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Mother of the arts. Doyenne of arts patrons. Grande dame of music in Ottawa.
The late Trudi Le Caine was called all those things for her tireless work promoting music, dance and art in Ottawa – not to mention the distinction of having thought up the now-iconic tradition of opening up the Rideau Canal to skaters.
“Fifty years of her life were dedicated to Ottawa,” says Peter Honeywell, executive director of the Ottawa Arts Council. “When she came here she was a little surprised – it was a bit of a cultural desert …
“That was her mission – to contribute, to encourage. She was tenacious. She was a real organizer. She would say, ‘You just have to get those seeds planted, they will grow.’ ”
Le Caine arrived in Second World War-era Ottawa when an annual list of arts events took up less than half a page in the Ottawa Citizen.
Trudi LeCaine
She went on to mentor countless young artists in every field and boost a host of arts organizations: the National Youth Orchestra, the National Arts Centre and its orchestra, Opera Lyra Ottawa, modern dance troupe Le Groupe de la Place Royale and contemporary music society Espace Musique.
Born Gertrude Janowski, she fled Germany at 22 after Adolf Hitler’s election in 1933, having been beaten on the street while working with the liberal opposition and learning there was a warrant for her arrest.
She, her mother and her step-father, musician and critic Arnold Walter, fled to Spain, where civil war soon raged.
Then it was Paris, where Le Caine studied at the Sorbonne and qualified as a teacher before France was invaded by the Germans in 1940.
Finally, she landed in Toronto, where her stepfather would go on to become a renowned musicologist and educator, and came to Ottawa in 1942 after getting a job censoring the letters of Germans being held in Canadian prisoner-of-war camps.
Le Caine would later call it “a nice little village at the time” – even as she recalled locals decrying the influx of so many “foreigners.” And there were only three decent restaurants.
Her first thought was that Ottawa was “a lovely place.” Her second, that it was “awfully provincial” because there was “practically no music!”
She taught French at Broadview Public School, an era she would later say contained her proudest moments because she was able to reach still-impressionable children with her love of the arts.
She found her passion in 1946, when Lyla Rasminsky, wife of the Bank of Canada governor and the woman she’d later call her inspiration, invited her to become a patron of a series of children’s concerts.
Le Caine became a tireless fundraiser, organized concerts, held art shows in her home, was an early supporter of the creation of the National Arts Centre and was a long-time member of the board of what became known as the Friends of the National Arts Centre Orchestra.
In middle age, she met and married Hugh Le Caine, a National Research Council physicist and electronic music pioneer who invented an early synthesizer. Hugh Le Caine was shy – so shy he could only profess his love with armloads of flowers – but the marriage was “idyllic,” according to friend and Ottawa Citizen arts critic Audrey Ashley.
Hugh Le Caine was an atomic physicist and music buff who invented the electric music synthesizer
Le Caine was devastated when Hugh was injured in a 1976 motorcycle crash, lingering in a coma for months before his death. She visited every day – although medical staff tried to dissuade her – feeling that somehow he would know she was there.
“It was typical of Trudi’s devotion and her tenacity,” Ashley wrote.
Le Caine went on to launch Espace Musique, Ottawa’s contemporary music society, and was “a midwife” of Opera Lyra, which for 31 years produced professional opera in the capital.
Honeywell recalls meeting her in the late 1980s, when he’d just been appointed to the board of the Ontario Arts Council and she invited him to come sit in the garden of her modest east-end house cum salon. She was small, with a classic braid curled in a bun, and both wise and passionate.
“She absolutely felt that the arts were something that should not be taken for granted, that needed to be nurtured and helped everyone live a full life,” he says. “She lived that philosophy and her home was packed with art and books and the mementoes of an extraordinary life.”
It wasn’t just the classics that Le Caine loved; she went to every opera but also nurtured experimental electronic music and contemporary dance.
“She loved that pushing of the boundaries,” Honeywell says.
Without her, the Ottawa arts scene “probably would have been set back by a number of years.
“She was a pioneer and got people thinking and talking and pushed every button she could. She could pick up the phone and talk to (Liberal cabinet minister) Mitchell Sharp,” Honeywell says.
“She had the ability to bring people together and make something happen and she was so respectful of people,” Honeywell adds. Even when things did not go in the direction she wanted, “she never burned bridges, she got up the next day with a smile on her face.
“There were a lot of people she inspired – she certainly inspired me.”
Trudi LeCaine, arts patron in the opera of the N.A.C. photographed in 1997.
