SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A talented Yellowknife pianist was granted a $34,000 scholarship to continue his studies at the University of Ottawa.
Johnathan Raine completed a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Alberta this year and was awarded an entrance scholarship to pursue a Master of Music degree in Piano Performance at the University of Ottawa.
Johnathan Raine has played piano since he was five years old and is now preparing to start a Master of Music Degree in Piano Performance at the University of Ottawa. - NNSL file photo |
The scholarship was awarded based on a performance Raine gave to an audition committee from the university, one of five he performed at various universities this year.
"All the auditions I did were live," said Raine.
"It's very unlike anything I've ever done before ... the first thing that catches you off guard is the auditioning committee. They'll get you to just stop what you're playing mid-piece and then say, 'OK, we've heard enough, go on to the next thing.'"
Raine said the second aspect of live auditions that caught him off guard was the variety in the number of people he would be playing for, the environments he would play in, and the different pianos he would be using.
"The more (live auditions) you do, the better you get at making those adjustments, but you never know how it'll go," he said.
For Raine, they went quite well this year.
He was ultimately offered admission to the University of Ottawa, McGill University and the University of Alberta, his alma mater.
He decided to go with the University of Ottawa, in part because the professor he would work with there was one he and his current professor had worked with in the past.
Raine showed talent for the piano at a very young age, said his Yellowknife teacher, Ardith Dean, of Ardith's Music Centre.
"Yellowknife should be very proud," said Dean of Raine's accomplishments.
The city will have a chance to show their pride this Saturday at the Calvary Church, where Raine is set to perform a solo concert starting at 7:30 p.m.
The concert's program is very challenging and an indication of Raine's "phenomenal" talent, said Dean.
The program features three pieces, including Les Adieux or The Farewell by Ludwig Van Beethoven, Toccata in D minor by Sergei Prokofiev, and Carnaval by Robert Shumann.
These three pieces were chosen by Raine and his professor at the beginning of the most recent school year and were the works he focused on for the last year of his bachelor degree.
Raine chose Les Adieux in part for its unique study of Beethoven's transition from a classical to a romantic musical style.
"It's a combination of Beethoven's earlier more classical style of writing, with the latter more mature musical ideas, emotions, etc., of Beethoven's later period," explained Raine. "It's very much a transitional sonata in terms of his compositional style."
Prokofiev's Toccata was appealing because of how flashy - and difficult - the piece is and how different it is from pieces Raine was already working on, he said.
The challenge of Carnaval is in the work's 21 character pieces, each representing a character at a masquerade. This style differs from most pieces, which are comprised of a number of movements and not a collection of almost individual pieces.
"It's a very interesting piece to perform because every two minutes you have to switch characters on the fly, making it ... exhausting to perform," he said.
Raine's enthusiasm for his pieces shone through with the knowledge and stories he shared with Yellowknifer about all three pieces.
It's enthusiasm show-goers have the pleasure to share at his performance this weekend when Raine will make a point of speaking to the audience before the start of each piece, sharing insight into the composer and the music, instead of writing program notes, as is the more common practice.
