Flutist Gillian Derer is looking forward to a lifetime opportunity playing at Carnegie Hall this spring.
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“I think growing up in Tillsonburg – or in any small town – you can feel a little bit ‘removed’ from those (orchestra/symphony) opportunities. But it is doable. That a small town girl from Tillsonburg is going to be playing at Carnegie Hall is just so wild to me.”
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Derer, 23, will be playing principal flute when The Glen Gould School of Music orchestra, from The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, goes on tour to New York City in May 2024.
“I am so excited, I never thought that was a possibility for me,” said Derer. “It’s so famous – everyone has heard of Carnegie Hall. It’s ‘the dream’ and you never think you’re going to actually play on stage at Carnegie Hall… but I want people to know that even if you’re from a small town, you can have that dream. You can achieve the big city dreams.”
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It will be the Glenn Gould School’s Royal Conservatory Orchestra debut performance at the Stern Auditorium, Perelman Stage on May 7.
“It’s kind of a big win for the school and it’s very exciting for us. I remember getting the email last year and I have just been on Cloud Nine ever since.”
The same music program that will be played at Carnegie Hall will also be featured in a Toronto performance, May 3, 8 pm at Koerner Hall.
“It’s just us for the whole evening and we’re doing a really, really fantastic program. We’re playing Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony and Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with Stewart Goodyear, a very famous pianist who is coming to solo with us, so that’s really exciting.”
The principal flute, leader of the flute section, with the principal oboe, leads the entire wind section.
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“It’s a very important role, especially in a symphony. The principal flute always has a lot of important things to play. Not only does it have to play very well, and have all these little solos here and there, but it also has to lead the rest of the wind section in terms of style, dynamic, and when we’re coming in – all those things .
“It’s a little scary,” she added with a laugh.
“It has lots of really, really beautiful features in the symphony, so I’m so excited to play that in Carnegie Hall.”
Derer plans to vlog her entire Carnegie Hall experience @gill.flutes on her Instagram page.
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Derer’s musical career started in Tillsonburg at Annandale Public School playing trombone.
“I didn’t take the bus, so I had to carry that big old trombone home. It was too heavy, so I asked Mrs. Kingsbury if I could please play a lighter instrument.”
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Derer picked up the flute in Grade 8.
“I wasn’t great into it… it was just something I did for fun. Then my mom convinced me to take band at Glendale (High School) because it was going to be an extra credit. That’s when I really fell in love with it and kind of jumped right into the deep end.
“It would have been the latter half of Grade 10 when (music teachers) John and Sarah Lam sat me down in the office for ‘the talk.’ They said, ‘Listen, we think this could really happen for you. We know that you love music and if you want to do this for the rest of your life, there’s a few things you need to do. You need to get a flute teacher, you need to start learning your theory.’”
In Grade 9, she was invited to join the school’s senior band (short on flute players) at Musicfest Nationals in Toronto.
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“We went somewhere super-fun every year,” she said, recalling trips to Pittsburgh, Montreal and Chicago.
“In Pittsburgh, that was Grade 10, that was the first time I had ever seen an orchestra play live before. That was so exciting.”
Derer, who soloed at just about every Glendale music concert from 2014-2018, studied flute performance for her four-year BMus undergrad at Western University in London and she is part of a growing Glendale family that studied at Western.
“Every year since I went off into music, one or two kids from Glendale have also gone on to Western for music. There’s kind of a little community of us, and it’s growing every year. Every year we meet up at Western. It’s very special to have the different generations of Glendale music connected for all these years. It’s nice to still be involved with that six years after I graduated.”
Derer is currently in her second year studying at the Glen Gould School of Music in Toronto, a Royal Conservatory of Music center that trains professional musicians, for her graduate studies.
“I’m teaching right now and plan to continue teaching, but the big goal for me would be to win a job with a symphony, somewhere, one day.”
About half of her current students are international, and she teaches them online. Some are more local, including one from Tillsonburg and a couple that are based in Toronto.
Also coaches at The Royal Conservatory.
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