When Valerie Knowles was looking for subjects for her book Capital Lives, it wasn’t just Le Caine’s role as a “one-woman Canada Council” that caught her eye.
Le Caine was credited with broaching the idea of skating on the Rideau Canal. She herself couldn’t skate, but she fell in love with Rockefeller Center’s skating rink in the middle of New York City. She pitched the idea of a small rink next to the NAC, first to unconvinced city officials, then to Douglas Fullerton, a friend who chaired the National Capital Commission.
Fullerton ran with the idea, sending a crew to shovel off a five-kilometre stretch in January 1971.
“The rest is history,” Knowles says with a laugh. “I knew I wanted to profile somebody who’d played a major role in the arts in the Ottawa community. Her name just leapt off the page because she was so active. She was indefatigable and a woman of iron determination …
“You need people like this in the world to make a city.”
Le Caine, active and curious until the very end, died at home in September 1999.
A NACO quartet performed at the beginning of her funeral. Between speakers were performances by the Opera Lyra Ottawa Chorus singing In Paradisim and In Remembrance. La Groupe Dance Lab performed the modern dance Epitaphe.
Two years before her death, Le Caine had summed up her legacy.
“I’m a strong believer in sowing seeds,” she said. “Some seeds grow, and some don’t, but I think this is what you must do.”
A Trudi Le Caine Timeline
1911: Born Gertrude Janowski in Passau, Germany
1933: Flees Berlin for Paris
e1940: Arrives in Canada
1942: Moves to Ottawa
1946: Launches a career in arts volunteerism by helping organize the popular Ottawa Children’s Concerts
1960: Marries Hugh Le Caine, a pioneer of electronic music
1969: National Arts Centre opens with Le Caine as an early supporter of the idea and a booster until her death
1971: The Rideau Canal opens for skating with Le Caine credited for proposing the idea to NCC Chairman Douglas Fullerton
1984: Opera Lyra Ottawa launches; Le Caine describes herself as “a midwife of this outfit”
1991: Le Caine is invested in the Order of Canada for her support of organizations including the National Arts Centre Orchestra Association, National Youth Orchestra and Opera Lyra
1999: Le Caine dies at home in Ottawa, at 87.
Quoting Trudi le Caine
“I’m glad I had a contribution to make, and above all, I had a debt to pay to Canada. I’ve had a wonderful life here, so for having a wonderful life you better darn well do something to show your gratitude. In my case, it took the form it did. Fortunately, as far as I’m concerned there was still so much that needed doing and I could do it.” – Trudi Le Caine, 1999
“I that very few Ottawans realize the enormous impact the NAC has had on the city. For the last 25 years or so, it’s been a place worthy of being the capital of an important country. But a lot of us are still harboring this small-town 1942 mentality. Believe me, Ottawa was a nice little village when I came here in 1942.” – Trudi Le Caine, 1997
“We have to think of the future and that means educating the new generation about the beauties and the importance of music. Without that, audiences will die away, not grow. Canadians have a way of not appreciating the great artists they have among them until it is too late. Coming from another milieu, I can see that more clearly than those who were born here.” – Trudi Le Caine, 1990
“I decided that Ottawa should have what New York has. So I thought wouldn’t it be nice if we had 500 or 600 feet in front of the National Arts Centre where people could skate. And then that would be fine, and so I rolled up my sleeves and I started. And you know, sometimes it’s good to be pig-headed.” – Trudi Le Caine, 1999
What they said about Trudi Le Caine
“The really important thing about Trudi is that when she says she is going to help, whether it is you the person, you the club, you the artist, or you the NAC, she does. She isn’t just a mouth, she works and she cares. She just never stops. She is one of those incredible people that knows everyone and people know that if she is working for someone or a cause it is never because she wants something for herself in return.” – Luba Sluzar-Pope, musical director of the concerts at both the Museum of Nature and the National Gallery, 1990
“She was everywhere that music was performed – orchestral, choral, opera, music of dance – not just watching, but talking, explaining, decrying, triumphant. Always promoting the causes that she felt were the most urgent at the time, including such unlikely causes as ice skating on the canal. Trudi leaves behind a legacy that will prolong her influence for years to come. The greatest tribute we can pay her memory is to follow her example.”– Former finance minister Mitchell Sharp
Trudi Le Caine (1911-1999) was a tireless promoter of the arts in the capital. Here she poses with Barbara McInnes in 1995 at the Ottawa Arts Council’s annual Sweetheart Lunch for the Arts event.
