Julian Armour radiates excitement
as he presents a slideshow of the concert hall he hopes will
soon animate a tired Elgin Street corner.
Clicking through pages of architectural sketches on his laptop
computer, the Ottawa musician and administrator looks like a
man showing off his dream home.
The hall would, after all, house the Ottawa Chamber Music Society,
Armour being the artistic and executive director. It would also
be used by other music groups and for speeches, radio and TV
broadcasts, CD and DVD recordings, and film screenings.
Its construction was backed by city council last October and
would be the culmination of Armour’s life work. It wouldn’t
be his only great accomplishment though.
The French government named him a Chevalier de L’Ordre des
Arts et des Lettres in 2002. The following year he was given
the Meritorious Service Medal by Governor General Adrienne Clarkson.
The Ottawa Chamber Music Society has also won the Lieutenant
Governor’s Award for the Arts several times.
For now, however, his new project, the world-class 925-seat hall,
is reality only on a computer hard drive.
Armour will soon lead a fundraising campaign to add private donations
to what has tentatively been promised by the City of Ottawa.
The federal and provincial governments will have to add to the
private donations and the city’s contribution to cover the
$22-million price tag.
If Armour’s dream is realized, Centretown residents and
Ottawa cultural groups will have the cello to thank for their
delight. The mysterious tone of that instrument has inspired
Armour throughout his illustrious career.
“Everything has derived from wanting to make music under
the best possible circumstances,” he says.
Armour, 43, tried many instruments from a young age. He was captivated
by sounds and riveted by an old harmonium his parents kept. But
the cello, which he started playing in his early teens, was the
first he laboured over.
“The cello I thought had just such a gorgeous, deep, rich
beautiful sound. I heard that and I said, ‘I want to make
sounds like that,’” he says from his office on Isabella
Street, which overlooks the Queensway and, sadly, is filled by
the annoying hum of mid-day traffic.
He loved the instrument, but didn’t plan to make a career
of it. After high school he went to McGill University as a general
arts student, studying music, history, economics and English
literature. There, he used the cello to breakup tedious study
sessions.
“If I was studying hard and my thoughts got a little bit
scrambled, I would go and play for half-an-hour or 45 minutes
and suddenly I’d come back and my mind was so clear, everything
was so organized.”
After finishing his degree at McGill and spending years after
perfecting his skills with influential cellists like Janos Starker,
Armour struggled to find a place to play in Ottawa.
Ottawa music writer Richard Todd remembers getting a call from
Armour in March of 1994. The struggling musician pitched an idea
for a chamber music festival.
“To be honest with you I rolled my eyes,” says Todd,
who was skeptical after a string quartet Armour had recently
started quickly flopped. “I figured, here’s another
crazy project.” But Todd got on board, promoting the concert
with a series of articles in the Ottawa Citizen.
Armour’s radical idea, the Ottawa International Chamber
Music Festival, now highlights a busy summer music scene in Ottawa.
Chamber music fans from around the world now jam into the city’s
churches each summer in what has become one of the best events
of its kind.
“It simply wouldn’t have happened without him. Obviously
there are hundreds of people that help, but he’s had to
motivate them to make it work,” says Todd.
Armour’s impact has reverberated throughout the Ottawa music
scene. Todd says Armour’s chamber festival has spurred on
other festivals and encouraged the National Arts Centre to open
its doors to summer concerts.
“The success of the festival has created a frame of mind
among governments and potential sponsors that Ottawa is a festival
centre,” says Todd. “Armour has brought a kind of energy
and inspiration to the scene that the city would be much poorer
without.”
He has, however, sacrificed much to improve Ottawa’s classical
music scene.
He and long-time girlfriend Guylaine Lemaire, an accomplished
viola player, have not vacationed in many years. Over the holidays
they traveled a couple of blocks from their home on Besserer
Street to the ByTowne cinema and saw a film. It was the first
Armour had seen in over five years.
He’s had to shelve the bike he used to ride often and doesn’t
spend as much time with friends as he’d like.
But he is able to squeeze playing time into his cluttered daybook,
including two hours of practice daily. He performs in the chamber
festival and as part of Ottawa chamber orchestra Thirteen Strings.
To fit everything in, he wakes up between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m.,
often working 12 to 16 hours a day.
Although he is full of energy, Sylvia Gazsi Gill, executive director
of Thirteen Strings, says Armour rarely sleeps. He elects instead
to stay up and work. He isn’t deterred by the hectic schedule
though. The only thing that gets him down is the perpetual challenge
faced by cultural groups – funding.
“I don’t like having to do things that I shouldn’t
have to do,” he says. “It seems that every year there’s
some new funding challenge. I would think that with our track
record a stable base of funding would be guaranteed. It’s
starting to get a bit tiresome.”
As this frustration suggests, Armour is a strong advocate of
the role the arts play in society.
He struggles to understand comparisons between the need to have
clean sidewalks and the need for a top-quality library, museum
or concert hall.
“Culture is just not high on governments’ priority
list,” he says.
“I find that very frustrating. The arts make us whole human
beings. They help us reflect on who we are and help us strive
for what we can be. They make us more creative, intelligent,
thoughtful, and compassionate as human beings.”
On a frigid Ottawa day, Armour makes an argument few Ottawa residents
would dispute.
“It’s -30 C here today. People don’t have to live
here. We need things that make it a great place to live.”
In the future, Armour would like to step back from his role as
an administrator and concentrate on playing his music. How far
back, he says, will depend on that plot of land at 150 Elgin
St.
“The main goal is to get this concert hall going. When that
happens, everything else will fall into place.” |