And he said no, he
goes I have it in my mind that I can't
wait to go out and show people what we can do.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
So in my mind is we're getting ready to go
on stage.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
I keep thinking like, I can't wait to hit the
piano and let them hear how much I sound like
Elton John. Because my guitarist always says it. If we
open with your song, my guitarist always says to me,
you had him at It's a little bit funny because
everybody's waiting to hear if.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
This Elton John guy sounds like Elton John.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
And by about the end of the first song, we've
got them because we sound just like Elton and they're
they're not expecting it, and they're not.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
It's just something that kind of comes out of the field.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
So if people have seen this before, they're right into
it and they're excited and they're cheering, and if they
haven't seen this before, there's a bit of a shock factor.
But that's that's my favorite thing. So when I'm on stage,
it's all about have we won over the audience and
how long does it take to win them over. Lately,
it's taken like a song and then the rest of
the night's of party.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
I've never had a problem. We've never had a bad show.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
We've had some shows where maybe it takes a couple
of songs to get them into it. But generally, when
people come to an Elton John tribute show and they
find out that the tribute band's pretty good, they're in
party mood from the start.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Well, you've been to our shows. You see what people do.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
I gotta tell you, I've seen you not half a dozen,
but almost half a dozen times so far, and it's
always been spectacular. You're an incredible performer. You do sound,
look and act, it's crazy play like Elton John and
and frankly, I've had a wonderful time every single time.
So I'm so glad that you're playing somewhere nearby. Yeah,
we've had people to check you out.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
We've had people see it's like a dozen times and
they keep coming and they always say, Hey, I want
to bring my sister. When are you coming back? So
that's why we keep playing. We returned to venues about
ninety percent of the time. We get rebooked into the
same venues over and over. We don't play Toronto all
that much, so this show at Markham Theater is going
to be one of the few times we're gonna be
in Toronto this year. I made a list and I
think we're only playing Toronto once in twenty twenty five
(21:32):
so far.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Maybe another one will come up, but we're everywhere.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
We're gonna be in New York I'm looking here, Illinois,
Kansas City, Iowa. We're going to Winnipeg, Regina, Pennsylvania. We're
going to moose Jaw for the first time. We're gonna
play Gravenhurst. We're gonna go to Edmonton. We're going a
big charity in New York City. We're gonna go to
Myrtle Beach. It's crazy, Stratford, Wisconsin. The list just keeps
getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And at some point
(21:55):
it's like I have to cut off the number of
shows we're playing because we have just not enough day
in the weekend. We generally mostly play weekends, so once
our weekends are full up, I can't I can't play anymore.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
What's the website people should go to if they want
to check.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Out the schedule eltonron dot com, E L T O
n R o HN dot com and just click on
dates And anytime we can announce something, we'll put it there. Generally,
I'm going to do a big announcement very soon that's
going to have our twenty twenty five schedule. I'm just
waiting for the okay from some venues, and I'm still
waiting to hear back from a couple of the especially
the casinos. They kind of ask us to wait for
(22:30):
a certain date to announce the show. So I'm just
waiting for the clearance of when I can announce the big,
you know, the big tour for next year, and and
then I'll post everything up. But there are some dates
up there now on the site and people can always
go back and check.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
On a daily basis. We update the site.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
So you're on.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Thursday, sixteen sixty Misday, January sixteenth, eight pm.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Elton Ron, thanks so much, appreciate it.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Oh thanks Brian. It's always a pleasure talking to you.
All the best and rock on. We'll hope to see
at a show.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
SIP fantastic. You got to check them out. Everybody performance
is unbelievably spectacular. You walk out there singing yellow bit roape.
We're gonna take a break back in two minutes.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Stay with us, everybody, stream us live at SAGA nine
to six am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Brian Crombie Radio Hour.
