By Silas Polkinghorne
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Kathleen Lohrenz Gable, second from left, and Garry Gable, centre, after their recital in Tianjin, China with their daughters Lindsay and Hillary, and two Tianjin graduate students. Photo courtesy Garry Gable |
Two teachers in the Department of Music recently took their song expertise to China, and now one of them wants to bring Chinese songs back to Canada.
Garry Gable, an associate professor of music who teaches voice, and Kathleen Lohrenz Gable, a sessional lecturer in piano and music theatre, travelled to China in October after being invited to teach and perform at the Tianjin and Wuhan universities. The pair gave recitals entitled Bridging the World With Song that featured Lohrenz Gable on piano and Gable singing in seven languages – French, German, Russian, Spanish, Italian, English, and Chinese.
“One of the things I’ve begun to recognize is the universality of emotion,” Gable said. “We can say it in 20 different languages if we want to.”
Gable now wants to bring Chinese songs to North America using international phonetic pronunciation techniques. Singers already perform songs in Russian and Japanese, for instance. “Why can’t we extend that to Chinese?” Gable asked. “I just don’t have to say it in my language. I can say it in everybody’s language.”
He hopes to begin with five or ten songs and get permission to publish them in Canada. Gable said no one else in Canada is working on a project like this.
In Tianjin and Wuhan, the pair played in “marvelous concert halls” and Gable was particularly impressed with the musical talent he saw among students. There are about 250 singing students in each university – the best from cities of 9 million people each.
The two found their hosts friendly and eager to learn. They worked with singers, and Lohrenz Gable gave instruction to pianists who want to become vocal coaches. Gable, meanwhile, shared his knowledge of music repertoire. “Their libraries are very thin and they don’t have some of the contemporary sources of music that we have.”
Western music was imbedded in China before the rise of communism, but was removed during the Cultural Revolution. Now, the popularity of Western music has again started to grow as China looks outwards, Gable said. He hopes to contact music publishers in North America to get the two universities supplied with contemporary music.
Gable also sees potential for a long-term relationship between the U of S and the Tianjin and Wuhan universities, which are akin to conservatories, teaching music, dance, and visual arts.
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