A MUSICAL MOMENT: JAEDEN IZIK-DZURKO UK PRIZE WINNER

On Friday I was listening to BBC Radio 3, as is my habit. It was the Leeds Piano Competition for under 30 year olds. It's a very high calibre, international line-up, held every 3 years.  I noticed that one of the five semi-finalists (Jaeden Izik-Dzurko) was from Canada.  I looked up his bio details and was astonished to find he was from my ‘hometown’, as they say in America, i.e. Salmon Arm, British Columbia.  It’s a small town in central B.C. built on the Canadian Pacific Railway line.

As it happens I am on the committee of the Milngavie Music Club who hold monthly concerts of international artistes of various types. The President sent out a circular to everyone giving the Head's Up about the final concert coming up (Saturday) because one of the artistes who played last year (pianist Junyan Chen from China) was going to be playing as she was one of the 5 semi-finalists.  I responded in the circular email stating that I intended to listen and mentioned that I had happened to find this chap in the list of 5 and why he stood out for me. (I’d never heard of him!) 

A couple of hours later…lo and behold… he won!…. and Junyan came second.  Such a coincidence and quite delightful!

GOODBYE TO JEAN

Our Nursing Class of 1967, University of British Columbia, has lost a dear lady.  Jean Streight died August 27, 2024 and will be missed by family and friends. A memorial service was held in Vancouver yesterday, September 10th.

Going into our second year Jean joined Alice and I in Alice's grandparents' house on 4th Avenue where we lived together for 3 years until we graduated and left in 1967 to go our separate ways.

1964: first year UBC nursing students - Jean, myself and Alice

(L) Kit Taylor, Jean, Kit's mother and Anon in background (Steve Taylor?) probably at the Taylor's cabin, Redroofs (north of Seschelt) where we spent the occasional weekend. 

* * * * * * * * * * *

To finish the triangle....  Graduation photos 1967

Alice

Barb (me)

 

RYAN CORBETT - AWARDS, REWARDS AND ONWARDS

Ryan has now graduated from The Conservatoire, Glasgow having completed his Masters.  He also received the Principal's Prize for 'outstanding contribution'.

Ryan's mum and dad and I attended the concert in Paisley Abbey where Ryan was the solo artist in the evening concert with the Edinburgh Youth Orchestra.  He is due to play with them on 2 occasions at the Edinburgh Festival so this was a 'test run'.... so much better than Edinburgh which is always hellishly crowded and held in inferior halls.

It was a lovely warm summer evening (goodness... we have not had many of those)!  Also I had wonderful memories of being in Paisely, the Town Hall and the Abbey when Iain was in the Civil Engineering Department in the late 1970s.  

Paisley Abbey filling up before the concert.

One lasting memory I have is attending the Christmas dinner dance of the students (forget which year).  I was in the foyer planning to head into the big hall where the students were gathered for the dance.  I had been chatting to Reverend Morrison of the Abbey.  He and I approached the entrance to the hall together. As we stepped into the hall we were assaulted with the most horrendous wall of sound coming from speakers the size of doors on the stage at the other end of the hall.  We grabbed on to each other and simply retreated into the foyer... where we spent the rest of the evening discussing the Reformation (which I was studying for an Open University course at that time).

CLERK-MAXWELL IS WEARING WELL

Just passing through.... to say James Clerk-Maxwell is still sitting at the east end of George Street in Edinburgh. Whenever travelling through from Glasgow by bus I am in the habit of passing him sitting there on the other side of the bus station across St Andrews Square.  I was spending the day in the Royal Botanic Garden of Edinburgh (RBGE). I did my 'tour guide' bit telling my friends how he came to be there and why he is in the seated position.

Why must I give a nod to this most famous of Scotland's 'thinkers'?  Back in the day, he was little known in Scotland so Iain and some others, including Prof Leslie Barr, mounted a campaign to have a statue made to recognise his contribution to science.  Alexander Stoddart was commissioned to do the job and it was unveiled in 2008.  We travelled through from Glasgow to attend the ceremony and afterwards the reception at the Royal Society across the road.

I am glad to see he is wearing well. I notice that there is a plague now placed in the setts at the foot showing Maxwell's Equation (for electro-magnetism). This mathematical contribution proved to be hugely important, and a turning point in scientific thinking.  (Einstein said he stood on the shoulders of Clerk-Maxwell... who, it could be said, stood on the shoulders of Isaac Newton.)

And later in the month, Harriet, 11 years and Alastair 16 years in Edinburgh with Ellie and and Mairi to celebrate Alastair doing so well in his University Clinical Aptitude Test (test for secondary school students who are thinking of applying to study medicine somewhere in the UK). [They look at verbal reasoning, decision making, quantitive reasoning, abstract reasoning.)