So this coming weekend, I've got a really interesting a
series of events. It's not just one event, it's a
series of events to tell you about. It's the sixth
Canadian Chopin Piano Competition that's being held from January the
ninth to the thirteenth at the Telecenter for the performance
and learning. And to talk a little bit about this event,
(23:50):
a little bit about chopin, a little bit about music
a little bit but piano, a little bout teaching a
little bit about what to do when you're a kid
or a teenager and you got some extra time and
you want to become musically involved is doctor Janet Lipinski.
Janet Lipinski is the Senior Director of the College of
Examiners and Academic Promos at the Royal Conservatory. She's enjoyed
(24:10):
a multifaceted career as a pianist, a teacher and adjudicator,
a lecturer and author, and she's inspired and mentored students
and teachers from across North America. She's also the founder
and president of the Canadian Chopin Society, which presents this
Canadian Chopin competition every five years. Doctor Janet, welcome to
the show.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
Thank you, Brian, thank you so much for having me.
I'm delighted to have this opportunity to share information about
our wonderful event and more broadly speaking about the music
of Chopin.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
So tell me why Chopin?
Speaker 5 (24:45):
Why Chopin? Well, because everybody loves the music of Chopin,
and why does everybody love the music of Chopin is
a great way to start our discussion. I think the
music of Chopin has a universal appear. It is rare
to find a pianist who doesn't have the music of
Chopin in their repertoire. It is rare to find a
(25:09):
piano teacher who doesn't include it in their work. It's
rare to find a piano student who doesn't play the
music of Chopin, and a music lover who doesn't have
Chopin well back in the day LPs, now CDs and
now music in their streaming written by Chopin. There's just
something special about his music that speaks, i think, to
(25:32):
people from all over the world, all different backgrounds, all
different ages. It's a mixture of just the brilliant virtuosity
that comes from the fact that Chopin himself was such
an amazing pianist by all accounts, the beautiful lyricism. He's
been called the poet of the piano. People say he's
(25:55):
the one who taught the piano to sing beautiful singing lines.
On top of that, he was a patriotic poll There
is the element of Polish nationalism in his music, and
there is just the ability to convey timeless feeling and
emotion through his music.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
That's a little about his life. When did he live?
Speaker 5 (26:17):
He was born in eighteen ten in a small village
just outside of Poland. He spent the first thirty years
of his life in Poland, and then he went on
what was meant to be a concert tour of Europe
and ended up in Paris and stayed there because of
the political turmoil in Europe, and became an important part
(26:39):
of Parisian society. He associated with all the great artists
and musicians of the time. He played many, many salon concerts,
not so many public recitals, just because of his temperament,
and he was a very important influence on not just
(27:01):
the musical life in Paris at the time, but of
course on the work of generations of other composers to
follow him. His life story is very interesting. I think
his music itself reflects the story of his life in
many ways. There is a large number of works that
(27:24):
show that Polish connection, the dances like the Mazurkas and
the Polonaises, the songs set to poems by Polish poets.
But the importance of the salon recital that I mentioned
the waltz is, the nocturnes, the smaller pieces that miniatures
that were well suited to that venue, as well as
(27:44):
the large scale works like the concertos and sonatas, and
all of these works, of course are featured in the
upcoming showpen competition that I know. We'll talk about a
little later, but you'll have great opportunities to hear all
of these people. Is played by young pianists who are
coming to this music fresh full of new ideas.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
They tell us. So why the competition made and why
every five years?
Speaker 5 (28:12):
So the competition is held in conjunction with the International
Showpen competition that happens in Warsaw, Poland, every five years
on a five year cycle. Ever since the nineteen twenties,
and the five year cycle has only been broken a
few times during the Second World War and in the pandemic.
