by John Threlfall | Jan 7, 2015 | Award, Events, Faculty, School of Music, Undergraduate
How do you cap a life spent in music? By investing your legacy in future generations. That’s what beloved School of Music brass professor Eugene Dowling is doing with a special January 11 concert inaugurating the Eugene Dowling Scholarship for Tuba and Euphonium. Not only will this kick off fundraising efforts for the scholarship itself, but the concert will also tie together Dowling’s friendships, musical life and his years performing in both the School of Music and the greater Victoria community.
Eugene Dowling
While Dowling officially retired in 2014, he has continued to teach a reduced workload at the School of Music while undergoing chemotherapy for stage four prostate cancer—a harsh reality that Dowling is meeting head-on. “It’s important to approach it realistically, and with a note of optimism,” he says frankly. “You know, one out of every seven men go through these hormonal cancers. I had really planned on working longer, but unfortunately it really moved fast. In fact, I’m getting a chemo treatment then playing this concert five days later.”
Dowling’s cancer has also stirred him to contemplate his own mortality and examine the things that have been most important to him: his love of teaching, the relationships he’s developed with students and colleagues, and the importance of sharing what he had been given as a student so many years ago.
“My teachers gave me a deep, beautiful gift: a love of music, an instinct for musical line and the desire to keep growing as a musician and person,” says Dowling. “By starting a scholarship fund in my primary teaching area, I wish to share with future students of the instruments that I play, the same things that I have tried to pass on to my students for the past 38 years.”
A young Eugene Dowling shows his brass
A beneficiary of scholarships himself as both an undergraduate and graduate student, Dowling can’t stress enough the importance of these kind of financial incentives to future students. “The older established universities like UBC have more scholarship money than they know what to do with,” he says. “As a school, we have a lot to offer but as a comparably young institution, we don’t have the same alumni base. I thought this would be a way of acknowledging what UVic has meant to my life—these wonderful relationships with students going back to 1976, two years before our current building was even built.”
Dowling chuckles as he recalls his early days on campus, back when the MacLaurin building only had an “A” wing and the School of Music was limited to just three classrooms, two practice rooms and no dedicated auditorium. “It was nuts,” he laughs. “People had to practice in washrooms or in storerooms!”
MacInnes (second from left) and Dowling (far right) in the Pinnacle Brass Quintet
The concert, he notes, “is largely based on friendship.” Dowling will be joined on stage by some of his closest colleagues, including most of the Victoria Symphony brass section (“half of which I’ve taught,” he chuckles), two local bands he regularly performs with—The Bastion Jazz Band and The Pinnacle Brass Quintet—as well as a range of students and alumni.
Notably, the program will include School of Music instructor Scott MacInnes’ Quintet No. 1, a piece he composed last year in honour of his long time mentor, colleague and friend. “The piece is divided into three movements that each visits a wide-ranging spectrum of emotions,” explains MacInnes. “Although saturated with sorrow, there is the ever present sense of hope and even joviality that triumphs over all else.”
As a young man, Dowling studied with euphonium virtuoso Leonard Falcone at Michigan State, as well as at Northwestern with legendary pedagogue Arnold Jacobs, former principal tubist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. A Yamaha Artist, Dowling was himself principal tubist with the Victoria Symphony for 25 years, and his recording of The English Tuba (Fanfare/Pro Arte) was nominated for a Juno Award.
Dowling leads 2014’s TubaChristmas event to a packed house at Market Square (photo: Robert Davy)
Another Dowling legacy is the Victoria TubaChristmas Ensemble which, under his direction, has raised thousands of dollars for local charities over the past 36 years—including $2,600 in two hours this year alone. Looking to the future, Dowling co-conducted the 2014 TubaChristmas event with former student and 2011 Distinguished Alumni recipient Paul Beauchesne. Beauchesne, who stepped into Dowling’s shoes as the Victoria Symphony’s current principal tubist, will not only be taking over TubaChristmas but also Dowling’s teaching load. “We’re really looking towards the future—that’s why I’ve taken steps for Paul to succeed me with TubaChristmas and sessionally at UVic.”
