Andrew Huggett Ottawa Manotick Citizen
1975
CONCERTS & EVENTS
January - Studies, London, England.
January - Romeo & Juliet rehearsales in Montreal.
February - CBC "Mostly Music Live" TV Show, Ottawa.
February thru June - On tour with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec.
July - 9 shows at the National Arts Center, Ottawa.
July - Record Romeo & Juliet soundtrack, Ottawa.
August - Toronto University, Toronto.
October/November - Erindale College Toronto, Trent University Peterborough, Pembroke, Barrie, Winnipeg.
December - Return to London.
LISTEN WHILE YOU BROWSE
ROMEO & JULIET
Harry Friedman
The Huggett Family was musically diverse. By 1975, they had made inroads into the world of folk, pop, baroque, and early music and were happy to take on the new challenge of playing Canadian composer Harry Friedman's modern score for Romeo & Juliet. Friedman's music exploited the limits of instrument and player alike.
Leslie - voice, recorders, krummhorn
Margaret - voice, percussion
Andrew - voice, recorders, krumhorn, rauschfieffe, baroque oboe, lute
Jennifer - voice, recorders, viol, cello
Ian - recorder, viol
Fiona - recorder, viol
ROMEO & JULIET
Incognito, the artistic director of Les Grands Ballets Canadien, choreographer Brian MacDonald, and Canadian composer Harry Freedman attended the Huggett's last Toronto concert of the '74 season. Brian and Harry were producing a new ballett and, after checking out the Huggett's show, asked the Huggetts if they would be interested in performing Harry's music live on stage as part of a new production of Romeo & Juliet.
The Huggetts said yes, and soon after their return to London in late 1974, parcels of Harry Friedman's music started to arrive, and the Huggetts set about learning the score.
The music presented new challenges. It randomly changed keys, time signatures, and instruments and generally exploited the full range of renaissance instruments in ways that traditional renaissance composers had not. Harry's score required virtuosic performances from all players on all instruments pretty well all the time.
For the Huggett children, this was not a problem. Their rigorous training at the hands of their parents and teachers included taking on new challenges all the time. Such is the nature of music lessons. Once the student masters a set piece, the teacher assigns a new one of slightly greater difficulty. Mastering Harry Friedman's score was simply business as usual.
Ironically, it was far more difficult for Margaret, and particularly Leslie, to come to terms with the new music. Leslie had come to music comparatively late in life. While he had a solid grounding on all the Huggett's instruments, by 1975, there was always one of the children who had "surpassed the master" and was more proficient. By this time, Leslie played a musically supportive role within the group and spent much of his time, not moving technically forward like the children, but on matters of general direction, business development, and on-stage hosting.
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On occasion, during rehearsals, the roles of teacher and student were reversed, with the children offering Dad advice on how to deal with some of the more challenging technical moments. Notwithstanding these challenges, the score was mastered by the time the Huggetts arrived in Montreal to start rehearsals that were quickly followed by performances in Ontario and Manitoba.
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Playing for the dancers required precise awareness of the stage action and strict adherence to tempi. There was no conductor, and the responsibility for setting the correct speed usually fell to Margaret, who Harry Friedman had tasked as the primary percussionist. Another unique aspect of the production was that the musicians had to synchronize with pre-taped actors reciting critical lines from the play. These occurred at crucial plot points in the ballet. The Huggetts were adept at meeting the dancer's expectations, except on one lone occasion when Andrew, who played the music for Romeo's opening solo, missed a repeat leaving dancer Alexandre Béline in silence, midleap, and alone on stage. Immediately following the performance, Andrew rushed to proffer his apologies which Alexandre graciously accepted.
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The Huggetts bussed from town to town with the dancers and stayed at the same hotels. Members of the family took up knitting, a hobby many of the company used to pass the time on the road. Jennifer, Leslie, and Fiona started to "take bar," the compulsory daily warmup for all dancers.
Romeo and Juliet lasted an hour and fifteen minutes. It was followed by a 20-minute intermission during which Andrew changed into contemporary clothes and joined the pit orchestra on bass guitar for Tam Ti Delam, a ballet based on the music of Gilles Vigneault.
Touring with Les Grands Ballets was a wonderful experience for all the Huggetts. When it was over, they invited the entire cast and crew to the Aylmer cottage for a goodbye meal which Margaret, Jennifer, and Fiona cooked single-handed.
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The Huggett Family also contributed to the successful marketing of the ballet. Ballet management leveraged the Huggett's reputation in markets where their name was well known.
Ian offers father Leslie some sage birthday advice. Whereas the children were used to tackling new and more challenging music as their learning progressed, Leslie, whose responsibiliteies within the group extended well beyond the musical, found Harry Friedman's score challenging.
The Huggett Family, stage right, provide the music for Romeo & Juliet. Quick instrumental changes were required throughout the performance.
Curtain calls in front of an enthusiastic audience in Montreal, the hometown of Les Grand Ballets Canadiens.
