Nadina Mackie Jackson
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A Mighty Timbre
November 2, 2009, 12:00 am
Duo sinks roots with mighty timbre
By Lisa Talesnick - Vernon Morning Star
Published: October 27, 2009 7:00 PM
She grew up in the B.C. bush. Like many B.C. residents, forestry
was her family’s sustenance. Her parents built log homes
for a living.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the proverbial tree, and
for Nadina Mackie Jackson from Houston, B.C. –– home of the
world’s largest fly fishing rod –– the saying fits.
She is one of the world’s greatest solo bassoon players.
And a bassoon, she says, is what a tree would sound like if it
could sing.
This past weekend, the North Okanagan Community Concert
Association logged two exquisite virtuosos in Duo Affinité
into the Performing Arts Centre: the very with-it Mackie Jackson
and her partner in amazing musicality Guy Few.
It’s a most unlikely musical union, bassoon and horn.
These are the two most squakable instruments ever created by
God, or evolutionized into.
I played bassoon in high school, at the back, nestled between
trombones, French horns, trumpets and tubas, getting poked and
teased at what my classmates called a “squawking
fossilized bed-post.”
I moved to the Middle East. But Mackie Jackson stuck it out. She
was smitten when George Zukerman, the international solo
bassoonist, came to Prince George. Yep, Prince George. Zukerman,
too, lived and played in the Middle East before moving to B.C.
and earning the Order of Canada and of B.C.
Mackie Jackson traveled to Prince George for private bassoon
lessons. She played in the New Caledonia Chamber Orchestra,
conducted by Vernon’s Imant Raminsh, who was in the
audience.
“We ruled the world from the back of the
orchestra,” she said.
I guess so. She set up a support group that even I could join:
The Canadian Council of Bassoon Players.
After Zukerman’s inspirational visit to remote B.C., it
was her first band teacher, Gary Hartley –– also at
Saturday’s performance –– who kept the wind strong
in her bassooning sails.
“He played for us all the time, he tuned us, he rehearsed
us, and I practiced and practiced and practiced because of him.
“These concert associations change the world,” she
said of NOCCA Saturday. “It certainly changed
mine.”
Like trees, the bassoon holds memories. It takes four years to
make a bassoon.
The program was joyful, melancholy tango, baroque and beautiful.
The final note in Michel Corrette’s Sonata No. 2 in D
Minor for bassoon was so low it made the body trunk tremor.
If the forests could talk, they would pray in full communion
with J.S. Bach in Ich Steh mit Einem Fuss in Grabe.
“I would play it as a prayer alone in my room or before
an audition, or any other terrifying experience,” Mackie
Jackson confessed.
Few danced the Shostakovitch waltz with a trumpet in his right
hand and his left playing the piano simultaneously as Mackie
Jackson waltzed her bassoon in perfect time.
At times he whispered his corno da caccia so quietly it required
an anatomical explanation of internal rib cage adjustment to
grasp its timbre.
Canadian Glen Buhr composed an arresting piece to his
wife’s poem: and man will only grieve if he believes the
sun stands still. One viewer summed it up in a whisper loud
enough for the audience to hear: “Wow.”
“The chance to play this music brings things to life that
we cherish,” Mackie Jackson told the audience. “We
thank you for it.”
She played in a forest green mini body glove with a trailing
plume of synthetic feathers. An audience member called it the
“quintessential super-hero-bassoon-gown.”
Maybe she needs it. Tossing melodies seamlessly between two
instruments is one thing, but like in baseball, you have to
connect with the pitch. Since both bassoon and horn play with
overtones, their duet is as super-heroic as stealing home.
And that’s what NOCCA did this weekend. It stole back one
of our own home-grown red cedars. First Nations understand this
tree. They call it “long life maker.”
It seems that’s what music and trees have in common.
It’s a mighty timbre.
Vernon Morning Star
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