(28:32):
There was a one year delayed during the COVID pandemic,
but other than that it's five years like every five years,
like clockwork. And since nineteen ninety nine here in Canada,
there was an idea put forward in Mississauga, Ontario actually
at the Polish Cultural Center that it would be great
(28:52):
to have a competition in Canada to identify Canadian pianists
who then the Canadian Ship and Society could sponsor their
travel to go to Poland to participate in that international competition. Now,
the international competition itself is like the Olympics really of
(29:13):
piano playing. Young pianists come from all over the world
to compete. They plan years in advance, just as Olympic
athletes do, and they train for it. And interestingly enough,
the origins of the competition came in the nineteen twenties
in Poland from the idea of making it more appealing
(29:34):
for young people to want to prepare and work hard
to practice music, just as athletes did to prepare for
sports events, and the element of the competition would make
it more exciting and more interesting for pianists to prepare.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
And the first couple of days are free and then
the final performance is a ticketed performance. Is that correct?
And where can people go to get information?
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (30:01):
That's correct. Here in Canada, I'll just give a little
more background, which is that we started off at the
Polish Cultural Center in Mississauga and gradually, as the competition
expanded and grew, it has moved now to the beautiful
venue at the Royal Conservatory, the Telescenter for Performance and Learning.
So for the first three days we have preliminary rounds,
(30:23):
quarterfinals for the seniors, semifinals for the intermediates, and these
are all held in Mattzileni Hall, the smaller hall, beautiful
performance venue, and there is no tickets for that you
can come. I advise people to come early because it
will probably fill up, but you can come and walk
in and listen to portions of it as your schedule permits.
(30:46):
On the thirteenth, we have the finals for the Intermediate
and Senior division in Kerner Hall, beautiful, magnificent performance venue,
world class hall.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
That artists all.
Speaker 5 (31:01):
Love to play in, and I'm sure that the pianists
will enjoy it. It will be during the day for
the finals, and in the evening there will be a
gala winners concert where we will announce the winners and
highlight them with their performances. And those are ticketed events.
You can go to Canadian Chopin Society dot c a
(31:23):
for more information about those tickets, or directly to the
Kerner Hall box office.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Fantastic sounds like a great event and a great event
to promote and to encourage young musicians to participate in.
So thank you very much for doing that. We're going
to take a break for some messages and come back
in just two minutes and talk a little bit more
about music and playing the piano and chopin with doctor
Janet Lipinski, the senior director at the College of Examiners
(31:51):
and academic promate programs at the Royal Conservatory and talking
with the Canadian Chopin competition. Stay with us, everyone back.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
In two minutes, No Radio, No Problem stream is live
on SAGA ninety sixty am dot c A.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian Crommey Radio. We're talking
tonight about a competition going on this weekend and culminating
in the final performance on Monday night at Corner Hall,
downtown Toronto, the Canadian Showpen Competition with the organizer of it,
Janet Thepenske, doctor Janet Lipinski, who did her doctoral thesis
on the preludes to Chopin. Fascinating Doctor Lepinske, I wonder
(32:39):
if we can elevate for a second for all of
our listeners. Do you think learning the piano is still
something that people should do. You know, when I was
growing up, almost everyone took piano or guitar lessons, and
it seems like those lessons have not as popular today,
when you've got a when you've got streaming music services,
(33:02):
when you've got all these different ways that you can
get music. I tried to sell a piano recently and
it was like I almost couldn't give it away. What's
going on? Is it something that's still relevant in today's
in today's youth for people growing up today.
Speaker 5 (33:22):
Well, thank you for asking that question, and I hope
that I can contain my thoughts to the time that
we have, because this is a really big topic for me.
And my answer is, first absolutely it's relevant and more
so than ever before because of all of the all
(33:44):
of the options that are open to kids and all
of the uh, the time we spend on devices, kids, adults,
everyone in between. You know, we spend so much of
our time looking at screens, whether it's you know, to
to communicate with people or to learn about information. And
(34:05):
there's something about the discipline and the focus and the
beauty of learning to play an instrument that takes us
away from all of that. I have to say that
for myself when when times when things are busy and
I've made it home from a long commute or I've
(34:27):
finished my day of work out a screen, there's nothing
that brings me more joy than to go down to
my piano and you know, either get out some music
or just improvise and just spend some time listening to
that sound in a in a in a in a
vacuum away from everything else. But now going back to
the importance of the study for children. We we all
(34:49):
know about the transformative power of music, and how I've
spoken about the power of the music of Chopin and
other composers to take us to places that we can't
find otherwise and to communicate in ways that words can't communicate.
