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TESS ALLEN TIMES & TRANSCRIPT
Moncton native Kristan Toczko moved to Montreal in 2006. She was 18 at the time, and after honing her skills on the harp for half of her life,it was time to move on to a place where those skills could truly thrive.
She spent the next nine years completing degrees in harp performance at McGill University and Yale University, winning numerous international competitions and performing in acclaimed venues like Carnegie Hall along the way. She was invited twice to perform as an artist-in-residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts and most recently,was selected as one of CBC Music’s Young Artists of 2014.
She never imagined her talents would bring her back to Moncton. But after out-competing 35 other harpists to win the single spot available in this year’s YOA Orchestra of the Americas,the Hub City is welcoming her home.
Toczko is in fact one of 80 young musicians from 25 countries across the Americas in Moncton this week with the YOA Orchestra of the Americas’2015 residency program in New Brunswick.
For the next two weeks, the world-class symphony orchestra in partnership with Orchestre de la Francophonie will work alongside the after school orchestral program Sistema NB. They will perform at several New Brunswick venues before embarking on their first Canadian tour and the most extensive tour of eastern Canada by a symphony orchestra in history.
Toczko is blown away by the fact that all of this is getting started in the place where she picked up her first harp at age 9.
“It still seems unreal to me to be back in Moncton with an orchestra of this calibre. The (level of musicianship) is extremely high and it’s really rare that Moncton or New Brunswick would get an orchestra of this calibre to come,”said Toczko.“I really didn’t see this coming but it makes complete sense. Moncton supported me growing up here so the least I can do is give back now.”
David Hawkins hopes that with the help of major cultural events like the YOA 2015 residency program, it won’t be such a shock to see such high-calibre entertainment in Moncton and across the province in the future.
The longtime participant and supporter of various New Brunswick arts and culture initiatives,including the Frye Festival and Sistema NB, sees the residency program and upcoming cross-country tour as a cultural benchmark for the region. “It really does position the values and principles and priorities of a certain sector of New Brunswick, in particular when it comes to arts and culture and our ability and desire and preparedness to reach out to the world and to host people from all around the globe,” said Hawkins. “I think that speaks a lot about who New Brunswickers are, who Greater Monctonians are, and their interest not just in themselves but in their culture, their communities, in people who participate in the arts.”
Hawkins said the historic view of New Brunswick and much of the Maritimes has revolved around its resource industry-based economy. As essential as he acknowledges this to be, he sees a shift happening, one that embraces the “many other dimensions of humanity and life around the world.”
“The reason people want to visit Paris, generally, is that they want to visit the galleries and museums and the opera ... the same would be said of London and New York. These are great cultural centres,” said Hawkins. “(Arts and culture) are ways to develop our economy, to understand the world better, to be better understood, and to radically amp up the awareness of New Brunswick far beyond just resources.”
Hawkins believes Moncton is already well on its way in this endeavour.
“Moncton as a host community expresses itself well as a multicultural and multilingual community…we have this dimension to our community that is very open and accepting and welcoming in that way,” he said, adding that the region exercises “extraordinary outreach” through programs like Sistema NB, a children’s music development program based on a similar program in Venezuela.
“New Brunswick became a beacon for the world in terms of what a community could do to embrace a program that was founded and established in Venezuela and bring it to Canada and have it excel,” Hawkins said.
Larry Nelson,chair of Events Moncton, believes that success will only continue to grow.
“What Sistema NB has brought to Moncton, culturally, has just changed the landscape completely,” said Nelson. “It sets the bar quite high but I think it just means we’ll be chasing bigger and better things.”
The YOA Orchestra of the Americas residency will include a faculty of principal musicians from the world’s top orchestras – the Berlin Philharmonic,the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra of New York, the Rome Opera Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra London, and others, as well as world-class conductors, composers and guest artists.
Following the New Brunswick residency, the orchestra will travel to Toronto where they will perform in two concerts at the Pan-Am Games. This will be followed by the Stratford Festival, and then on to Quebec for performances there.
But before that, New Brunswickers will get a chance to hear the orchestra in one of the four concerts they will perform across the province.
The orchestra will play on Main Street, Moncton, for the Atlantic Nationals Automotive Extravaganza on Friday, July 10, at 2 p.m.; at The Fredericton Playhouse on Tuesday, July 14, at 7:30 p.m.; at the Imperial Theatre in Saint John on Wednesday, July 15, at 7:30 p.m.; and at Crandall University’s Brinton Auditorium on Thursday, July 16, at 7 p.m. Both Moncton performances as well as the Saint John performance are free of charge, but the show at Crandall University will accept donations. Tickets for the Fredericton show can be purchased at The Playhouse at $30 or $15 for those under 19.