But for now, Dowling is primarily focusing on his cancer treatments and the scholarship fund. “We’re going to kick off the scholarship with this concert, and then my estate will pony up the money for the yearly scholarship until it gets to the $25,000 level in perpetuity,” he says. “It’s been a wonderful career, a wonderful life and a wonderful chance to work with some really, really great people.”
—with files from Kristy Farkas
The Eugene Dowling Scholarship for Tuba and Euphonium concert begins at 2:30pm Sunday, January 11, in UVic’s Phillip T. Young Recital Hall (MacLaurin Building B Wing), featuring performances by tubist Eugene Dowling with pianist Charlotte Hale, violinist Ann Elliott-Goldschmid, tenor Benjamin Butterfield, the Bastion Jazz Band, the UVic Student & Alumni Tuba & Euphonium Ensemble, and the Pinnacle Brass Quintet. Tickets are $18 & $14 and available at the door or through the UVic Ticket Centre (250-721-8480).
Donations to the scholarship can be made here using this online donation form.
by John Threlfall | Feb 6, 2014 | Alumni, Award, Events, Faculty, Theatre
It’s hard to think of a more deserving person to be named Distinguished Alumni than Michael Whitfield. Not only is Whitfield (BA, 1967) a veteran lighting designer with an enviable career illuminating professional stages across North America, but he literally got in on the ground floor of UVic’s Theatre department back in the early ‘60s.
Michael Whitfield at UVic’s Distinguished Alumni Awards night, Feb 5 2014 (Photo Services)
“I started in Sciences in the fall of ‘62, and you were supposed to take an elective in arts,” Whitfield recalls. His mother, who was then working as a stenographer in UVic’s English department, mentioned that a new theatre course was being developed. “So I took the course and got hooked. It was like a smorgasbord of everything to do with theatre—including painting the floor,” he says with a chuckle. “I abandoned the whole Science program and switched over to arts.”
Whitfield quickly began to shine as the primary lighting design student because, as he puts it, “I could plug two lights together without blowing the place up—I think it was because of my science background.”
Whitfield now joins the likes of previous Fine Arts Distinguished Alumni Esi Edugyan (BA ’99), Carla Funk (BFA ’97), Paul Beauchesne (BMus ’88), Deborah Willis (BA ’06), Valerie Murray (BA ’78), author Eden Robinson (BFA ’92) and Andrea Walsh (BA ’91).
Whitfield’s lighting design for Madama Butterfly (Canadian Opera Company, 1990)
Now an internationally acclaimed lighting designer with over four decades at the likes of the Stratford Festival, Shaw Festival, Canadian Opera Company and San Diego Opera under his belt, Whitfield has also taught at the likes of the National Theatre School, York University, the University of Windsor, the University of Illinois and Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh. Now he’s back here at UVic, where he has been a sessional instructor with the Department of Theatre for a number of years.
Given his extensive background, Whitfield is clearly one of Canada’s most versatile and experienced lighting designers, and says he feels honoured to be named a Distinguished Alumni for the Faculty of Fine Arts.
“It’s a wonderful sense of coming full circle,” he says. “Thinking back on it, it was an amazing time on campus at the point I was in the program. In a strange way, had it not been that kind of flying-by-the-seat of your pants period, I probably would’ve chosen a different path—but the chemistry of that time was ideal for the things I liked to do. It was all about the highly inventive use of whatever you had.”
Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Stratford Festival, 1980)
That inventive perspective has fuelled Whitfield’s career, both at Stratford—where, for over 25 years, he was Resident Lighting Designer for over 100 productions on Stratford’s three stages, as well as acting as consultant on major upgrades to the lighting rigs for the two lead theatres—and as a freelancer.
