Instrument: Trombone
Joined WSO: 2001
Hometown: Born in Glasgow, Scoltand but call Tillsonburg, Ontario my hometown

Who was your idol growing up?
While in high school, my hometown of Tillsonburg, Ontario bestowed a special honour on one of its own for outstanding achievement and contribution to music.  That individual was trumpet virtuoso and long-time Toronto Symphony member Johnny Cowell.  To mark the occasion, Johnny, an accomplished composer of all kinds of music from classical to pop, gave a special solo performance with my high school band.  I was astonished at the seemingly infinite variety of styles he produced, sounding like Harry James and Louis Armstrong one minute and Wynton Marsalis or Al Hirt the next – all with such confidence and flair!  Since that moment, I have always made a point of working with an ‘open ear’, and to be as versatile as possible in my own performances – as is appropriate, of course…

What is your favourite piece to play?
The Symphony No. 2 of Gustav Mahler is, as a trombonist, one of my favourite to perform.  And guess what?  We’re ending this season with it – how lucky is that?!

What is one of your most memorable live performances?
In what was I think my second season with the WSO, we had a visiting conductor from Russia named Dmitri Liss.  If you attended this concert, you may recall we performed Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite No.1 and Nielsen’s Symphony No. 4 ‘The Inextinguishable.’ I just love performing music by the Scandinavian romantics, and I recall this performance being particularly electrifying!  Of course, other musicians or audience members may have felt otherwise but, for some reason, this concert remains vivid in my mind.

If you could have dinner with one historical figure, who would that be?
I would loved to have sat in on a dinner break with the American ‘Founding Fathers’ at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia. These events set history on a new course not only in politics and economics, but in literature and art as well. “I must study politics and war, that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, natural history and naval architecture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, tapestry, and porcelain.” -John Adams.