Paula Lindo – Our histories, stories, present, future.

Renowned violinist John Storer, along with a chamber orchestra, will be hosting a performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on June 9 at Christ Church, Cascade, beginning at 6 pm. Part proceeds for the concert will go towards offsetting the cost of travelling to T&T to teach masterclasses and recording a violin sonata written especially for him.

Storer will be joined at the concert by a variety of musicians, including Marc Harroo, Sameer Alladin, Wasia Ward, Simon Browne, Caitlyn Kamminga and Hayward Mickens. There will also be performances by vocalists Katy Gainham, John Thomas and Ayrice Wilson. Storer came to T&T in 2009 as part of the original cohort of lecturers at the University of T&T’s Academy of the Performing Arts (APA), where all the performers have trained or are lecturers. “Apart from playing with old friends and colleagues who are all excellent musicians, it’s also a great opportunity to reconnect with some of the musicians who were students when I was last down here and work with them on a professional stage. It feels like a fulfilment of the project we started in 2009.”

Storer, who was born in London, has been playing violin since the age of five. “I was seen to have a talent for it and was fortunate enough to go to a music school when I was 12. I then became a junior student at the Royal Academy of Music and got a scholarship to the Cheatham School of Music in Manchester. I became a young professional in London making a living from my music, doing freelance jobs as I got them. T&T has a phenomenal rich music history and that’s why I was drawn to come here when I heard about this incredibly bold project at UTT. It fired my imagination and passion for growth and for doing something more than just a regular orchestra musician. This provided an opportunity to make greater forays into teaching, but also doing outreach and bringing classical music to a place that hadn’t really had that much of it. I was teaching at UTT until 2014, until I was laid off due to financial constraints and a visa issue.”

The concert will feature the Spring and Winter movements from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Storer said  “Spring is one of the most popular pieces of classical music ever, because it was the waiting music for answering machines for decades, and I thought Winter would be a good counterpoint to the heat but also because it contrasts with Spring. Katy Gainham is also a guest soloist and will do the B Minor Flute Suite. Then there’s a less-known trio by a Russian composer, Sergei Taneyev, beautiful romantic music, and full arias from John Thomas and Ayrice Wilson, which will give people a break from the strings.”

Storer said the main thrust for him coming back to T&T at this time is to record a solo violin piece written by internationally renowned genius composer Simon Wills. “Will was instrumental in getting the guest musicians and teachers down to T&T in the beginning. He wrote a violin sonata for unaccompanied solo violin. It was commissioned for my 50^th birthday by my then partner Eleanor Ryan, who is also a teacher here. At the time I was 50, I was too afraid to tackle it because it’s a beast of a piece, very tricky, but now with a few years hindsight, the piece is a modernist reaction to the sights and sounds and scenes of Trinidad. I’ve been lucky to have Martin Raymond of the Music Technology department at UTT agree to record this for me and I’ll be doing that from June 10 to 12. I’m hoping to perform the piece at least once publicly before I leave Trinidad. It’s spiritually important to birth this piece here. It astonished us how open Trinidadian audiences are to new stuff, there’s less snobbery and a lot more patience, and they take the spirit of the music very seriously, so I’d be interested to see the reaction to this particular piece of music.”

Storer hopes the concert will be sold out. “I can guarantee that audiences will receive an extremely high quality evening of chamber music, and their souls will be soothed. I would like to think that all of these pieces are really quite uplifting and when the public leaves, they will have a sense of real spiritual upliftment.”

Tickets cost $150 and are available at Kitchen Korner outlets at Long Circular Mall and West Mall. The concert takes place on June 9 at Christ Church, Cascade, beginning at 6 pm.