I had been playing since I was 2 years old, never remembering a life without music, always playing everything naturally and mostly by ear, and all the grownups wanted were more scales and drudgery out of me.

I had been playing since I was 2 years old, never remembering a life without music, always playing everything naturally and mostly by ear, and all the grownups wanted were more scales and drudgery out of me.

There are no benefactors in Canada because there is no incentive.

Let me be very honest and just say that if any airline would let me take the violin and the laptop on board I would fly that airline all the time.

For many years, the government of Canada has massively supported orchestras and the arts in general.

I am very lucky and grateful to have this living link to a past era, the violin presumably having much more history to it than the later portion that I know.

A good example of how it must have been is today's world of conducting, which is still utterly dominated by men, and the prejudice the few female conductors have to battle even today is astounding.