查看原文...
The late Trudi Le Caine was called all those things for her tireless work promoting music, dance and art in Ottawa – not to mention the distinction of having thought up the now-iconic tradition of opening up the Rideau Canal to skaters.
“Fifty years of her life were dedicated to Ottawa,” says Peter Honeywell, executive director of the Ottawa Arts Council. “When she came here she was a little surprised – it was a bit of a cultural desert …
“That was her mission – to contribute, to encourage. She was tenacious. She was a real organizer. She would say, ‘You just have to get those seeds planted, they will grow.’ ”
Le Caine arrived in Second World War-era Ottawa when an annual list of arts events took up less than half a page in the Ottawa Citizen.
Trudi LeCaine
She went on to mentor countless young artists in every field and boost a host of arts organizations: the National Youth Orchestra, the National Arts Centre and its orchestra, Opera Lyra Ottawa, modern dance troupe Le Groupe de la Place Royale and contemporary music society Espace Musique.
Born Gertrude Janowski, she fled Germany at 22 after Adolf Hitler’s election in 1933, having been beaten on the street while working with the liberal opposition and learning there was a warrant for her arrest.
She, her mother and her step-father, musician and critic Arnold Walter, fled to Spain, where civil war soon raged.
Then it was Paris, where Le Caine studied at the Sorbonne and qualified as a teacher before France was invaded by the Germans in 1940.
Finally, she landed in Toronto, where her stepfather would go on to become a renowned musicologist and educator, and came to Ottawa in 1942 after getting a job censoring the letters of Germans being held in Canadian prisoner-of-war camps.
Le Caine would later call it “a nice little village at the time” – even as she recalled locals decrying the influx of so many “foreigners.” And there were only three decent restaurants.
Her first thought was that Ottawa was “a lovely place.” Her second, that it was “awfully provincial” because there was “practically no music!”
She taught French at Broadview Public School, an era she would later say contained her proudest moments because she was able to reach still-impressionable children with her love of the arts.
She found her passion in 1946, when Lyla Rasminsky, wife of the Bank of Canada governor and the woman she’d later call her inspiration, invited her to become a patron of a series of children’s concerts.
Le Caine became a tireless fundraiser, organized concerts, held art shows in her home, was an early supporter of the creation of the National Arts Centre and was a long-time member of the board of what became known as the Friends of the National Arts Centre Orchestra.
In middle age, she met and married Hugh Le Caine, a National Research Council physicist and electronic music pioneer who invented an early synthesizer. Hugh Le Caine was shy – so shy he could only profess his love with armloads of flowers – but the marriage was “idyllic,” according to friend and Ottawa Citizen arts critic Audrey Ashley.
Hugh Le Caine was an atomic physicist and music buff who invented the electric music synthesizer
Le Caine was devastated when Hugh was injured in a 1976 motorcycle crash, lingering in a coma for months before his death. She visited every day – although medical staff tried to dissuade her – feeling that somehow he would know she was there.
“It was typical of Trudi’s devotion and her tenacity,” Ashley wrote.
Le Caine went on to launch Espace Musique, Ottawa’s contemporary music society, and was “a midwife” of Opera Lyra, which for 31 years produced professional opera in the capital.
Honeywell recalls meeting her in the late 1980s, when he’d just been appointed to the board of the Ontario Arts Council and she invited him to come sit in the garden of her modest east-end house cum salon. She was small, with a classic braid curled in a bun, and both wise and passionate.
“She absolutely felt that the arts were something that should not be taken for granted, that needed to be nurtured and helped everyone live a full life,” he says. “She lived that philosophy and her home was packed with art and books and the mementoes of an extraordinary life.”
It wasn’t just the classics that Le Caine loved; she went to every opera but also nurtured experimental electronic music and contemporary dance.
“She loved that pushing of the boundaries,” Honeywell says.
Without her, the Ottawa arts scene “probably would have been set back by a number of years.
“She was a pioneer and got people thinking and talking and pushed every button she could. She could pick up the phone and talk to (Liberal cabinet minister) Mitchell Sharp,” Honeywell says.
“She had the ability to bring people together and make something happen and she was so respectful of people,” Honeywell adds. Even when things did not go in the direction she wanted, “she never burned bridges, she got up the next day with a smile on her face.
“There were a lot of people she inspired – she certainly inspired me.”
Trudi LeCaine, arts patron in the opera of the N.A.C. photographed in 1997.
