Ton Beau Quartet visits Brentwood

Times Reporter

 

It’s not every day a string quartet visits Brentwood Elementary School, but on Feb. 7 the Ton Beau Quartet stopped by to give a short presentation to the students. 

Alexa Wilks, Sarah Steeves, Alex McLeod and Linnea Thacke are doctoral students at the University of Toronto, and are involved in a two-week residency at the Banff Centre. Steeves is a former Brentwood student, and is also the daughter of Brentwood’s music teacher Carolyn Steeves.   

“We’re actually putting together a program of music, we came here to sort of intensively study this program of music that we’re going to perform in Toronto when we return,” said Wilks about the residency at the Banff Centre. 

While going to Brentwood school was a bit of a treat to reunite mother and daughter for a while, it also had a purpose.

“That’s part of the Banff Centre’s mandate … is to get music out into the community,” said Wilks.

The goal of the quartet is to keep playing as much as they can. Playing concerts and touring are important to them but they all also agreed that it’s important to continue to do outreach and play for communities and children while continuing to develop educational programs.

“We’re playing a full movement for them this morning so when they’re listening to us for six or seven minutes they can engage with what we’re doing,” said Sarah Steeves. 

Steeves said for the kids they were doing an introduction to the instruments, showing the different sounds that can be made with them. The quartet also help the students experience the ways music can invoke different emotions and images while trying to get them actively listening to the music. McLeod said they try to give them a sort of toolbox of different things they can listen for in the movement.

The four doctoral students had all performed together at various times, before one day deciding to form their own quartet. 

“We just started doing it for fun and got more and more serious. The more (we) enjoyed it, the better we got,” said McLeod. 

“I was determined not to study music until the year before high school when I started playing string quartets.”

“I think we all kind of had our moments, it’s a career you pick because you love it. It’s not going to bring you great financial success but it’s the kind of thing you really are passionate about, so I think we have all kind of grown into it over time,” said Wilks. 

Thacke has already completed her doctorate, Wilks expects to be done this year, and both Steeves and McLeod expect to finish by 2013.