A Visit from Bob Buckley
Guest composer Robert Buckley
Last month, the Rouge River Winds were blessed with a visit from one our favourite composers, Robert Buckley. We have performed more than a dozen of his band works over the years, including all three of his symphonies, and we thoroughly enjoy his expressive, cinematic style. Our colleagues from the Northdale Concert Band had planned to host him in the fall, but he was unable to travel at that time, and so RRW stepped up to host his rescheduled visit in mid-April. He worked with numerous local school and community bands during his time in the Greater Toronto Area, and was able to attend RRW’s April concert, “Festive Scenes”, as well. We performed one of his newer works, Earthtones, as part of the program, as well as the third movement of his Rhythmism suite as our encore. I also had the pleasure of having dinner with him during his visit, and we had a great and wide-ranging conversation. Bob and I first met on Vancouver Island in 2019, and we have enjoyed a steady correspondence since then, so it was lovely to see him again!
The concert also featured 2025 Solo Competition winner Chantelle Tom-Ying performing Fernande Decruck’s Sonata in C-sharp for alto saxophone, in a new arrangement with wind ensemble accompaniment. Chantelle has been in my ensembles at UofT for three of the last four years, and it was wonderful to put together this challenging piece with her in a different context. She was also in the UofT Wind Symphony the last time I conducted Yasuhide Ito’s Gloriosa, one of the all-time great works for band which closed RRW’s April show.
Me and saxophone soloist Chantelle Tom-Ying after her performance with the Rouge River Winds
April and May represent the second phase of festival season each year, and this year was chock full of guest conducting and adjudicating. As a guest conductor, I worked with bands from near (Father John Redmond CSS in Toronto) and far (Stratford DSS) and even further (White Rock Christian Academy from Surrey, BC, and Riverdale HS from Mt. Blanchard, Ohio)! The band director at Trafalgar Castle School in Whitby applied for and received funding to bring me in as a clinician for their (very early morning) band rehearsals on three separate occasions, the final one of which is coming up on Tuesday. This offered a rare opportunity for me to revisit some of their repertoire at various stages of preparation and development, and to engage the students in listening and responding not only to what was happening in the moment, but also to what happened in prior sessions.
On the festival side, I adjudicated two sessions for the Rhythms Canada festival, hosted at York University, and the once again for the Toronto Catholic District School Board’s music festival. I also returned to the Kiwanis Music Festival of London, this time to adjudicate string orchestra and symphony orchestra classes. At the University of Toronto Faculty of Music, I was privileged to sit on the adjudication panel for first- and second-year saxophone and percussion juries, and really enjoyed hearing what those students had been working on in their applied lessons! Festival season will conclude with MusicFest Nationals later this month, being hosted this year at the Niagara Falls Convention Centre.
Next up, a week from tomorrow, the final concert of the year with the Milton Philharmonic Orchestra will feature the epic Symphony No. 5 by Jean Sibelius, as well as the innovative and brilliant Piano Concerto of Clara Schumann, written when she was only 15 years old! Guest soloist Sumi Kim, another UofT alum who is currently studying at Boston Conservatory, returns to Canada to perform the solo. Concert details are available here!
Korean-Canadian pianist Sumi Kim joins the Milton Philharmonic Orchestra in their upcoming concert