{"id":112601,"date":"2025-03-12T15:38:39","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T19:38:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=112601"},"modified":"2025-03-13T08:00:02","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T12:00:02","slug":"interview-composer-abigail-richardson-schulte-talks-career-current-work-hamilton-philharmonic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2025\/03\/12\/interview-composer-abigail-richardson-schulte-talks-career-current-work-hamilton-philharmonic\/","title":{"rendered":"INTERVIEW | Composer Abigail Richardson-Schulte Talks About Career, Current Work With The Hamilton Philharmonic & More"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Composer
Composer Abigail Richardson-Schulte (Photo: Marta Hewson)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On March 21, Abigail Richardson-Schulte will be hosting a Talk & Tea Series event on the music by Ravel and Mussorgsky that will be performed at the next concert by the Hamilton Philharmonic. It\u2019s just one of her many functions as the HPO\u2019s Composer-in-Residence, and beyond that, a multi-faceted career.<\/p>\n

We caught up with Abigail to talk about her journey to becoming a composer, and her work today.<\/p>\n

Abigail Richardson-Schulte, composer<\/h2>\n

Composer Abigail Richardson-Schulte was born in Oxford, England. As a child, she was diagnosed as incurably deaf. Yet… after moving to Calgary as a young child, her hearing gradually returned.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an incredible story, and one that is even more remarkable by her success as a composer. Richardson-Schulte\u2019s works have been commissioned and performed by orchestras and festivals across Canada and in Europe.<\/p>\n

She won first prize at the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers, and her music was consequently broadcast in 35 countries. It\u2019s not the only prize or recognition on her impressive list, which includes the CBC Karen Kieser Prize, a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best New Opera, the Quenten Doolittle Award from New Works Calgary, the City of Hamilton Arts Award and the Prairie Region Emerging Composer Award.<\/p>\n

During her tenure as former Affiliate Composer with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Abigail curated their New Creations Festival. Her piece, composed to accompany the Canadian classic story by Roch Carrier, \u201cThe Hockey Sweater\u201d, was a co-commission by the TSO, National Arts Centre Orchestra, and the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (a first), and has been performed more than 180 times across the country, along with multiple presentations in France. She has composed works for the National Arts Centre Orchestra, several pieces for the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra \u2014 where she is serving in her tenth year as Composer-in-Residence \u2014 and a full concert orchestral version of Dennis Lee\u2019s classic children\u2019s story \u201cAlligator Pie\u201d as commissioned by the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.<\/p>\n

Today, she also teaches composition at the University of Toronto. Recent commissions include pieces for the Orchestre symphonique de Montr\u00e9al Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Russell Braun with the Magisterra Soloists, and the Lafayette String Quartet, among others.<\/p>\n

The Interview<\/h3>\n

\u201cMy dad is an engineer, and he was asked to head up a branch of the company in Calgary. They didn\u2019t want to move to Canada!\u201d Richardson-Schulte recalls with a laugh. To persuade them, the company invited the family to vacations in Niagara Falls and Banff, and eventually, it worked, and her father accepted the job offer.<\/p>\n

Abigail was about five years old at the time, and after a string of persistent ear infections, was for all purposes functionally deaf. But \u2014 remarkably \u2014 no one from parents to other family members to teachers was aware of that fact.<\/p>\n

Abigail had become adept at lip reading and other means of interpreting language, and thought, in her child\u2019s mind, that this was simply how everyone communicated. A master adapter, she fooled everyone up until the doctor who examined the family for their potential immigration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe next step was the medical for the whole family, and they determined that I was deaf,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n

As a result, the province of Alberta initially rejected their visa application on medical grounds. However, there was an option to consult up to three specialists to provide more information for reconsideration.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember becoming aware that my world wasn\u2019t the same as the outside world, in terms of what I was hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last specialist they took her to see, who was also a family friend, and incidentally, one of the doctors to the Queen herself, was hopeful. \u201cYou never know \u2014 Calgary has a dry climate,\u201d she remembers him saying.<\/p>\n

It proved to be prophetic. Within a few months of arriving in Canada after the appeal was won, her hearing began to trickle back. Hearing tests were administered, and about a year after they arrived, the transformation was complete. \u201cAfter one year, it was perfect.\u201d The infections, and the accumulated scar tissue which had caused the lingering problem, and which began when she was only about two weeks old, were gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems quite simple,\u201d she says. \u201cI didn\u2019t even know I was deaf, because it happened quite gradually.\u201d Even after three years of school, none of the teachers had noticed.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy speech was normal, I had an English accent,\u201d she laughs. Some people, in fact, doubted that she was deaf even after the diagnosis. \u201cOf course, my parents felt terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some details seemed to stick out more in retrospect. Her mother, for example, took her habit of not answering unless they had eye contact as a personality quirk.<\/p>\n