“It’s really been a fascinating career,” he says. “I’m lucky because a lot of people get into a job and think they’re set, only to have it end and wonder where they go next—but that was my entire career as a freelancer, moving from one production and one theatre to another. And that goes right back to my time at UVic—it was that whole seat-of-your-pants thing. It wasn’t always a case of a lot of planning, it was just getting things done.”
Among the hundreds of shows he’s lit, one memory still makes him chuckle—lighting Keanu Reeves in the lead role for the famed 1995 production of The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark at Winnipeg’s Manitoba Theatre Centre . . . mounted just six months after Speed thrust Reeves to the top of the Hollywood A-list.
Keanu Reeves & Lissa Repo-Martell (as Ophelia) in 1995’s Hamlet (photo: Bruce Monk)
“He was extremely athletic and did a really great job,” he recalls. “The sword fights were some of the best I’ve ever seen on stage. And you could have heard a pin drop during the shows—the kids were hanging on his every word.”
But it isn’t the memory of Reeves’ performance that makes him laugh; it was the fact that they had a complete lighting failure days before the production opened. “On the break between the tech rehearsal and the first dress rehearsal, the lighting board literally collapsed; everything disappeared,” he recalls. “And we still had to get that show open in three days. It was one of those best-laid-plans situations—but you couldn’t just say, ‘Oh well, it’s not going to work.’ You had to find a solution.”
Now that he’s retired and back teaching as a sessional at UVic, how does he feel about how the Theatre department has developed? “Considering it began with one course, it has now become a well-established program covering a wide range of topics,” he says. “There aren’t many places that offer the diversity of spaces that the Phoenix has—a thrust stage, a proscenium stage, and a black box. I think that’s one of the attractions . . . . the building itself is a little gem. I’ve ranged fairly widely over the theatre training world, and haven’t seen its equal.”
Pagliacci (San Diego Opera, 2008)
Considering the vast advances in stage technology that have occurred during his career (computerized lighting boards, the introduction of moving and LED lights, for example), what’s the key to successful lighting instruction? “I try to stress the fact that it’s your imagination that makes the difference,” he says. “You have to be able visualize something in order to accomplish it. Sure, it’s easier to do in a well-developed theatre complex like we have here, but you’re going to get out there, be given 15 lamps and told that you’re going to light Pericles—so you better have your imagination cranked up.”
Whitfield back where it all began
Whitfield pauses, and offers one of his beaming Santa Claus smiles. “There are no answers, there’s no magic bullet,” he says. “You have to find solutions by thinking on your feet—that’s what’s going to help you work in the theatre, not necessarily a highly developed skill set.”
Great advice from a well-deserved Distinguished Alumni.
by John Threlfall | Feb 20, 2012 | Alumni, Award, Writing
If there was ever a reason to acknowledge someone as a Distinguished Alumni, it would be exactly because of the kind of year Esi Edugyan just had: not only was she nominated for the $25,000 Governor General’s Literary Award, but she was also shortlisted for the prestigious £50,000 UK Man Booker Prize, the $25,000 Writers’ Trust fiction award, the UK’s £25,000 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, the $50,000 Giller Prize and the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize as part of the annual BC Book Prizes—the latter two of which she subsequently won.
Photo: Chad Hipolito
It’s rare any novelist achieves such a menu of nominations for just their second book, but Edugyan’s Half-Blood Blues is more than a typical novel. Set in the world of black jazz musicians in Nazi Germany and occupied Paris, Half-Blood Blues has been described by award-winning Book of Negroes author Lawrence Hill as “a truly beautiful novel . . . both taut and expansive, like great jazz [with] exquisite language throughout.”
Given such accolades, the Faculty of Fine Arts is proud to name Esi Edugyan our Distinguished Alumni for 2012. “It’s amazing, like nothing you could expect,” says Edugyan of the year she’s had. Indeed, Edugyan still seems a bit dazed by all the international acclaim. “It was such a crazy thing that happened with this book—losing its publisher at the beginning of the year, then seeming like it wasn’t going anywhere—so I’m just so grateful for everything that happened this fall.”
