MUSICAL MEMOIR FOR WENDY STOKES-EARL
In September of 1950, my mother decided I should begin to study the piano. I had turned 4 in July of that year, and I guess she needed to find something to keep me busy. She was a wonderful piano player, and piano teacher, and she was very involved in the festival scene in Toronto. By the next year, I was performing in competitions (called festivals in those days in Toronto). The Kiwanis Club of Ontario seemed to be the group that sponsored many of these festivals. We travelled from Sarnia, to Peterborough, to Brockville, and of course, the Eaton’s Auditorium in Toronto. As well, I took Trinity College of Music exams every year. I have been a performer ever since.
In school, I was always in band playing the French Horn. My instructor just happened to be Reg Barrow, principle French Horn with the Toronto Symphony. When we moved from Toronto to Merrickville in 1963, I went to High School in Kemptville. Louise Atchison, a new friend, and I decided the school really needed a choir, so we started one. She introduced me to the pipe organ, as she was organist at St. James Anglican in Kemptville. Louise was also the founding accompanist for the North Grenville Concert Choir. and she has since started a new choir, the Swinging Singing Seniors. I was the accompanist for their production of “’Till We Meet Again”. Unfortunately, Louise passed away two years ago, and I have inherited the Seniors choir in Kemptville.
In 1979 I saw, in the Smiths Falls paper, an ad from Ron Bingley, who was the organist at Trinity in those days. He was looking for organ students. It turned out he was actually looking for students for spinet organs, those little 13-pedal instruments that were popular in 70’s. He ended up with me. While I was studying with Ron, (a student of Sir Alfred Whitehead), he moved to Wall Street United Church in Brockville.
In 2004, I retired from Trinity and the organ, as Winston and I wanted to pass the winter months in South Texas. By the third winter, I was playing the organ in our little town of Donna, Texas, at the First United Methodist Church. They had a two manual Allen electronic organ, and no one to play it. I played for November and December. We always had an Advent Sunday carol service outside in the garden, and the choir performed a cantata every year as well.
In 2013, we stopped travelling to Texas for the winter. Of course, shortly thereafter, the United Church in Merrickville, needed some help for the “summer months”. I am still there, with two manuals, and choir of 10 members.
In 2003, Winston and I were in Florida during February. A gardening friend had told us that the best thing in Florida was the Bok Sanctuary Garden. We ended up there on Martin Luther King Day, and spent hours sitting under the live oak, listening to glorious sound of spirituals and jazz played on a carillon.
That’s where THIS started. "This" refers to the Carillon, and what is called "bell fever". This memoir was the autobiography needed for admission to the Carleton Carillon program.
