It's March 1. As I count down the days to when CBC Radio 2 host Tom Allen will join the Kingston Symphony for an evening of good tunes and good times, I wanted to give you some insight into Tom's creative and varied background. I'll post a trivia fact about him each day until the day of the concert, when I hope to see you in the audience!
March 1
He was born in Montreal, QC into a family of preachers and raconteurs.
March 2
He joined the high school band, chose to play the trombone, and professes that his first year was not promising…
March 3
He studied music at McGill University in Montreal, Boston University, and earned a master’s degree in music at Yale, before moving to Manhattan as a trombone freelancer.
March 4
He worked as a tour guide at Lincoln Center, and cooked in Tex-Mex, French, and Russian restaurants, and temped on Wall Street while he was trying to pay the bills and trombone gigs were few and far between.
March 5
Was trombonist with the New York City Ballet and the American Symphony Orchestra, and was one of 87 trombonists along the first base line for Carl Yastrzemski’s retirement party at Fenway Park.
March 6
Had a column on "how to acknowledge your male temp on Secretary's Day" published in the Toronto Star in 1991.
March 7
Has been an on-air voice for CBC Radio for two decades, including stints on Morningside, This Morning, The Sunday Edition and hosted A Good Place to Be, Weekender, Fresh Air, Music and Company, and currently Shift.
March 8
He has written three books: Toe Rubber Blues (1999), Rolling Home – A Cross-Canada Railroad Memoir (2001, which was winner of the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction) and The Gift of the Game (2005).
March 9
He’s currently working on his first fiction work, a novel that we can’t give you any details about... sorry!
March 10
He has been called: "the Garrison Keillor of music," "a breath of fresh air," "part historian, part comedian, and part everyman," among other things. Read what others have to say by clicking here.
March 11
Tomorrow, he’ll guide the audience through an evening that explores music history and its connection to society and industry, the sordid lives of composers, the qualities of a masterpiece, why some instruments are funnier than others, and how great music is always relevant to the daily life of any age.
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