This 17-tour of the prairie provinces is under the auspices of Prairie Debut, and is administered by Lynne Bailey.  We would like to thank the Canada Council Touring Office for its help in making these concerts possible.  Please click here to see a listing of all the concerts.  On our programme, we are playing Evolution for two pianos by the Canadian composer Elizabeth Raum, principal oboe of the Regina Symphony Orchestra; it is a wonderful piece, and we look forward to playing it in the future, not just on this tour.  As well, we are playing works by Holst, Debussy, Infante, Dvorak, Brahms, and Gershwin.

Leslie's Journal

Saturday, November 11, 2000, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan

12:50 p.m. 

Right now, I’m sitting in my hotel room at the Bessborough Delta thinking about the last week and a half.  Normally, I would try to write something in the journal each day, but until last night, on the drive from Melfort to Saskatoon, we have been hammered by one of the most persistent and relentless snow storms that Jim and I have ever had the misfortune to experience on a tour.  This is not to take away from the concerts themselves: as usual, the people have been friendly in the extreme, and the performances have gone very well.  But the driving from venue to venue has been one of white-knuckle tension, so this is the first opportunity I’ve had where I felt relaxed enough to sit down and write anything.

Before I start an account of things, I should mention that our good friend, and wonderful technician, Tim Olfert of Toronto, is driving the pianos for us, and looking after them at each venue.  He knew Bill Chapple, and certainly understands our melancholy about this being our first big tour since he passed away, but Tim has such a positive good nature, and is so good at his job, that we know Bill would heartily approve his working with us.  Friends like Bill cannot be replaced, but replacement is not the issue.  Bill was our friend and colleague, and Tim is our friend and colleague, and we feel fortunate to have worked with both.  We look forward to a long and fulfilling collaboration with Tim.

One consequence of the snow is that, for the first time in our 24-year career, Jim and I have had to cancel a concert.  For the third performance of the tour, we flew from Winnipeg to Thompson in northern Manitoba where we played for a wonderful audience.  The next day, Karen Conway, the concert presenter, graciously offered to drive us over 400 km to Flin Flon for the next concert (Tim had driven the pianos ahead of time).  As we set out at 10:00 a.m., things looked pretty good; the snow had stopped, and the roads were clear.  As we got farther and farther, however, the snow started to fall, and worse, the wind began to whip across the narrow two-lane road.  It suddenly occurred to us that, except for that seemingly fragile strip of asphalt, there was no sign of civilization anywhere; just us, the road, the trees, the wind and the snow.

After about an hour, with the wind howling, and starting to cause white-outs, we all seemed to come to a simultaneous decision, and agreed that we had better turn back... that we’d be insane not to.  The long and short of it is that, after one of the most harrowing drives of our lives, we finally arrived safely back in Thompson.  I immediately called the head of the concert organization in Flin Flon, and the first words out of her mouth were, “Thank GOD you’re OK!”  Apparently, about 20 kilometers past where we turned back, things were so bad that cars and trucks had spun off the road, and we could have been in a great deal of danger had we proceeded.  The fact that she was so nice about our not showing up didn’t make us feel any better.  Twenty-five years without missing a concert.  Well, given the amount of winter touring we’ve done, we have been unreasonably lucky.  The nice thing is she said that “next time”, we’ll have to come in the spring or fall, which made us feel a little better, though not much.

Because Tim had left quite a bit earlier, we are glad to say that he and the pianos actually beat the snow storm, and arrived safely in Flin Flon.  We could second guess ourselves as to our not leaving at the same time he did, but in fact, we always follow later so as to give him a chance to set the instruments up.  Oh well.
 

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