In Conversation with Abigail Richardson-Schulte

Tell me about your background and how you came to be composer-in-residence at the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra.
Sure, well I studied composition. I did my undergraduate degree at the University of Calgary and my Masters and Doctorate at the University of Toronto, and then moved out to Dundas and have lived there since 2004, and then in 2012 became composer-in-residence with the HPO. So it’s really nice to finally work in my own community.

What brought you to Dundas?
I met my husband. He’s a violinist and he was playing in an opera of mine in Toronto. I should mention an interesting part of my history, and that’s that I was deaf when I was younger.

No kidding!
Yeah, I could hear when I was very young, but I had so many ear infections that soon enough I couldn’t hear at all. This was in England and they picked it up at school. In England they start school really early so I was at school at age four, and they noticed that when I wasn’t looking at them, I wouldn’t answer. So they told my parents they thought I was deaf. They asked me, and I said, “No, I can hear!” I could understand, because I had gradually begun lip reading. Then when I was six, my dad was asked to move to Calgary as an engineer and take over a branch of his company there. But then they hit a snag, because Alberta Health Care said that I would be a drain on the system because of my hearing. They would only let me in if three separate specialists declared me clinically deaf, with no hope of recovery. So that’s what happened. I remember going up to London on the train with my mom, and sit- ting in these little, tiny, dark studios. They’d rig me up and say, “Press the buttons when you hear things.” I remember looking out at the doctor past the glass and him shaking his head “no.”
And then the last guy happened to be a family friend and he was an ENT specialist at Queen. He did his research and when we left he told my parents, “You never know; Calgary has a very dry climate. Good luck.” Within six months, all of the scar tissue dried up.

And your hearing was restored completely?
Yeah, it was across a couple of months, but it was absolutely great hearing again, but because of that my parents never thought to put me into music. However, when I was in grade 6 I picked up the flute because everyone had to pick up an instrument at my school. And then in university, I went into science for about two weeks. [laughs] Figured it out, and dropped a lot of courses and practiced really hard on piano and then got into the music program after playing for only five years. My first class was Theory, taught by a composer, Allan Bell, and he said, “At the end of the semester, you’re going to be expected to write a piece.”

So that’s how I ended up getting into composition. And I studied with an unusual guy, just outside of Calgary. His name is John Ryan. He played Country and Western piano for the Stampede. He trained the British Army in survival skills. He had little huts and kept goats and deliberately didn’t have electricity. I’d have my lessons by candlelight. But he also started me telling stories with music. He’d say, “Find a story and write the music.” I loved skiing, so he’d say, “Write the music for a ski hill for Lake Louise. Write a commercial for that.” So he was always thinking about music and the emotional content and how to tell a story.