As a kid I recall being put on the spot at one of my Dad’s concerts. He was conducting a choir, accompanied by the shiniest, biggest piano I had ever seen. The pianist needed a page-turner. Enter 10 year-old Steph. The tall accompanist, elegantly dressed in white tie and tails said, “When I nod, you turn the page.”
Seemed simple enough.
Now you’re waiting for the punch line – when the music fell off the rack, or blew away, or I turned three pages at once, or missed a repeat. Actually none of that happened. It was exhilarating just being there -being a part of something big. The worst thing was at the end of the show, I was quite miffed that everybody got a bow but me. I thought I had earned a little applause.
At WLU as a music student my organ teacher Barrie Cabena would sometimes ask me to turn pages and register for concerts. Looking over his shoulder at the scores and watching his masterful technique was probably as valuable as my lessons. In Toronto I turned for a visiting recitalist who played ‘Carillon Sortie’ on the Deer Park organ. I was amazed that something that looked so difficult on the page could be played seemingly effortlessly. I turned for Bruce Hill at many, many organ recitals. He was pretty funny since he would curse quite audibly when he made an error.
At St Mary Magdalene’s I thought it a good idea to invite kids up to the gallery for postludes and perhaps let them turn a page, even if I didn’t need it, since they would be part of the performance and learn the ropes. At York, when organ students play, the page-turner plays a really important role since we have no pistons or ‘electrical assists’ on the organ. An assistant is a great help, and the students learn from each other.
Writing my recent oratorio “The Sun, the Wind, and the Man with the Cloak” I decided to write the page-turner into the score, to acknowledge how important this role is, allowing a professional musician to mentor a student. In my piece, the page-turner even gets to play a few notes on the piano: every page-turner’s dream-come-true.
Recently I saw a pianist accompany an entire opera from a score on a computer tablet. She didn’t need a page-turner since she only needed to touch the screen to see the next page. One of my students let me try out this method on their Ipad at school. It was actually pretty great.
No page-turner needed. Technology solves the problem. But I have to think some ancient pedagogical tradition is lost. When human helpers aren’t needed anymore, and able to observe performances up close, it’s tough to learn the ropes.
Mastered the art of page-turning at the age of ten. And, despite technology, you have incorporated it in your most recent oratorio, and who knows possibly others, to help ensure, no doubt, that the tradition will always be honoured and never be lost.