But the process of learning about music also has incredible, incredible,
(35:15):
incredible positive effects on children and adults, like children in particular.
You know, a lot has been written and a lot
of research has has shown recently about the value and
importance of music study, and it's how it affects cognitive
abilities of children, how it affects confidence, communication, skills, building discipline,
(35:41):
so many things beyond just developing that skill of you know,
being able to play, as I say, I'm dating myself,
but back in my day, it was being able to
play Doctor Chevago for your parents' friends. I remember when
I was a child, just about like you say, just
about everybody took piano, and if your children played the
kind of well, you trotted them out after dinner when
(36:02):
guests were over and had them play something for your friends.
And it became sort of a social thing. I remember
many times playing for my parents' friends, playing for family,
you know, playing in church, leading carol sings. It was
sort of a part of the way people interacted. And
you know, now we're more likely to plug up a
(36:22):
device and have some music playing rather than have that
that that sharing of music as part of part of
our our social times.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
You mentioned that they've got to memorize these these competitors
have to memorize two hours of chopin music and not
have sheet music to follow. If you tried to memorize
a two hour speech, it would be impossible. What is
it about music that makes it such that we can memorize?
And you know, we all have got the experience where
(36:55):
we hear a song again for the first time in
a decade and we know all the words. We know
that we know, we know, we know the lyrics, and
we know the music that goes along with it. What
is it about music that makes it so much easier
to memorize or so embedded on the mind?
Speaker 5 (37:11):
Yeah, I and I don't want to make it sound
like it's easy easy, You're I agree, of course, it's
it's still a lot of hard work. But I think
one of the things about it, and without getting into
sort of scientific explanations, is we're dealing with a combination
(37:32):
of different ways of remembering. So we're dealing with oral memory.
Sometimes we hear something many times and we can have
never looked at the sheet and we can reproduce it
just because we know how it sounds. Our ear tells
us that we can sing it. If we can sing it,
then it's just, you know, a walk to the piano
to be able to play it. So there's that oral memory.
(37:54):
There's also a sort of we sometimes think of this
as like motor memory, where in order to be able
to get to the point where you can play Chopin
atude or Chopin ballade, you've had to repeat it so
many times just to get it into your fingers. And
if you're learning it wisely, there's some choreography that goes
(38:14):
into it. You plan the gestures how you get from
this place to that place on the piano. So now
you're working with your ear, you're working with your body
the physical memory, and you're working with the music literacy portion,
where you've seen the music on the page. You know,
(38:34):
you read about stories about concert pianists who realized halfway
to a concert that they've prepared the wrong piece, and
they get out the music and they review it mentally
and get the memory back, not of course for a
piece they haven't known before, but get the memory back
just by looking at the page. And I had a
(38:55):
piano teacher who used to say to me many times,
and I don't think I understood it then as a teenager,
but she used to say, when you're preparing for a concert,
right before the concert, make sure you're not only practicing
like that. But sometimes she used to say, take the
music and sit in a chair with a cup of
tea and review the music away from the piano. I
(39:18):
always found it amusing that there had to be a
cup of tea to go with that, but that I
recall being my early before I studied the pedagogy of it,
and as a teacher myself learned how to reinforce all
the different elements of memory, not just the motor memory,
not just the oral memory, but also the visual or
(39:42):
cerebral sort of memory of taking the music away. So
I think to answer, as a fairly long answer to
your short question, is that there it's when I think
of memorizing a speech. I'm looking at words on a page,
and I may break them down into chunks, and I
may have some you know, visual cues that I'm looking
(40:05):
at thinking of where I am on the page, But
I don't have you know, the sound of the music
and that that that that.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (40:13):
The different methods of memory that work together are very powerful.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
There is something you know, even when you hear hip
hop or you know my favorite politician speech Jesse Jackson,
who who speaks like he's singing, Uh, you can memorize it.
