Need to know
Who: Yi-Jia Susanne Hou
What: Sibelius’s Violin Concerto
With: Boris Brott & the NAO
When: Saturday, July 23 at 7:30 p.m.
Where: Mohawk College’s McIntyre Theatre, 135 Fennell Ave. W.
Cost: $30, senior $25, student $10; reserved section add $5
Call: 905-525-7664
There’s something about Susanne Hou you need to know.
Not just that she was a child prodigy. Though she’ll tell you it boils down to 10% talent and 90% working your tail off. Or words to that effect.
And not just that she won three international violin competitions in the late 1990s. All unanimous decisions.
And not just that at age 17 she turned down a contract from Deutsche Grammophon to release her recording of Paganini’s 24 Caprices. Why? She decided that her takes, recorded in the middle of the night in Aspen, Colorado, sounded too sleepy. Gute Nacht, DG.
And not just that she won the Canada Council for the Arts Musical Instrument Bank Competition twice straight and chose the loan of the 1729 ex-Heath Guarneri del Gesù. “It’s my voice,” she’d joyfully say of that violin.
And not just that she’ll be the guest soloist at Saturday’s Brott Festival concert in Mohawk’s McIntyre Theatre. While the bill includes Shostakovich’s famous Fifth Symphony, Susanne will play Sibelius’s Violin Concerto, a work she learned at age 10, and took to the Canadian Music Competition at age 11. She won.
But you need to know that Susanne is open to the concept the $6 million violin she currently has on loan from the Stradivari Society in Chicago, and which she’s thoroughly ecstatic about, is…possessed. At least, that’s the word from the violin’s owners, a Buffalo couple who shall here remain anonymous.
The fiddle in question is the circa 1735 ex-Fritz Kreisler Guarneri del Gesù “Mary Portman.” Once owned and played by Kreisler, the violin came into the possession of Miss Portman, an English aristocrat, in 1924. Since then, it’s passed through various owners’ and players’ hands.
Susanne auditioned for this violin in front of its owners about a year and a half ago in Chicago.
“They (the owners) were skeptical (to loan it out) because this violin, for them, is quite personal,” said Susanne over the phone from her parents’ Mississauga home. “They’re convinced that she, her name is Miss Mary, they’re convinced she (the violin) is possessed. And I’m starting to get convinced as well.”
Now, anyone who knows Susanne knows that she’s an extremely intelligent and effervescent young woman who can hold forth elegantly and eloquently on many a topic. For example, violins, her lifelong passion. Past violinists and their individual sound. Kreisler is her fav, in case you hadn’t guessed. Turbo sports cars. Arts funding. Five star restaurants. Chocolates. Fine wines. But has Susanne sipped the Kool-Aid?
“They have auditioned other violinists who definitely know how to play a fiddle,” stated Susanne. “And they say that the sound starts off OK, but disintegrates to a point where it (the violin) sounds choked and refuses to speak any more. They’re convinced that ‘Mary’ decides her player.”
Secretly, Susanne confided that she’s spoken to “Mary,” and has “referred to her in conversation.” She’s even taken “Mary” for a walk to Mary Portman Square in London, England where Susanne is now based having followed her boyfriend there in 2009.
By now, you’re probably thinking this is a totally laughable, attention-seeking hoax, the perfect set-up for a buy-a-ticket-and-be-mesmerized-by-a-beautiful-violinist article. Or that it’s one big come-on for all manner of Endorian witch doctors, Swarovski crystal ball gazers, Tarot card sharks, voodoo pin-up models, and fortune-thieving gypsies. So, come one, come all to hear Susanne in the Sibelius.
Oh, Susanne had one more request on “Mary’s” behalf.
“She would be very upset with you if you were to use a photo of me with another violin,” chuckled Susanne.
So, we didn’t. Check it out here: http://www.thespec.com/whatson/article/566230--there-s-something-about-susanne
Oops, nearly forgot. Susanne’s next CD. The title? You can’t guess?
“Possessed.”
Thing is, she recorded it using the Canada Council’s 1729 del Gesù.
Better watch out, Susanne. “Mary” is gonna be reee-al jealous. Nothing worse than a violin scorned, ya know.
But what we’d really like to know is how “Fritz” feels about all this?
***
Next Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in the McIntyre Theatre, Brott and the NAO play Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique plus Sara Davis Buechner solos in Rakhmaninov’s Piano Concerto no. 2. Tickets: $32, senior $27, student $10. Call 905-525-7664.
Leonard Turnevicius writes on classical music for The Spec. He’s long sworn off Kool-Aid, and doesn’t believe the 1735 ex-Kreisler is possessed.
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