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Contemporary Canadian composer Harry Friedman. Harry's music used renaissance instruments in entirely new ways.
Andrew, Harry Friedman, and Brian MacDonald. The latter's ballet was an inspired interpretation of the age-old love story that seamlessly combined the traditional with the new: contemporary music played on old instruments with traditional costumes by Maxime Graham, a modern set by Ted Bieler, and modern lighting by Nicholas Cernovitch.
Andrew waits for the show to start. He is the first to walk on stage playing, on the recorder, a beckoning hail that summons the rest of the company. This is followed by the singing by dancers and Huggetts together of "What is Love," music by Harry Friedman, to Shakespeare's words.
The menu. Margaret and the girls prepare a goodbye meal for Les Grands Ballets Canadien. They did not get enough beer.
A publicity shot of the Huggett Family in their Romeo & Juliet costumes.
Fiona (center), "warming up at the bar."
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The dancers promote the ballet by fighting for the press in old Montreal. The swords were real, though blunted, and the dancers wielded them full force, making for very realistic fight scenes.
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Every so often, a dancer's exuberance would get the better of him, and there would be a minor slip-up, not big enough to be seen by the audience, but still resulting in an injury, usually to the dancer's hands.
The multi-province tour unfolded over three months, allowing the Huggetts real insight into a dancer's life and rigor.
Andrew and Jennifer's music book covers. As usual, each Huggett was in charge of their own music.
A page from Jennifer's book, condensed in her own hand to limit the number of page turns.
Fifteen year old Ian, always reliable, had no difficulty continually switching from one instrument to another.
Here Ian navigates treble and bass clefs and many atypical chromatic phrases on the treble viol.
In this hectic moment, Harry Friedman's music takes Ian into the alto recorder's highest and most temperamental register.
Harry Friedman's music pulled no punches and exploited the full expressive capabilities of all the Huggett's instruments. There was much chromaticism, almost non-existent in real renaissance music. Nonetheless, the final result had a distinct renaissance feel, a masterful combination of old and new.
Like all good things, the Romeo & Juliet tour came all too quickly to an end. Margaret Huggett and Annette Av Paul became lifelong friends.
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Alexandre Béline and Annette Av Paul as Romeo & Juliet.
Mon. March 10th , 1975
Star-Phoenix Saskatoon
Exotic music from rare instruments
A raushfieffe, a krumhorn, and a ranket are only three of the exotic instruments used by the Huggett family in providing music for the Romeo and Juliet of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens.
The instruments used by this talented family of musicians are all reproductions of musical instruments used in the Renaissance period, the musical era in which the family specializes. With recorder, six-string viols, tabors, nackers, and lutes, the Huggett father, mother, and four children produce the sounds which they have researched among the Middle Ages.
Leslie Hugget and his wife Margaret, whose Canadian home is in Ottawa, have long been interested in music of the Renaissance, Medieval, and early Baroque eras; six years
ago, they formed the family group and began performing the musical stylings of these periods. Though the children, Andrew, 19; Jennifer, 17; lan, 15; and Fiona, 13 started with percussion, they now all lay a variety of the period instruments. Sometimes modern instruments are added to enhance the sound: Andrew, for instance, can turn his hand to almost any instrument and specializes in the guitar. All the family sing the period folk songs, which usually form the second half of their concerts. Always performed in costume, the concerts include dances from the periods represented. "Our shows are more of an entertainment than a concert," Andrew explained. "This was the custom in the Renaissance era; music interspersed with dialogue, jokes, explanations of the songs, and audience
participation. "Renaissance music is relatively unknown in Canada, he said, and audiences of all ages have been enjoying the tours the Huggett family have scheduled. They had 49 concerts in Saskatchewan in 1972, but this year's appearance with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens will be their only trip west this year. Summers are spent in their London home, where the research into the period music continues to add to their repertoire.
Andrew is at the moment engaged in writing music for a film to be made in Montreal, in Renaissance Style. Besides accompanying Les Grands Ballets Canadien in Romeo and Juliet with music composed by Harry Freedman, Andrew Huggett joins the musicians who play for Tam Ti Delam, playing bass guitar in the modern manner.
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THE HUGGETT FAMILY: JENNIFER, ANDREW, MARGARET. IAN, FIONA AND LESLIE... a new role on tour with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens
IT'S A MUSICAL WORLD
In the middle of rehearsals for Romeo and Juliet, the Huggetts traded their medieval costumes for contemporary clothes and traveled to Ottawa to be featured artists on CBC's variety showcase, "It's A Musical World." This cabaret-style popular show was hosted by Tommy Common and featured musicians playing many different genres of music. It was filmed cabaret-style in front of a live audience. As often happens, the taping went late, and the Huggetts drove back to Montreal in the wee hours to make a 9 am rehearsal with the ballet the following day.
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Andrew sings a selection from the Family's pop album.
Greensleeves. Jennifer and Fiona on the melody, Margaret on the counter melody.