Edugyan now joins the likes of previous Fine Arts Distinguished Alumni Carla Funk (BFA ’97), Paul Beauchesne (BMus ’88), Deborah Willis (BA ’06), Valerie Murray (BA ’78), author Eden Robinson (BFA ’92) and Andrea Walsh (BA ’91).
After being originally released in England by Serpent’s Tail publishers, Edugyan’s intended Canadian publishing deal fell apart when Key Porter Books collapsed in February 2011, leaving her without a domestic publisher. Fortunately, Thomas Allen & Sons stepped in and the rest has quite literally become Canadian publishing history. As John Barber of the Globe and Mail noted in his year-end column, with the end of publisher H.B. Fenn and its Key Porter imprint, “2011 began ominously for independent Canadian publishers and then quickly turned to roses. Rescued from the Key Porter wreckage, Half-Blood Blues became the most popular title ever published by Thomas Allen & Son, with 100,000 copies on the market and a stable perch overlooking James Patterson and Stephen King on Canadian best-seller lists.”
Edugyan, who earned her BA from the Department of Writing back in 1999 and was also a former Writing instructor at UVic, now joins previous DA winners Deborah Willis (2010) and Paul Beauchesne (2011), as well as earlier Legacy Award winners Eden Robinson (2001), Eve Egoyan (2002), Gail Anderson-Dargatz (2003), and Eric Jordan (2004).
“I am really honoured to be accepting the Distinguished Alumni award,” she says. “I studied with so many great teachers at UVic, the caliber of guidance was amazing. Patrick Lane was my first great teacher. I found myself following poetry because he was so inspiring. Jack Hodgins, Lorna Crozier, Bill Gaston . . . there was such a high level of instruction. They can’t teach you to write if you’re not inclined that way. But what [school] does is cut the apprenticeship time down. Peer reviews prepare writers for working with an editor in a professional capacity.” Indeed, retired Writing professor Jack Hodgins recalls being “amazed at her ability to inhabit the voices of vastly different characters authentically.”
With a Masters in Writing from Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, Edugyan’s work has appeared in several anthologies, including Best New American Voices 2003 and Revival: An Anthology of Black Canadian Writing (2006). Her debut novel, The Second Life of Samuel Tyne, was published internationally and was nominated for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, was a More Book Lust selection, and was chosen by the New York Public Library as one of 2004’s Books to Remember. Edugyan has held fellowships in the US, Scotland, Iceland, Germany, Hungary, Finland, Spain and Belgium. She has taught creative writing at both Johns Hopkins University and the University of Victoria, and has sat on many international panels, including the LesART Literary Festival in Esslingen, Germany, the Budapest Book Fair in Hungary, and Barnard College in New York City. She is also the wife of fellow UVic Writing instructor Steven Price, with whom she had their first child in August 2011.
Edugyan is philosophical when asked if she felt pressure to follow up her first novel with something equally powerful. “I was only 24 when my first book came out, and I felt a lot of pressure and felt quite tossed around in the publishing industry,” she says. “But now, I just feel grateful. I honestly don’t feel any great pressure to produce something that people will love or will get me critical acclaim. There’s no formula . . . you write what you want to write. I don’t think anybody can predict in this business what’s going to do well. Things become popular that you would never think would become popular; something that worked last fall won’t necessarily work next year. You just do what you do.”
As a young man, Dowling studied with euphonium virtuoso Leonard Falcone at Michigan State, as well as at Northwestern with legendary pedagogue Arnold Jacobs, former principal tubist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. A Yamaha Artist, Dowling was himself principal tubist with the Victoria Symphony for 25 years, and his recording of The English Tuba (Fanfare/Pro Arte) was nominated for a Juno Award.
