Last night felt a bit like a (re)debutante's ball for Voyageur at the Oakville Conference Centre.
For one thing, it was a bit of a celebratory, formal affair mounted as the 7th annual fundraising dinner for the Halton Learning Foundation, which provides programs to ensure access for all students in the Halton Region to an enriched learning environment regardless of economic or other barriers. So it was an honour not only to be asked to be their keynote speaker but also to bring in our portrait feature, which we ran both before and after my presentation out in the lobby. But the thing that made it so special for me was that this was to be the first public performance on Voyageur since the reconstruction of the bridge last week so I was anxious that all would go well.
It was a fantastic and attentive audience and the audio visual set up was just about perfect so it was that much easier to connect everyone in the room with the Six String Nation story. But the icing was the person the organizers had lined up to play the guitar at the end of my presentation. Markku Wainman is a student in the HDSB and had previously played the guitar almost exactly a year ago at the Ontario Music Educators Association Conference. Not only is he an accomplished player, he's also a budding composer – although he's been "budding" as a composer since he was about 8 so he's not as green as the term suggests! For this performance, he composed a tune called.... "Voyageur". And played it stunningly. The room was so quiet you could hear every note. The guitar sounded brilliant - not only for the usual reasons of George Rizanyi's great luthiery but for the wonderful repairs at Twelfth Fret and Markku's excellent composition and performance.
The event was also notable because the man behind the lens for 99.999% of all the Six String Nation portraits - Doug Nicholson - couldn't make it. So our only official substitute, Jim Panou, stepped in. Jim filled in once before for just an hour or two so this was his first time doing the marathon. He handled it brilliantly - but then, he's a brilliant photographer so no surprises there. Doug will be disappointed he didn't get to do the portraits with Kimberley Jenkins - daughter of the great Canadian right-hander and Cooperstown Hall-of-Famer, Fergie Jenkins.
Thanks to Jim and Markku, to organizers Susan Busby and Jane Wamsley, event sponsor Scotiabank, volunteers Sebastian Barkley and Martin Schlosser, Dean and Sean at the booth and all the folks who came to get their portraits taken and have books signed.
Posted at 1:18 PM
Got the call this afternoon and went out to reclaim poor, injured Voyageur from the Twelfth Fret.
It's kind of a good news / bad news scenario.
The good news is that the piece of the bridge that came away did match up perfectly and we've got a terrific hold there. Looks fantastic and you'd never have known there was a problem. We've re-strung with the lighter gauge D'Addario EXPs just to minimize strain on the saddle prophylactically. It looks and sounds just great.
The bad news is that we do have to come to terms with the fact that that red oak (the Machault, remember) really isn't the ideal material for the bridge on the guitar. It looks absolutely perfect because it looks like the more ideal material of ebony but that's an illusion caused by 200 years worth of Restigouche River mud. Oak is more porous than ebony so more prone to problems in this kind of application.
We'll just have to keep watching. In the meantime, Voyageur is back to her old self and I'll be thrilled to hear her played Thursday at the Halton Learning Foundation dinner at the Oakville Conference Centre by our talented young friend Markku Wainman.
Thanks so much to Dave Hill and the whole staff in the repairs department at Twelfth Fret for taking such great care and great interest in supporting the project with their expertise.
Posted at 6:33 PM