It comes together far better, far more easily, when it's
got a cadence to it and a rhyme to it,
and a and a and a musicality to it, even
(40:40):
if it's not music, it's just speaking. So you know
these people they're going to be performing and competing on
stage in the senior division. Are they conservatory students? Are
they from across Canada? Give us a sense of of
who we might see and and where are they going
to go? Are they going to go work for a
symphony or going to go teach? What? Like, what's the
(41:02):
future for one of these people? So tell us who's
going to be on stage and what's their future.
Speaker 6 (41:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (41:07):
So in the Senior division there's twelve competitors. They were chosen.
We had a field of one hundred and thirty eight
applicants narrowed down to forty in each division, who participated
in a virtual preliminary round. And if any of the
listeners are you, Brian, are interested in sneak peek on
(41:30):
our website, Canadian Chowpin Society dot ca. If you go
to competition and virtual preliminary round, you can actually see
the performances, the recorded performances that were submitted by each
of these students and were judged in the virtual preliminary round.
We had applicants from all across Canada, literally from coast
(41:50):
to coast, and from those distinguished international jury selected twelve
who will come to Toronto. Twelve in each of the
three divisions. And in the Senior division we have somebody
from Nova Scotia, we have a number from Vancouver, we
(42:11):
have some from Alberta, we have one from Saskatchewan, several
from Quebec, and of course a core group from Ontario.
Speaker 6 (42:18):
You asked if.
Speaker 5 (42:19):
There are Royal Conservatory students. There are, in fact, spread
across the three divisions. We have sixteen students from the
Royal Conservatory, many from the Taylor Academy which is the
preparatory program, some from the Glenn Gould School who have
been admitted to the in person competition. So wearing my
(42:41):
RCM hat very proud of that to see so many
RCM students, but also many students from wonderful music schools
across the country as well.
Speaker 6 (42:48):
How old would these competitors be, So the senior division
competitors can be as young as fifteen through to twenty
nineollowing the age division.
Speaker 5 (43:01):
That's the age requirements for the international competition. Because naturally
we want to ensure that our top three winners, as
part of their prize, they are automatically accepted into the
preliminary round for the international competition, and the Canadian chip
In Society also sponsors their travel costs to participate in
(43:23):
that competition.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Fifteen or sixteen one.
Speaker 5 (43:28):
Now this is really interesting story because our in our
fourth Canadian Chipen Piano competition, our second prize winner, Tony
yuk Yang, who was fifteen at the time, went on
to compete in the international competition. He was admitted to
the preliminary round. He was successful in being admitted to
(43:52):
the main competition and he won the fifth prize, and
he became the youngest laureate in the history of the
International Showpin Piano Competition, the youngest. Now, you also asked
what do they do when they go on and that.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
What becomes with someone that's fifteen to twenty? Do they
become a piano teacher? Do they go work for a symphony?
What's the future for some of these people.
Speaker 5 (44:19):
Tony is a great example. He did go on to
earn degrees in music and business, and then he is
now traveling and concertizing. He is making a career as
a concert pianist. And there are some who are able
to do that. Many of them combine performing with recording
(44:42):
and teaching. Some may work towards having university teaching positions
in a set way. Some have private studios. I think
we have sort of portfolio careers many of the times,
where people do a bit of this and a bit
of that. But the really top prize winners, for example,
(45:03):
Bruce lou who who was the Canadian winner of the
Unfortunately he wasn't a Canadian Chopin competition winner. He didn't
go in our competition. He went straight into the international competition.
And won the first prize there. And marvelous, marvelous pianist
who is really making his mark. He is ansortizing, He
(45:24):
is concertizing around the world in all the major halls
and is as busy as he wants to be as
a full time concert pianist.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
Concertizing. I've never heard that word before.
