Celebrating Valerie Tryon at 90
Renowned concert pianist will perform a recital and share stories of her life and career at a concert hosted by the McMaster University Library and Archive on Oct. 17.
Valerie Tryon’s sight may be diminishing, but the internationally acclaimed classical concert pianist doesn’t need sheet music. She has a vast repertoire committed to memory.
That will be on display when Valerie Tryon performs a recital in honour of her 90th birthday, which was Sept. 5.
The concert will feature an extended conversation with 96.3 FM Classical Jukebox host Daniel Vnukowski, interspersed with performances by Tryon of pieces she has chosen to highlight eras of her eight-decade career.
Vnukowski is a concert pianist himself. In fact, he did a master class with Tryon when he was in his preteens.
Choosing the music is proving a challenge, she says during our interview in mid-August, but she knows works by Liszt, Chopin, Ravel and DeBussy will be included.
The concert is being hosted by the McMaster University Library and Archives, which has also commissioned a portrait of Tryon by Lorne Toews of Dundas. It will be unveiled at a reception after the concert and will hang in the foyer of the Ancaster Memorial Arts Centre.
“Valerie holds a special place in our hearts at McMaster University Library,” says Vivian Lewis, associate vice-president and university librarian. “We are honoured to be the entrusted caretakers of her archive in our William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections and make it available to the public. We continue to celebrate her rightful place as one of Canada’s greatest concert pianists on her 90th birthday and we invite the community to join us for this special concert.”
Tryon has no trouble with her hands despite a fall a couple of years ago on ice that broke her wrist and required her to work out new fingerings to adapt to a shortened range for that hand. But her sight is not good, making reading music more difficult.
Remarkably, there is 80 years’ worth of music in her memory.
“Whatever you ask her to play, you know, she can play it because it's all there,” says her sister Jacqui Muir. “It's so incredible. I can’t remember my shopping list but she has all this music in there.”
Tryon’s list of accomplishments and recognitions is long.
The youngest student to be admitted to the prestigious Royal Academy, Tryon is a Juno Award winner, an Order of Canada recipient, a Hamilton Gallery of Distinction inductee and also holds the Harriet Cohen Award for Distinguished Services to Music, and the Franz Liszt Medal from the Hungarian Ministry of Culture.
At a tribute concert in honour of Tryon’s donation of her archives to McMaster in 2016, the late Boris Brott said: “Valerie is a consummate musician in almost every form. She plays with such perfection, that I think that’s why the word ‘incomparable’ is truly the right word to describe her.”
McMaster bestowed her with an honorary doctorate upon her retirement from the university in 2000.
Tryon came to Hamilton from England in 1971 alongside her then-husband Alan Walker who had taken the chair’s post in the McMaster University music program. He is now a professor emeritus, a prominent musicologist and author and remains Tryon’s close friend.
She became an associate professor of music in 1976 and in 1980, the role of artist-in-residence at the university was created for her. It allowed her to cut down her performance schedule, which was a relief because despite being an internationally renowned concert pianist, Tryon doesn’t much enjoy travelling.
She is now a music teacher and artist-in-residence at Redeemer University.
Tryon talked to HAMILTON CITY Magazine alongside her sister, who, like Tryon, lives in Ancaster. Muir and her family also moved to Canada in 1976 and that greatly eased Tryon’s battle with homesickness. Their parents followed in 1978.
“I've been very fortunate, because without them, I can't imagine what my life would have been,” says Tryon. “I'd have been very lonely over here by myself. Although I made a lot of friends here, which I value very much, but it wouldn't be the same as not having my sister and her children and everybody.”
Tryon says she isn’t much for celebrating her birthdays.
“I hate getting old. I hate it. I didn't like any of my birthdays ever. When I was 20 and 21 I was quite happy to have a birthday but not since then,” she says.
But she’s excited about the upcoming concert.
“I am grateful for it and I will do my best to make it interesting.”
In the way of sisters, Muir has thrown a surprise party for each of Tryon’s decade birthdays, despite her protests. They keep getting bigger.
“I think I'm going to have to start saving up for the 100th,” Muir says with a laugh.
NEED TO KNOW
Valerie Tryon: A Life in Music
Oct. 17, 7 p.m.
Ancaster Memorial Arts Centre
357 Wilson St. E., Ancaster
Tickets are here
