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Dr Tanya Prochazka playing with a string quartet in the Grand Canyon |
Imagine you're on a white-water rafting expedition in the Grand Canyon. You've been hiking and fighting rapids all day, and as you sit back to relax after dinner at your campsite you hear the brilliant sounds of concert strings bouncing off the canyon walls.
If you were lucky enough to be in Arizona's jewel last June, you might have basked in such a golden moment. Dr. Tanya Prochazka of the music department was on tour in the stunning natural wonder, performing full-length concerts in the shade of huge rock faces. When she wasn't flying down the Colorado River on a raft - or hoisting her cello by rope through crevices to just the right venue - she and her colleagues would serenade their raft-mates to the music of Sherbert, Mozart, Hayden, Sebelius, Nielson and Brahms.
"These were not little jingles . These were full-time concerts that you'd hear in any concert hall, with intermission - the lot. Then we'd hike and raft and go to the next one. There were lots of people from other trips too, so we'd have these growing audiences.sometimes we had up to 100 people. It was absolutely magnificent."
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Prochazka landed this gig of a lifetime after a cellist pulled out of the tour, organized every year by Steve Bryant, principal violinist for the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra. It didn't take long to twist Prochazka's arm. What musician, after all, wouldn't want to play in a location that's not only one of the most breathtakingly beautiful on the continent but also boasts some of the best natural acoustics to be found anywhere?
"[The acoustics] were magic," she says, although also "very peculiar. Sometimes you didn't hear yourself, but if you walked a hundred yards away the sound was extraordinary. Or sometimes you'd be in a bowl and the sound would be concentrated fairly near you." At times there would also be an amphitheatre effect, she says, "where you just needed to drop a pin and the sound would travel up. The audience would sit on ledges above you."
On a typical day, Prochazka would rise at 4:30 a.m., eat a "fabulous" breakfast prepared by expedition cooks, and then hike to a nearby side canyon for an early morning concert, avoiding the searing mid-day heat. "We would go early and rehearse a bit, then everybody else would come in their own time after breakfast."
After the instruments were packed up, the rest of the day would be spent on river and trail - 368 km of it to be exact. On some days her quartet would perform an evening concert as well, and everybody would retreat to sleeping bags around 8 p.m.
To buy a ticket with Canyon Explorations, all you need is $2,500 US and a willingness to brave the Arizona sun for about 18 days. While Prochazka's trip included people of all ages, from a high-school girl of 17 to a grandmother of 68, it was clear everyone had to have their wits about them on this adventure holiday.
"It's not all fun and games.You know you're not in Disneyland. It's the wilderness, or semi-wilderness, and it's very important to respect the elements. It's a very athletic experience - your skin gets all cracked and you end up like an alligator."
Prochazka expressed her elation in a letter to her daughter, Helenka:
"Music has taken me to the far corners of the world, but I would never have imagined in my wildest dreams that my cello would bring me to a place where only the very few ever have the chance to go, and then only with adventurous hearts and strong bodies. The privilege of being a musician is inexhaustible.
"I am still basking in the euphoria generated by the extremely hard work of paddling through rapids, growing skin scales against the sun, heat and water, eating gourmet food, making friends with the river guides who are an amazing breed of human beings, hiking and playing string quartets to my heart's desire."
Prochazka will have to wait until October, 2000 for her next chance to join the tour. After that, she says she just might hire Canyon Explorations and strike up her own quartet.
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