Speaker 5 (45:35):
Given concerts.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
Yes, fantastic. We're going to take a final break for
some messages and come back with our guest, doctor Jennet
Lipinski and talk a little bit about exactly how one
can get to this event and enjoy it the best.
Stay with us, everyone back in two.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
Minutes stream us live at SAGA nine to six am
dot C.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Welcome back everyone to the Brian Crombie Radio Wire. My
guest tonight is doctor Janet Lipinski, who is the coordinator,
the organizer, the founder of the Canadian Chopin competition that
takes place at the Telescenter for the Performing Arts and
Corner Hall this coming weekend. Doctor Lipinski, tell us how
should we do it? Like? Is it fun to go
(46:31):
to one of the preliminary rounds and find your favorite
and follow them through the competition? Tell us how we
should enjoy this event.
Speaker 5 (46:38):
The first thing you should do if you're interested in
the event is go to our website, Canadian Chopin Society
dot Ca. Join our mailing list, because then we can
send you updates, including updates on the results of each round.
Browse the virtual preliminary round. On our website, you'll find
the competition tab and you'll find virtual preliminary round. You
(47:01):
can already identify your favorites in advance of the actual competition.
Also on our website you can find the detailed schedule
of who will be playing when. If you're more interested
in the juniors, you'll know when to come. If you
want to follow the seniors through all three of their rounds,
you'll know when to come to the earlier rounds in
(47:23):
Massilloni Hall. Most importantly, though, you will want to get
your tickets for the finals and the winners concert that
happen on January thirteenth. You can buy individual tickets to
the finals and the winner's concert by going to Rcmusic
dot Ca or googling Kerner Hall tickets, and you can
(47:45):
buy those tickets directly from Cerner Hall, or if you'd
prefer to have a full day pass, come to our
website Canadian Chopin Soociety dot Ca to purchase your full
day pass so that you can take it all in
from morning till night on the thirteenth. There are also
(48:05):
opportunities to support the event, and I do need to
say that this event is completely organized and put on
by a team of dedicated volunteers and a board of
directors who are doing this because we believe in the mission,
We love the music of Chopin, we believe in wanting
to have this event available for our young pianists to
(48:30):
support their development. But of course it is an expensive endeavor,
so we are still looking for sponsors and partners. There
are still opportunities to support the event in a meaningful way.
We have an eighty eight keys campaign where you can
sponsor one of the keys on the competition as your
(48:51):
way of helping to make it possible, and you can
learn about that on our website as well. We have
a few opportunities still to spawn surprises and we have
opportunities to advertise, so please come to our website to
learn more about all of that. But most importantly, plan
to join us on the thirteenth, because it really is
(49:12):
only every five years that this opportunity comes up and
there's nothing like hearing these wonderful, extraordinary young pianists performing
live in beautiful Kerner Hall.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
So you've motivated me to go listen to some chopin.
What's the one piece that you recommend to put on
my Spotify streaming right now?
Speaker 5 (49:32):
Oh wow, that has got to be the most difficult.
That's like asking a parent which of your five children
do you are you going to take on your next trip?
Let me see, we are we are, we are in.
I'm going to say the chopin Burses, which is the lullaby.
(49:58):
It's a beautiful, pensive peace. It's a series of variations
written or over a beautiful left hand Austinado with some
beautiful right hand melodic figurations. Either Thought or the Ballade
in F minor. Those would be my two recommendations for
you if you want a short little snippet, any one
(50:20):
of the preludes or any one of the A tunes.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
But you know, Skate, thank you so much for joining us.
I really appreciate it. This has been really interesting and
I'm now going to be a fan of show.
Speaker 5 (50:30):
Thank you well, thank you, thank you so that it's
our show for tonight.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
Everybody, Thank you for joining. I remind you I'm on
every Monday through Friday at six o'clock on nine sixty am.
You can stream you online, even from Warsaw Poland at
Triple W Saga nine sixty am, dot C.
Speaker 1 (50:43):
Goodnight, everybody, No radio, no problem. Stream is live on
Saga nine sixty am dot C.
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