Jean Lyons School of Music

Lyons
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W
hen Jean Lyons played for
Arthur Benjamin, the composer’s English bulldog, Punch,
would settle on her pedal foot. When she,
and other Royal Conservatory students,
had Sunday tea with Sir Ernest
MacMillan, the maestro would play them
some of his thousand recordings—if they
remained very still. And when twelveyear-old Alexina Louie first tried her hand
at composition in one of Miss Lyons’s
classes, no one knew that fifteen years
later she would be named Composer of
the Year by the Canadian Music Council
and go on to become Composer in
Residence first at the Canadian Opera
Company and now the National Arts
Centre, and the winner of numerous
JUNO Awards and other honors.
Lorna Jean Elderkin Lyons, a genteel
lady whose soft-spoken manner conceals
a razor-sharp mind and a contemporary
sensibility, conducts Vancouver’s oldest
music school. It is located on Seventh
Avenue, just west of Granville, a few
doors from Salade de Fruits and almost
opposite the Diane Farris Gallery. The
school has seven soundproof studios,
each named, in alphabetical order, for a
composer—Bach, Bartok, Beethoven, et
al.; ten pianos; one harpsichord (for
Baroque music); sixteen instructors, and
300 students.
Miss Lyons, as she always is called, is
descended from a family that came to
Canada in 1642 and built tall ships on the
Atlantic coast. The Elderkin Raft is still
used to battle ocean storms. Miss Lyons’s
parents, born in Nova Scotia, moved to
Powell River, where her father became
director and chief surgeon of the local
hospital. And Powell River is where, at
age eight, she began playing piano and
“knew from the time I was ten I wanted
to go into music.”
In grade eight, she directed a school
production of Carmen. In her postsecondary years, she attended the Royal
Conservatory in Toronto, studying with
Alberto Guerrero, famous as Glenn
Gould’s teacher; Healey Willan (“a wonderful, warm man”); Leo Smith, who had
played cello in rehearsals for Wagner (“he
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“One of my joys,”
she says, “is to
encourage ensemble
work with students.”
She is seen here
with the ensemble
Quator Piano.
Clockwise, from
bottom left: Joseph
Tong, George
Kamiya, Richard Ho
and Michael Cheung.
A Life
in Music
Jean
Lyons
An eight-decade devotion to her art,
from Healey Willan to Alexina Louie and beyond.
achievers maga zine
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Lyons
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called me ‘my dear child’”); and Sir Ernest,
principal of the Toronto Conservatory,
dean of music at the University of Toronto,
and conductor of the Toronto Symphony
Orchestra. One of her Conservatory
classmates was Godfrey Ridout (“a very
special friend”) who very soon would
become a celebrated composer and later
proofread her first book on harmony.
Back in Vancouver, she studied with
Benjamin (an Australian composer and
occasional guest conductor of the
Vancouver Symphony, who, despite his
symphonies, concertos and four operas, is
best known today for the lighthearted
“Jamaican Rumba”). “Once he offered me a
ride downtown. I started to get into the
passenger’s seat, in the front, and he said,
“Oh, no. That is Punch’s seat.” Miss Lyons
rode in the back.
There were further studies, at the
Cornish School of Music in Seattle with
Stephen Balogh, who had been a pupil of
>
former principal Angela Barbour (“we take
turns at five-year terms,” Angela explains).
Miss Lyons, emphasizing “the tremendous
support and expertise” of her staff, says,
“We are very collegial. We share ideas.”
“I started with Miss Lyons from Day
One,” says Angela. In her student days,
she often played compositions for two
pianos with Alexina Louie. Susan came to
Vancouver from Hong Kong, and began
studying with Miss Lyons when she was
twelve years old. Although she went on to
work with Robert Silverman and Elliot
Weisgarber, she returned to her childhood
mentor. “She has such love and care for
her students,” says Susan. Alexina Louie
(known to her former teacher as “Zina”)
calls her “the most generous of spirits,”and
declares, “I have not yet found another
teacher as dedicated as she is. She has a
way of asking the best of you, and you
want to live up to her standards. She was
a pivotal figure for me.”
Playhouse to Richmond’s Gateway
Theatre. “I played in those recitals,” says
Alexina Louie. “She teaches you how to
perform, how to address the piano, how
to address an audience, so you have a
professional attitude from the time you are
a small child.”
Music played covers a wide range, from
Bach to Astor Piazzolla, Scarlatti to Violet
Archer, Shostakovich to Scott Joplin,
and—with affection—Alexina Louie (“I
Leap Through the Sky with Stars”) who
says of her early mentor, “She is continually searching, curious about all kinds of
repertoire.” Miss Lyons’s favorite composers include Chopin, Britten, Stephen
Chatman, and Barbara Pentland (“a very
Alexina Louie:“She has a way of asking the
best of you, and you want to live up to her
standards. She was a pivotal figure for me.”
Bartok and Kodaly. And then, Miss Lyons
was ready to take on pupils of her own. “I
began in Powell River, and started coming
to Vancouver in 1951. I kept my classes in
Powell River, and commuted. I slept two
nights a week on the Princess Mary.”