When Valerie Knowles was looking for subjects for her book Capital Lives, it wasn’t just Le Caine’s role as a “one-woman Canada Council” that caught her eye.
Le Caine was credited with broaching the idea of skating on the Rideau Canal. She herself couldn’t skate, but she fell in love with Rockefeller Center’s skating rink in the middle of New York City. She pitched the idea of a small rink next to the NAC, first to unconvinced city officials, then to Douglas Fullerton, a friend who chaired the National Capital Commission.
Fullerton ran with the idea, sending a crew to shovel off a five-kilometre stretch in January 1971.
“The rest is history,” Knowles says with a laugh. “I knew I wanted to profile somebody who’d played a major role in the arts in the Ottawa community. Her name just leapt off the page because she was so active. She was indefatigable and a woman of iron determination …
“You need people like this in the world to make a city.”
Le Caine, active and curious until the very end, died at home in September 1999.
A NACO quartet performed at the beginning of her funeral. Between speakers were performances by the Opera Lyra Ottawa Chorus singing In Paradisim and In Remembrance. La Groupe Dance Lab performed the modern dance Epitaphe.
Two years before her death, Le Caine had summed up her legacy.
“I’m a strong believer in sowing seeds,” she said. “Some seeds grow, and some don’t, but I think this is what you must do.”
************
A Trudi Le Caine Timeline
1911: Born Gertrude Janowski in Passau, Germany
1933: Flees Berlin for Paris
e1940: Arrives in Canada
1942: Moves to Ottawa
1946: Launches a career in arts volunteerism by helping organize the popular Ottawa Children’s Concerts
1960: Marries Hugh Le Caine, a pioneer of electronic music
1969: National Arts Centre opens with Le Caine as an early supporter of the idea and a booster until her death
1971: The Rideau Canal opens for skating with Le Caine credited for proposing the idea to NCC Chairman Douglas Fullerton
1984: Opera Lyra Ottawa launches; Le Caine describes herself as “a midwife of this outfit”
1991: Le Caine is invested in the Order of Canada for her support of organizations including the National Arts Centre Orchestra Association, National Youth Orchestra and Opera Lyra
1999: Le Caine dies at home in Ottawa, at 87.
************
Quoting Trudi le Caine
“I’m glad I had a contribution to make, and above all, I had a debt to pay to Canada. I’ve had a wonderful life here, so for having a wonderful life you better darn well do something to show your gratitude. In my case, it took the form it did. Fortunately, as far as I’m concerned there was still so much that needed doing and I could do it.” – Trudi Le Caine, 1999
“I that very few Ottawans realize the enormous impact the NAC has had on the city. For the last 25 years or so, it’s been a place worthy of being the capital of an important country. But a lot of us are still harboring this small-town 1942 mentality. Believe me, Ottawa was a nice little village when I came here in 1942.” – Trudi Le Caine, 1997
“We have to think of the future and that means educating the new generation about the beauties and the importance of music. Without that, audiences will die away, not grow. Canadians have a way of not appreciating the great artists they have among them until it is too late. Coming from another milieu, I can see that more clearly than those who were born here.” – Trudi Le Caine, 1990
“I decided that Ottawa should have what New York has. So I thought wouldn’t it be nice if we had 500 or 600 feet in front of the National Arts Centre where people could skate. And then that would be fine, and so I rolled up my sleeves and I started. And you know, sometimes it’s good to be pig-headed.” – Trudi Le Caine, 1999
************
What they said about Trudi Le Caine
“The really important thing about Trudi is that when she says she is going to help, whether it is you the person, you the club, you the artist, or you the NAC, she does. She isn’t just a mouth, she works and she cares. She just never stops. She is one of those incredible people that knows everyone and people know that if she is working for someone or a cause it is never because she wants something for herself in return.” – Luba Sluzar-Pope, musical director of the concerts at both the Museum of Nature and the National Gallery, 1990
“She was everywhere that music was performed – orchestral, choral, opera, music of dance – not just watching, but talking, explaining, decrying, triumphant. Always promoting the causes that she felt were the most urgent at the time, including such unlikely causes as ice skating on the canal. Trudi leaves behind a legacy that will prolong her influence for years to come. The greatest tribute we can pay her memory is to follow her example.”– Former finance minister Mitchell Sharp
Trudi Le Caine (1911-1999) was a tireless promoter of the arts in the capital. Here she poses with Barbara McInnes in 1995 at the Ottawa Arts Council’s annual Sweetheart Lunch for the Arts event.
查看原文...