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Margaret entertains. The small copper kettle drums tied around her waist are called nakers and are of Arabic or Saracenic origin. They came to Europe with the 13th-century crusades and were used in chamber music and for accompanying songs, as well as in dance and processional music.
Fiona enjoys show host Tommy Common's banter.
Greensleeves always signaled the end of a Huggett Family show.
AUCASSIN & NICOLETTE
The oldest surviving animated feature is not by Walt Disney. It was created by a young German silhouette artist named Lotte Reiniger, who, during the late 1930s, escaped Nazi persecution and moved to London to make cartoon adverts for the British Post Office.
Her 1926 film, The Adventures of Prince Achmed, was a creative and technical masterstroke that hugely influenced the generation of animators that followed, including Walt Disney himself.
Most of Lotte's work was made in black and white though some of it has been since colorized. Aucassin and Nicolette was filmed in colour and features delicate 'sunshine' hues derived from layered tissue paper. This tissue paper technique was a new experience for Lotte.
A year before, Andrew's abilities as a composer had not gone unnoticed during the Huggett Family's recording of Karl Duplessis' score for The Story of Christmas. When the National Film Board was looking for a composer for Aucassin & Nicolette, Karl Duplessis was kind enough to recommend Andrew for the job. This was Andrew's first experience writing for film. At 19, he was the same age as Lotte had been 50 years before when she created The Adventures of Prince Achmed. The two artists enjoyed an immediate rapport as they worked on the soundtrack for the film. Lotte affectionately referred to him as "my musician."
Andrew was sent a 16-millimeter work and a hand viewer on which to watch it. Andrew remembers: "I wanted to time my music to the feelings and action but had no idea how to do it. I went to the Ottawa public library and borrowed a book on composing for film by Hollywood composer Earle Hagen (The Dukes of Hazard, Dick Van Dyke Show, The Mod Squad). It explained the process of counting frames and the math used to change those numbers into beats of the bar so that your musical hits would fall correctly. I ended up counting all 14,400 frames of the film!
To my relief, when the recorded music was played back with the picture, everything fit perfectly. Ironically, the sync moment that most impressed the film editor, Rupert Glover, was a drum hit that coincided perfectly with an arrow striking the pirate ship's mast. I didn't tell him that that particular moment was completely serendipitous!"
Ten years later, Andrew would also compose the score for Lottie Reiniger's last film, The Rose and the Ring.
The first surviving animated feature film is Lotte Reiniger's 1926 creation, The Adventures of Prince Achmed.
Andrew counted all 14,400 frames of Aucassin & Nicolette using a hand-cranked viewer like this one to ensure his music would sync to all the action.
AUCASSIN & NICOLLETE
Music composed by Andrew Huggett and performed by the Huggett Family.
Lotte never used a pencil or pen to draw her figures but would cut them freehand out of black paper. Arms, legs, and heads were attached using bits of wire so they could be moved during the stop-frame filming process.
During filming, she would capture the scene's emotion by cutting out the characters multiple times, altering their expression and posture to suit the moment. Here she captures the Huggetts recording Andrew's music.
Jennifer, Margaret, Ian, Fiona, Leslie, Andrew by Lotte Reiniger
CANADIAN CONCERTS
Canadian concerts included nine shows in Ottawa and appearances at Toronto and Trent Universities, Erindale College, Pembroke, Barrie, and a promotional appearance alongside Oscar Peterson in Winnipeg.
This appearance was followed the next day back in Ottawa with a charity appearance for Planned Parenthood Canada, at which Leslie was awarded a medal for getting a vasectomy in the 60s when such birth control was still illegal in Canada.
Once again, nine shows at the NAC in Ottawa formed the hub of the Huggett's concertizing in 1975.
19-year-old Andrew plays the 15-stringed lute, 15-year-old Ian the 6-stringed treble viol, and 13-year-old Fiona the 4-stringed baroque violin.
Andrew, Ian, Margaret, and Fiona accompany Leslie and Jennifer, who dance the pavane, a majestic processional dance of the 16th- and 17th-century European aristocracy. Until about 1650, the pavane opened ceremonial balls and was used to display elegant dress.
MISCILLANEOUS MOMENTS FROM 1974
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Publicity photos were an ongoing challenge as everyone except Mom and Dad kept growing.
Jennifer and a friend from the ballet.
Ian developed a keen interest in the natural environment which followed him well into later life.
Jennifer, Margaret, and Fiona take a horse and buggy ride around Quebec city while on tour with Les Grands Ballets Canadien.
At the Aylmer cottage with "Brown Dog," the neighbour's dog that held a particular liking for Ian.
Mealtime at the cottage. As with most mothers of the '60s and '70s, Margaret was still responsible for three meals a day on top of all her other "professional" duties.
Jennifer forsakes her cello for a few chords on the guitar, an instrument she never seriously pursued.
Andrew writing out his music parts. Aylmer, Quebec 1975.
Ian, Jennifer, family friend Bruce Calderwood and Fiona take the boat out on the Ottawa River.
Jennifer Huggett at the cottage in 1975
