{"id":35791,"date":"2016-04-05T11:04:05","date_gmt":"2016-04-05T15:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=35791"},"modified":"2016-04-05T11:20:09","modified_gmt":"2016-04-05T15:20:09","slug":"profile-a-day-in-the-life-of-tso-principal-librarian-gary-corrin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2016\/04\/05\/profile-a-day-in-the-life-of-tso-principal-librarian-gary-corrin\/","title":{"rendered":"PROFILE | A Day In The Life Of TSO Principal Librarian Gary Corrin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Principal Librarian Gary Corrin takes us on behind the scenes tour of how scores get made and played at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.<\/h3>\n
\"Gary
Gary Corin. (Photo: Emma Badame)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

G<\/span>ary Corrin, librarian at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, is showing me how he loads the musicians\u2019 folders when he stops to exclaim, \u201cOh wait, I should get my prop. I saw this at the post office \u2013 these rubber thumbs!\u201d His enthusiasm is infectious even though he\u2019s showing me what is one of his more routine tasks.<\/p>\n

As he walks me through some of the other aspects of his job, it is clear that there is no typical day for Gary and the other librarian, Kim.\u00a0 \u201cOur job in here is to safeguard the Toronto Symphony\u2019s most valuable asset which is the time of 80 people on stage, they\u2019re all being paid by the hour, or the conductors flown in, or whatever.\u201d\u00a0 To ensure that rehearsals run smoothly with minimal interruptions, they spend about a third of their time making sure bowings are consistent to what the concertmaster and music director decide.\u00a0 In addition to that detailed work, they focus on looking ahead and anticipating problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re the first ones looking at the printed pages, so we have to tell the personnel department. In the old days it\u2019s \u2018you need a fourth trumpet\u2019, now its \u2018third stand of first violins has to play rattle and whip, the last stand plays whirly tube, and then the other person plays the wheel of fortune\u2019, and you\u2019ll see some of the bass players are hitting their instruments with timpani sticks. This is where you actually study the score, to know that information, because obviously that stuff is hard to solve at the last-minute. You get out on stage, and the conductor says \u2018wait a minute, where\u2019s your timpani sticks?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Somewhere along the line, Gary has also become the resident expert on whirly tubes as well.\u00a0 A piece for the New Creations festival not only specifies whirly tubes, but it also specifies a specific pitch.\u00a0 While it\u2019s not entirely clear how Gary got put in charge of obtaining pitched whirly tubes, he seems to relish the challenge and is only a little bit incredulous: \u201cSomeone was coming in here, they were on their way to the library to get the whirly tubes, and they went \u2018oh yeah\u2019 as if, of course, the library, the library<\/em>, has the whirly tubes\u201d.<\/p>\n

Gary\u2019s career path is as interesting as his day-to-day work: \u201cThis is my 7th<\/sup> orchestra. I started as a clarinet player in Eugene, Oregon, in a little orchestra and the personnel manager said, \u2018our librarian quit, who wants to do this?\u2019 And I worked in the library, so I thought, \u2018how hard can it be?\u2019 And then I started learning\u2026 coincidentally I had a friend from high school who had just become a librarian with the San Francisco Symphony, so I thought, \u2018whatever I don\u2019t know she can tell me.’\u00a0 The next time I was home I went down, and she took me to the San Francisco Symphony library and showed me, and I went \u2018wow, there\u2019s a lot to it!\u2019 and I thought \u2018holy cow!\u2019\u00a0 And \u2018I\u2019m good at that [stuff].\u2019 There are fine clarinet players out there, and I\u2019m a pretty good clarinet player, but you have to be really<\/em> good. So I\u2019m good at this, and that\u2019s satisfying.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TSO
TSO Principal Librarian Gary Corrin meets the Principal Librarian of the Concertgebouw Doewe Zuidema. (Photo Josh Clavir)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThere is no degree program that teaches you how to become an orchestra librarian, so it\u2019s really interesting to be connected with all my colleagues because we all bring diverse backgrounds, but you must have certain skills to do this job \u2014 you\u2019ve kind of got to be organized.\u201d<\/p>\n

This mindset of sharing the workload based on individual skills will sound familiar to most people working in the arts.\u00a0 For Gary, it meant that while he already had a strong grasp of what is necessary for musicians to rehearse with minimal interruptions, he did need to learn some aspects of the job:\u00a0 \u201cEveryone has their skills, and you build a team based on covering all the bases. I\u2019m a clarinet player; I\u2019m not a strong string player, so I had to learn some of the bowing stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the collaborative environment of the orchestra, Gary knows he has colleagues he can rely on to help with tasks that are outside of his experience. While music is considered the universal language, scores can be written in any number of languages.\u00a0 \u201cFrench and German: you\u2019ve got to kind of have those languages. There are Russians in the orchestra I can just go to and ask, I don\u2019t read Cyrillic.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, Gary and Kim are always working towards the same goal: to prepare the music for upcoming concerts and ensure the orchestra runs smoothly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big picture is we turn the scheduled program into music. How complicated can that be? Very complicated.\u00a0 When they\u2019re rehearsing today, Kim and I are in here doing stuff for the future. And it can be like yesterday, I was looking at a commission for something we\u2019re doing in June for rock band and orchestra, and ok here\u2019s the delivery date for the score and parts and here\u2019s the orchestra that its going to be written for and they\u2019re asking me to vet this and say what problems I foresee.\u201d<\/p>\n

A music librarian\u2019s job can be as complex as the music they prepare.\u00a0 Gary is a prime example of the kind of forward-thinking and resourceful person who thrives in what is a surprisingly fast-paced environment.\u00a0 Between preparing the music (and whirly tubes) for upcoming concerts, he\u2019s also packaging sheet music to be shipped internationally back to publishers, responding to the immediate needs of orchestra members, coming to the rescue with extra guitar picks, or repairing older scores with surgical tape, among other things. By the end of my tour of the library, one thing has become clear: there is no such thing as a typical day for the librarians at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.<\/p>\n

#LUDWIGVAN<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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