Winston Webber with “Best Seat in the House”
The focus of this episode is violinist Winston Webber’ss wonderful book “ Best Seat in the House: love letters to a profession” and you’ll be hearing Winston read from the book, and share memories with us of musicians such as Pinchas Zukerman, Karl Ancerl, Ida Haendel and Greta Kraus. He also shared his experiences of violin lessons with Lorand Fenyves and conducting lessons with Sixten Ehrling, many moving experiences on tours, and insights into composers. We also exchanged ideas about programming and concert presentation, and his experience of quitting the Toronto Symphony to go to University of Toronto to study pre-med science while conducting several orchestras, before he borrowed a violin to change directions again to audition for NACO. Winston has been my colleague for decades, and has recently retired from his position as Assistant Principal Second Violin of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra (NACO).
Boman Desai
I was honoured to record this interview with Boman Desai, whose wonderful recent novel “Brahms Comes to Dinner” I highly recommend. You’ll hear how this work came out of Boman’s larger novel “Trio” and he shared stories about several of his other acclaimed novels including “The Memory of Elephants”, “Portrait of a Woman Madly in Love” and his book about the Lennon-McCartney Beatles songs “Dancing About Architecture”. Some of Boman’s writing comes from his Parsi family history and the life of his grandmother, and you’ll hear about several life-changing moments including with the legendary editor and writer Diana Athill. Podcast/Video/Transcript