Lynn Tucker, an Associate Professor of Music and Culture in the Department of Arts, Culture, and Media at UTSC, looks back on the state of the music program upon her initial arrival to the campus in 2004.
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0:05
So I came in as a sessional and I remember we, at that time, the AA Building that we’re in right now was under construction, ‘cause this didn’t open until 2005.
0:22
So we were in BV 340 over in the Bladen Wing, which is a terrible space. (laughs) There is nothing acoustically sound about it at all. High ceilings, no treatment, and really narrow in many ways.
0:45
And the seats I’m positive were from the 1960s. [Christine chuckles] So like, in terms of any kind of good posture for the wind players, like, no.
0:55
But we had a band, and we had a group of people who wanted to come together and make music. And they were studying other fields and they just loved playing their instrument and they loved playing together.
1:08
So it’s like, well then the space doesn’t really matter then, because it’s about people. [Christine:] Right. [Lynn:] It’s about people coming together and making music.
1:15
But the other challenge is that at that time, I can remember when I arrived, I was given this little slip of paper with a phone number on it, and I was told, “Call this number. This is your Toronto District School Board hookup for percussion gear”.
1:36
Like, “What? Okay.” So I call the number and there’s this guy, and his name escapes me now, and he was lovely, but UTSC had some kind of arrangement
1:53
through the TDSB to borrow percussion gear to outfit the band each year. But what that meant was that, of course, all of the schools in the Toronto District School Board, of course, they access whatever the equipment arsenal was at the time first.
2:12
So when I called, it was basically whatever was left. (Lynn laughs) Oh my God. And so I think I ended up with a snare drum, a bass drum, and a glockenspiel.
2:28
I think that was it. And then there was this rando Xerox box that had some like, mallets and like sticks and things that somebody had donated, or many people had donated over the years.
2:43
Oh, and I think I might have gotten, I might have gotten a suspended cymbal. I think that might have been it. There was no timpani, there was no xylophone, there was no auxiliary gear, there was nothing.
2:54
And the fact that we were borrowing from the TDSB [Christine snickers] at this internationally recognized institution, I’m like, “What dimension have I walked into?”
3:05
The two schools that I had taught at previously were outfitted better than here. [Christine:] Wow. [Lynn:] But there was a spirit about this place that just, it was something else.
