Thursday 23 May 2013

Faculty profile: Bradshaw Pack


The Capilano Jazz Studies Department is well known for the incredibly high calibre of wonderful musicians we have on faculty.  I thought it would be fun to find out a little more about the personalities and people behind the music.  To this end, I will be asking faculty members to respond to the Proust Questionnaire.

Bradshaw Pack teaches theory, history, and composition in the Jazz Studies department. Bradshaw holds a M.Mus. degree from the University of British Columbia and has since augmented his studies with David Lang in New York, and Kees Boeke in Italy. He has composed works for Lori Freedman, Francois Houle, Vancouver New Music, the Standing Wave Ensemble, Kate Hammet-Vaughn, Pacific Baroque Orchestra, Talking Pictures, Sal Ferreras, Vancouver Chinese Music Ensemble, and the Turning Point Ensemble.

What is your idea of earthly happiness?
Dinnertime in Italy

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Being broke, heartbroken, and having the flu in New York in the middle of summer

Where would you like to live?
If Newfoundland had a cuisine that would be it; however, they don't and so I will have to say the Veneto in northern Italy

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
Solipsism

Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?
1. Odysseus
2. Leopold Bloom
3. Tyrone Slothrop

Who are your favorite characters in history?
Lucretius and Epicurus 

Who are your favorite heroines in real life?
Cleopatra

Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?
Cleopatra 

Your favorite painter?
Rembrandt

Your favorite musician?
Bach (hands down)

The quality you most admire in a man?
The sartorial

The quality you most admire in a woman?
Sense of humour

Your favorite virtue?
Honesty

Who would you have liked to be?
Radiohead's soundman

Your most marked characteristic?
Exaggerated hand gestures while speaking (it's annoying but I know no other way)

What do you most value in your friends?
The gastronomic 

What is your principle defect?
Insomnia

What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?
To be loveless, broke, and sick in New York

What is your favorite color?
Fuchsia

What is your favorite flower?
 Rhododendron 

What is your favorite bird?
Peacock 

Who are your favorite prose writers?
(I thought you'd never ask)
1. Italo Calvino
2. Nabokov
3. George Steiner

Who are your favorite poets?
1. Rilke
2. Shakespeare
3. Wallace Stevens

Who are your heroes in real life?
1. Stephen Lewis
2. Beethoven
3. Winston Churchill 

What natural gift would you most like to possess?
To whistle three octaves 

How would you like to die?
I don't know, I just don't want to be there when it happens

What is your present state of mind?
Scattered; I'm renovating right now and I have to leave the country

What is your motto?
To do the right thing even when no one is looking

Here is a link to some of Bradshaw's music.



2 comments:

  1. The protean nature of a man such as Dr. Shadbraw von Packenstein can scarcely be fathomed by a means as primitive as the English language. I can only applaud the intrepid efforts of those bold enough to attempt to succinctly profile the incomprehensible.

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  2. I concur. This is wonderful, though it barely lifts the curtain to hint at the genius/insanity that is Bradshaw. Still, a nice way to start the morning. I wish it was time for classes again!

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