Using Music to Connect One
Heart to Another
By Susan Pederson
Pierre Simard is used to performing for large audiences, but in his mind, he’s trying to touch the heart of perhaps just a single person in that audience.
When artistic director Pierre Simard takes the stage to mark the beginning of the Vancouver Island Symphony’s (VIS) 25
th
Anniversary season, his razor-sharp focus won’t be just on the music, but on the emotions of the individual audience members.
“We might be entertaining 750 people, and for that 751
st
person, you may change their life,” he explains.
That was his own experience when he was 10 or 11, and he attended Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker performed by the Montreal Symphony. In that moment, his life was transformed forever. After, he would go into the record shop and hide the fact he was buying classical music, as he didn’t want to be discovered by his blues-and-pop-loving childhood friends.
“Music belongs to everyone. Some pieces just go straight to your heart,” Simard adds.
Simard has learned, however, that putting together a program straight from his own heart may not be a recipe for success with VIS, which is why its 25th season only includes a few selections of what he would have picked for his dream concert series.
