from the Kitchener-Waterloo Record

(Alcock teaches in the Bachelor of Music Transfer Program)

“(eur Reed, Aapelees 7988
Born-again pianist makes classic ‘debut’

By Pauline Durichen
“Record staff

- By commercial musical standards, it
‘was a microscopic ‘‘debut.’’ In terms of -
plain logic, it was outrageously impracti-
cal.

. But Vancouver pianist Gaye Alcock
chad no regrets about travelling more
ithan 4,000 kilometres to play her Beetho-
ven, Schumann, Chopin and Liszt just
nce —on a too-small pianoand fora
amere two dozen K-W Chamber Music So-
ciety listeners in Waterloo.
, Still, there was something very special
about Alcock’s glistening performances
of romantic favorites, a startling tech-~
nique combined with intensity and
warmth that never let fingerwork create
its own distracting spectacle. |

. She wasn’t, and isn’t, just another gift-

“<-e@d student aspiring to a concert career.
: +} Though completely unknown in east-
ern Canada, Alcock is among that re-
Mmarkabie generation of mainly mids
pianists that includes the formidable =
Janina Fialkowska, Jane Coop, Robert
Silverman, Sharon Krause and a handful .
of others, all colleagues and all sharing a
Special musical chemistry that tran-
slates into powerfully distinct or ie

eerie:

+ es, te be grt pty

That same ‘group also shares an intri-
guing mixture of career patterns that -
don’t follow the safe rules for success —

” late entry from other professions, come-

backs from disastrous artistic decisions,
long periods of near oblivion and self-

doubt, time out to raise children, or even

complete retirement from music.
Alcock’s experience has been one of

the most extreme and it’s made her

comeback not only spectacuing, but al-

’ most miraculous. .
_A self-described child prodigy who be-

gan piano Iessons at age three, she was a
keyboard sensation by the early 1960s,
pushed to play ‘‘everywhere, all the
time, everything that came along.”

At age 15, she rebelled at the constant
pressure. She’d had enough and quit.

“‘Today, I think people handle talented
children much better than they used to
and audiences are more sensitive as well
... it isn’t such a novelty that you have
to expose them (children) to dea

A good number of young performing
dropouts do go back to music after brief.
practice-filled retirements, but Alcock
. didn’t touch the keyboard at all.

It wasn’t until 1980 fare she devaipis

“It was much harder back then,” she _
explained after Saturday’s performance. a5

gave in to the silent goading of an up-

_ Tight piano, a gift from her husband. “It

just stared at me across the room for
more than a year and J finally came toa
decision that I should at least try to use
what I had, to find out what I might still
be able to do.” :

But any thought of serious performing ee

was interrupted by a difficult first preg-

nancy and later bouts with painful ten-

‘ donitis.

’ She sabliereted: despite discouraging

ap obstacles and a nagging fear that her
technique might never return after 13 ~
years of complete neglect. -

- Today, at age 33 and looking a decade

-- younger, the musically-revitalized Al-
_.cock organizes her practice time around

the demands of three pre-school chil-
-dren, an increasingly active concert
schedule, regular private students and a
new teaching position at Capilano Col-

- lege.

‘And the technique that once loomed so
large in her thoughts is “better than ever

it all eventually came back.”

In fact, she’s just about where any
. Ugifted mature pianist should be and has

-: few regrets about the long “‘lost’’ years.
_. ‘or about the proliferation of much .
_ ‘younger talents vying for the spotlight.

U.K. schools caught in racism tug-of-war

By MARC ALIASON
Associated Press

The Honeyford affair poses a fundamen-

tors voiced ‘Heretic’ or (the late U.S.) Sena-

a racist. But Woodward's group stopped

BRADFORD, England — To his critics,
Ray Honeyford is a racist masquerading as
a defender of education. To his supporters,
he is a brave man crucified for speaking the
truth.

oe | —

51, is at Drum-
mond Middle School. He's a bearded,
bespectacled white man running a junior
high school where 90 per cent of the stu-
dents are of Asian descent.

His suspension by the Bradford city yov-
ernment has stirred a national uproar. His
union, which failed in a last-ditch attempt
during the weekend to obtain his reinstate-
ment, said it will take his case to the High
Court.

Honeyford was suspended for attacking
multicultural education, a widespread Brit-
ish policy which obliges schools with large
ethnic minorities to put the minorities’
mother cultures on as equal a footing as
possible with British culture.

Honeyford said he believes he is being
hounded “because I've challenged the race
relations lobby’s orthodoxies.” This lobby,
he said. is putting Drummond's white
pupils at a disadvantage while doing little
to ease non-white children into the English
social mainstream.

tal question for all of Britain: Is it a country
whose ancient Anglo-Saxon culture must
predominate. or a polyglot immigrant
society where all cultures are to enjoy
equal status?

One in 20 Britons is non-white. Bradford,
a city in northern England. has the highest
percentage of blacks and Asians in Britain
— one in seven. The city’s population of
468,900 includes 42,400 Moslems who came
from Pakistan and Bangladesh.

{n Bradford, Drummond school meals
follow Moslem dietary law. Girls wear
slacks instead of shorts in the gym and
attend single-sex swimming lessons. Asian
languages, history and geography are
stressed, and children’s storybooks are
edited for racial stereotypes. Honeytord
said he fears the system is isolating Asian
children from British society.

School, he said, should be preparing
them “to relate to English people, get an
English job and negotiate their way through
situations where English life, culture, pre-
suppositions and humor predominate.”

Racism, he charged, has become “the
icon word of those committed to the race
game, and they apply it with the same sort
of mindless zeal as the (Spanish) inquisi-

tor McCarthy spat out ‘Commie’.”

Honeytord warned that Drummond's
white children had become the disadvan-
taged ethnic minority, since many Asians
spoke English as a second language.

In response, Drummond parents formed
a committee led by Jenny Woodward, a
white parent and leftist. They demanded
Honeyford’s dismissal, organized marches
and ran a weeklong alternative ‘strike
schooi” attended by 218 children.

A city government subcommittee
stepped in, voting 8 to 7 that Honeyford had
lost parents’ confidence. He was ded
with full pay pending further deliberation.
Last month Drummond's board of gover-
nors voted to reinstate Honeyford, but the
finat decision rests with Bradford's educa-
tion director.

As the case grabbed national attention,
Honeytord traipsed from door to door try-
ing to persuade Asian parents that he is not

him, claiming his action was offending par-
ents.

David Harte, secretary of Honeyford’s
union, the National Association of Head
Teachers, told a British television inter-
viewer: “He's nowhere near being a racist
in any way, shape or form.”

Pakistan-born Faqir Rahman, whose 10-
year-old son attends Drummond, said in an
interview: “If Mr. Honeyford is so against
our country, customs, religion, how can we
expect him to be a good headmaster?”

However, a pro-Honeyford petition has
gathered 9,000 signatures. many of them
Asian names.

Province

Jul te [85