Ultimately, Vancouver won, and the Jean
Lyons School of Music was founded on
Robson Street with three teachers and a
hundred-dollar piano. “I had various
studios,” she says, “always in buildings that
were about to be demolished.” The
Seventh Avenue studio was built ten years
ago. “It had been a warehouse,” she says,
“with tenants who moved out in the
middle of the night.”
When she took over the space, “the first
person I hired was a sound engineer. Our
soundproofing is better than UBC’s, better
than the Academy’s.” And she began
building a stellar faculty, many of whom
are former students. Among them are
school principal Susan Wong Lim and
Ms. Louie, who dedicated her widely
used book Music for Piano to Jean Lyons “as
a way to pay homage,” says, “She teaches
you a lot about yourself. She opens
something inside of you.”
Students of the school come from all
parts of Greater Vancouver, and range in
age from four to seventy-five. Classes run
from two p.m. until ten p.m., “giving us,”
says Miss Lyons, “the privilege of sleeping
in in the morning.” Not all proceed to
professional careers in music, many are
doctors, lawyers, dentists; but, says Miss
Lyons, “music remains a part of their
lives.”
When potential students apply to the
school, “We determine what their goal is.
Then we help them achieve it. All our
students are proud of themselves.”
Students are trained to perform in
concerts. There are two studio recitals a
month at the school, leading to concerts in
various venues, from the Vancouver
A robed Alexina Louie at a 1997 Convocation
ceremony with mentor Jean Lyons and, on
her left, husband Alex Pauk.
interesting person; if she had been born
later, she would have been Bill Gates”).
Students enjoy various privileges,
including access to a library that includes
thousands of recordings and hundreds of
scores, many out of print, and group
tickets for Vancouver Symphony and
Vancouver Opera performances.
What, Miss Lyons is asked, does she
look for in a pupil? “First of all, the hands.
I need to see if there is a suitable hand.”
(Not everyone has hands like
Rachmaninoff ’s, whom Miss Lyons
remembers hearing perform, and whose
portrait and programs adorn one of the
studios.) “One boy, I thought, shouldn’t
study piano; I recommended the clarinet,
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and he has done very well. Then you look
for a sense of rhythm, and of course,
dedication and desire. And you also want
parents who are willing to drive their
children.”
Miss Lyons, one of the founding members of the British Columbia branch of the
Canadian Music Competitions and the
only original member still serving, flew to
Toronto this summer with Angela and
Susan for the CMC finals. “If her students
make it to the finals,” says Alexina Louie,
“she’s there for them.”
Jean Lyons is the author of a series of
books on theory, harmony and music
history, regularly updated to meet
Conservatory standards. The books are
sold primarily in Canada, but are used
also by teachers in the United States and
Europe. They are intended, she says, “to
prepare students for Conservatory exams.”
And, “if I can’t find an example to
illustrate a technique, I just make it up.”
Angela Barbour and Susan Wong Lim
are asked what is required to be a good
teacher. They answer patience, flexibility, a
wish to impart knowledge, and “a concern
for the student’s individuality; every
student is different, and you don’t want
the student simply to reflect you.” Jean
Lyons became a teacher, she believes,
because of her experience in the Girl
Guide movement. She began as a Brownie,
became a Guide, then a patrol leader, and
met Lady Baden-Powell. “It’s a wonderful
organization,” she says, “You’re included.
You work as a team.”
Miss Lyons emerged from an artistic
family. All her siblings played piano well,
an aunt was a concert singer, and a niece
is pursuing a vocal career in New Zealand.
Her mother, a graduate in drama and
speech, “always encouraged me. She was
my one great fan. She always told me I
was wonderful and that my students were
all wonderful. It wasn’t,” Miss Lyons
laughs, “until a year before she died that I
discovered she was tone deaf!”
You will find Jean Lyons’s name in the
International Who’s Who in Music , the World
Who’s Who of Women, the Encyclopedia of
Music in Canada and the Dictionary of
International Biographies, and, a few weeks
ago, it turned up as a clue in a National
Post crossword puzzle. She no longer
competes in tennis and badminton
tournaments, but she does—and always
will—play the piano (her preference:
Jean Lyons stands behind her students—
always. At the keyboard: Angela Barbour,
Sandra Bitelli and Susan Wong Lim.
Steinway) and teach. And she will
continue to encourage that student who
has “what you can’t foresee.”
The school’s web site has a quotation
attributed—possibly apocryphally—to J.S.
Bach:
“There is nothing to it. You only have
to hit the right note at the right time, and
the instrument plays itself.”
For many pianists, now scattered across
several continents, Jean Lyons seems to
have been there at the right time.
40th Anniversary Celebrations
October 18th to November 6th
Wine Themed Dinners
Fondue Features
Swiss Farmer’s Buffet
Thursday, October 21st: Vancouver Symphony Tribute Dinner
Thursday, October 28th: Vancouver Playhouse Tribute Dinner
Thursday, November 4th: Vancouver Opera Tribute Dinner
During these Anniversary Celebrations we will be raising funds for
Vancouver Opera, Vancouver Playhouse, Vancouver Symphony, Vancouver Community College
Culinary Arts program, Rotary Hearing Foundation, VON Meals on Wheels
For details and menus please visit our website www.thewmtell.com
604.688.3504 Reservationsa c h i e v e r s
maga zine
765 Beatty Street, Vancouver, BC Located in the Georgian Court Hotel
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