Her dream plays on
Yi-Jia Susanne Hou has won another three years with ‘my voice,’ the $3-million violin she cherishes
Steven Mazey, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Thursday, January 11, 2007
For the past three years, Canadian violinist Yi-Jia Susanne Hou has been making music with $3 million in her hands — a powerful, plush-toned, 300-year-old Guarneri that she says is the instrument of her dreams.
But in August, after three musically rewarding years, Hou had to hand the violin back to the instrument bank of the Canada Council for the Arts and compete for it once again. She understood the rules when she got the instrument, but she says she was still heartsick. Would she have to say goodbye to the instrument and find another one to take its place?
“Violins are so personal, and this one is like an extension of my body. I fell in love with it. It’s my voice, and the idea of losing it was like someone taking my voice away,” says Hou, 29, who received the Council’s “Ex-Heath” Guarneri in 2003 after winning top prize in the national competition the Council holds every three years for the instruments in its collection.
Created in 1985, the collection offers instruments that young musicians would be unable to afford or find on their own. The instruments have been donated or provided on loan to the Council. As winner, Hou had the first choice of the nine violins in the $18-million collection, which includes three Strad violins. The other winners were then allowed to choose from the remaining instruments, based on their ranking in the competition. The musicians get to use the instruments for three years.
When Hou had to compete again in September, this time for a different panel of judges, she knew that if she didn’t win first prize, there was a chance another violinist would choose the Guarneri and decide to take it home.
But after performing for a jury that included Vancouver violinist Andrew Dawes and former Toronto Symphony manager Walter Homburger, Hou got a telephone call telling her that she had won first prize again. The Guarneri was hers for another three years. (Second prize went to NACO violinist Jessica Linnebach, who chose one of the Strads.)
“I nearly hit the roof when I got the call. I was so thrilled,” said Hou, who performs with Ottawa’s Thirteen Strings and guest conductor Simon Streatfeild tomorrow night at St. Andrew’s Church.
In a concert that will include music by Vivaldi and Turina, Hou will perform a suite from John Corigliano’s Oscar-winning score for the 1998 film The Red Violin. She’ll also be soloist in Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy and Chinese composer Chen Yi’s Romance and Dance for two violins and orchestra, with Thirteen Strings concertmaster Manuela Milani.
Hou says the pieces will show off the Guarneri’s tone and colours. When she first tried it three years ago, she says the instrument just felt right for her hands and playing style, though she admits the Strads weren’t shabby either.
“It felt like I could create everything and anything that I wanted,” says Hou, who grew up in Mississauga, studied at New York’s Juilliard School and has performed internationally since winning prizes at several competitions. She’s performed with ensembles that include the Royal Liverpool Orchestra, the Czech National Symphony and the Vancouver Symphony.
“I cannot recall hearing a violinist in a live performance who could coax as big a tone out of a violin; she can also draw a fine-spun pianissimo,” wrote a critic in Fanfare magazine. Tomorrow’s concert will be recorded for broadcast by CBC Radio.
“The Guarneri has a lot of sheer power but at the same time a sensuous warmth, silkiness and sweetness,” Hou says.
“For me it’s like the complete, ultimate violin,” she said from Mississauga, where she was visiting her parents before heading to Ottawa. She has lived in New York since leaving home to study at Juilliard.
Tomorrow’s concert will mark Hou’s first performance of Corigliano’s music from the The Red Violin. She says she admires the “haunting, mysterious quality to the music as it told the story of this violin. The music from the film is almost an extension of how I felt about the Guarneri this past year, because I went through so many emotions with having to give it up and then getting it back.”
The film told the story of one valuable violin, from its creation in Italy to its assorted owners through the centuries. Hou says she often thinks about the rich history of the Guarneri, which was made in Cremona in 1729 by Giuseppe del Gesu and was eventually bought by a collector and left to the University of Western Ontario. An American philanthropist, who wants to remain anonymous, bought it from the university and donated it to the Canada Council in 1998.
Hou says there aren’t a lot of sources for a young violinist to acquire such a high-calibre instrument, even on loan. Even if her corner violin shop had one for sale, she’d have a difficult time finding several million dollars.
Though the donor of the Guarneri doesn’t want his name publicized, Hou has met him and has told him how much the instrument has meant to her.
“It’s wonderful that the Canada Council has this program, and it’s so nice that this donor recognized that and wanted to support the program,” says Hou, who will be back in Ottawa May 8 for a free concert with the National Arts Centre Orchestra featuring all of the most recent winners of the instrument bank competition. The concert is part of 50th anniversary celebrations of the Canada Council.
Hou has been surrounded by music since birth. Her father Alec, who teaches at the Royal Conservatory, was her first teacher and recently was the conductor for a concert she performed at the Shanghai Conservatory. Her mother Yvonne is a member of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony.
Her highlights this season will include the release of a solo disc later this month and a tour with Bowfire, a Canadian-produced violin extravaganza in which eight violinists perform classical, jazz, Celtic and pop pieces, complete with choreography and a backup band.
Hou joined the group this season and will tour with the ensemble for about two months each season. She has a few classical solos in the show and performs other pieces, including a Klezmer duet. She says she was happy to join the group and mix tours with Bowfire with her more traditional classical gigs.
She says Bowfire concerts reach a wide audience, including those who wouldn’t normally attend a classical concert.
“I’ve gotten so much feedback from people who said they never knew classical music could be fun. I think we have to show the younger generation that classical music isn’t just a stuffy art form. It seems in Europe and Asia young people still follow classical music, but that’s not so much the case in North America. I’d like to encourage younger people to come to concerts, and I’ve had people come to my classical concerts who tell me they saw me in Bowfire.”
She has the Guarneri for just another three years. The rules of the Canada Council Instrument Bank say that Hou can complete again in three years, but that even if she wins, the Guarneri will have to go to someone else, to ensure that other young musicians get a chance to use it. If she wins the competition a third time, Hou would have to choose one of the other instruments.
For now, Hou says, she plans to enjoy every moment with the violin.
“Finding your right instrument is like finding a lifemate, and with this one, I feel like I’ve found mine. I’m so incredibly happy to have it.”
Thirteen Strings performs at St. Andrew’s Church tomorrow. Tickets & times: 613-738-7888 or www.thirteenstrings.ca.
