Tom Rolston: opposite, top, 1996 by Don Lee; below, 1981 by Kathleen Watt; above, 1962, photographer unknown.

Remembering Tom Rolston

Tom Rolston passed away on May 29, 2010.  A towering figure in the development and mentorship of musicians from across Canada, Tom Rolston, together with his wife Isobel, shaped the course of Music programs at The Banff Centre for nearly 40 years. Tamara Bernstein remembers the legacy and the man. 

It’s important for those who knew Tom Rolston to remember him in some detail, and not just because that is how human beings honour the departed, and endure the grief of their passing. 

Formal bios of Rolston show a distinguished career: a vancouver-born violinist who made good in Europe, then returned to Canada, brought the Suzuki method of string instruction to this country, then went on to head The Banff Centre’s music programs. 

That’s all true, of course, but the reality behind it is that Tom Rolston was a visionary; a generous, free spirit who opened doors and made the impossible possible for generations of musicians. 

“With Tom it didn’t matter where you were from, what you’d done, or whether you had the perfect musical pedigree, says Canadian violinist Erika Raum. “He’d look at you fresh, without prejudice, and appreciate you for what you are….It made you feel so free; so unself-conscious. He embodied the egalitarian, western spirit.” 

“My Dad changed people’s lives,” says his daughter Shauna Rolston, the internationally renowned cellist. “He provided structures in which they could grow, and just get on with it, whether that meant becoming a star or becoming the musical mover and shaker in a small community. Both of those were equally important to him: there was no hierarchy of success to him.” 

Rolston’s philosophy as an administrator was simple: “‘No’ is never an acceptable answer in the arts,” he once told his daughter. “Sometimes you have to say ‘maybe,’ but never ‘no,’ because you never know what you’d be shutting down.” 

In 1965, when Rolston started teaching at what is now known as The Banff Centre, there were only summer school classes in the arts. Six years later, David Leighton, the visionary president of the Centre at the time, named Rolston head of the music department. What happened next turned out to be one of the great moments in Canadian music history; a planetary lineup of people and events. 

The year was 1971. The price of oil was high; Peter Lougheed had just swept to power in Alberta and was committed to returning the wealth generated by Alberta’s natural resources to Albertans. Jeanne Lougheed, the premier’s wife, was a staunch supporter of the arts and a former student of The Banff Centre. Leighton had a vision for a world class, year- round artist colony at The Banff Centre, and Alberta was prepared to back it. 

During an off-season walk on the Banff Springs golf course, Leighton and Rolston agreed that the music program should blaze the trail for year-round arts programs at the Centre. At the time, there were calls in the corridors of power in eastern Canada for a national music school, and The Banff Centre was identified as the best site. But Rolston had no interest in conventional university or conservatory-style training. 

“Tom believed that the individual is responsible for his or her learning [after completing basic training],” says Jorie Adams, the senior administrator for the Centre’s music programs throughout the Rolston era. “That’s the opposite of the university model, which is top down: the professor is king, and teaches the students what he thinks they need to know.” 

The core of the new music residency programs was, “‘You come to us with a goal, and tell us what you want to achieve in the next five years, and we will figure out how we can help you.” That educational philosophy became the Banff Centre’s calling card,” Adams says. 

By the time the fall-winter program got off the ground in 1979, Tom and his wife, pianist Isobel Moore Rolston, could draw on the astounding faculty they had gathered to The Banff Centre’s summer music programs. “Tom was a talent scout not just for emerging artists but also for the best teachers of the time,” says violinist Barry Shiffman, The Banff Centre’s current head of Music. The Rolstons recruited legends like pianists Gyorgy Sebok and Menachem Pressler; violist William Primrose, cellists Janos Starker, Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, and Aldo Parisot; violinist Lorand Fenyves, conductor Klaus Tennstedt, and the Hungarian String Quartet. 

“I would not be doing anything I’m doing now if I hadn’t gone to Banff in those years,” says Geoff Nuttall, the founding first violinist of the Grammy-nominated St. Lawrence String Quartet, artist in residence at Stanford University, and director of chamber music at the Spoleto USA Festival. “I met Fenyves there, and [violinist Zoltan] Szekely — that whole group of musicians that Tom and Isobel decided were important. We didn’t really appreciate Banff until we went to other famous summer schools and said, ‘Hey, there’s nobody good here; everybody’s boring.’ “ 

The Rolstons’ faculty were musician’s musicians — not glitzy superstars. “Tom had a disdain for the music business,” Adams says. “He didn’t want to grease the machine of the whole New York music establishment.” That, and the Rolstons’ trusting, quasi- parental support for young musicians, set the tone for Banff as a place where artists could flourish, without the toxic competitiveness that often plagues classical music institutions. 

Shiffman first attended Banff as a child in the then Gifted Youth program. “We knew Tom was the boss, but he had those smiley eyes. He’d look at you and there was a real light — you felt safe; there was this encouraging, positive spirit around him.” 

No portrait of Rolston would be complete without mention of his red vespa. In the 1950s, it carried the newly-wed Tom and Isobel through Britain and France; years later, Rolston and his red, vintage helmet became an iconic part of the Banff landscape. “Nobody had a vespa in those days,” says Shiffman. “You’d hear that putt putt putting up the hill and you’d know Tom was coming, and you felt good.” 

Rolston delighted in taking such unlikely parties as Menachem Pressler, the Old World pianist, for a spin, and remained unmoved by suggestions that the tires might be due for a top-up. “He loved to tell people that those tires contained their original Italian air,” Adams says. 

All of us who mourn Tom Rolston’s passing may find comfort in the words he spoke to his family every night for as long as Shauna can remember. “If I die tonight,” he’d say, “I just want you to know that I’m the happiest man in the world.” 

Earlier in 2010, Tom and Isobel Rolston partnered with the Székely family to create the Székely/ Rolston Young Musicians program. This new initiative will inspire the next generation of musicians, by creating learning and mentoring opportunities for young chamber ensembles as part of the Banff International String Quartet Competition (BISQC). Contributions in Tom’s memory can be made at banffcentre.ca/support