Seasons of Homecoming: Julia Wedman Returns to Lead the SSO

by Scott Roos

photo by Sian Richards

When violinist Julia Wedman steps on stage with the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra on September 13, at the ornate Knox United Church, it will be more than just a performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. It will be a return home, a reconnection with the community that nurtured her earliest musical ambitions, and a celebration of the Baroque tradition that has become her life's work.

“I was 15 when I started playing with the Saskatoon Symphony. It was my first professional (music) job,” she recalls. “By the time I went to university, I had played so many big orchestra pieces. I was so far ahead of a lot of other students when it came to ensemble playing.” Now, she returns to her home once again (she had not played with the SSO since pre-COVID) - not only as a world-class soloist but also as the orchestra’s director for the evening, leading from the violin in a style rooted in Baroque performance practice.

"It's not conducting in the traditional sense. What happens is all the body motions that I make playing become what is directing the orchestra,” Wedman explains. “It’s a more collaborative kind of music making, listening and reacting to each other as we perform. It forces all of us to be really aware and in touch with each other.”

The SSO's concert, which also marks the opening of its 95th season, will pay homage to the 300th anniversary of Vivaldi’s iconic set of violin concertos. But Wedman has gone beyond the expected, curating a full program that draws musical and emotional connections between the seasons of the year and the cycles of human experience. Alongside The Four Seasons, the evening includes music by Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Henry Purcell, and J.S. Bach.

“I’ve played all the pieces on this program before (with the exception of one new piece), some many times,” she says. “But I like to constantly re-examine them—what am I missing? What haven’t I noticed before?” For Wedman, Baroque music isn’t static. It’s a living art form full of hidden clues. “The composers didn’t write everything down. They gave us hints - bare bones - and it’s up to us to uncover the meaning.”

On the flight to Saskatoon, she found herself poring over scores, analyzing harmony and structure, even focusing in on how Henry Purcell chose specific chords to represent words like “pain” or “pleasure” in his song “If Love’s a Sweet Passion”. The deeper she looks, the more layers she uncovers. Almost like being a codebreaker. Searching for what the composers in her chosen set of pieces were trying to say. This kind of interpretive richness is what has kept her drawn to Baroque music. But it wasn’t the music itself that pulled her in at first - it was the people.

“What really drew me were the people that were doing this. The people that I met that were doing early music were so interesting. And passionate and joyful. My first Baroque violin teacher is this Australian violinist who was teaching at Indiana University, Stanley Richie. My friend at the time was playing in the early music ensemble and he said, ‘oh, come to our concert. You're going to love it. It's so much fun.’ And so I came and my teacher Stanley was just dancing around the stage. He looked so graceful and so free and all the students were smiling and having a great time. And I was like, ‘that looks like that kind of thing I want to do. That looks like fun’” After a baton-wielding conductor nearly took out her eye during a rehearsal at university, she hopped aboard the Baroque train and never looked back.

That joy is something she brings to the stage, even in pieces as familiar as Vivaldi’s. While The Four Seasons may be one of the most well-known classical works of all time, Wedman intends on bringing a sense of freshness and theatricality to the performance. “Vivaldi, that piece is like one of the, in a way, like, as an instrumental piece, one of the easier, and kind of most fun pieces to get creative with, because in the text, there's actually poetry written on the music itself, telling you, oh, you know, this is the dog barking, and this is the shepherd who's sleeping.

So, you know, in this little movement of ‘Spring’, I'm a sleeping shepherd. And then a viola player is a dog barking. And Vivaldi tells you, really loud, well, as I'm sleeping kind of soft. And then the violins are playing this like little, which is supposed to be like the plants and the kind of like murmuring in the wind, on this like beautiful summer spring day.”

It’s also deeply physical.  “(When I'm playing and conducting) I try to capture what we also relate to in the music, and then to try to use our bodies and make all the decisions about how we play the music. So if I know that I'm supposed to be the sleeping goat herd, and then the way I use my body is going to be very much different. I'll have a kind of more tired stroke instead of a really fast bow, which I would use for something that's more joyful. So it's really like kind of creating these emotions in our bodies that somebody listening can be like, ‘Oh, yeah, okay, I get that. She's the goat herd here. There's the dog.’”

Though the spotlight will be on Wedman, the concert is ultimately about collaboration - and connection - and in some cases reconnection in a very full circle moment. “My teacher, the concertmaster, Michael Swan, was my teacher in high school, you know, and he had a really big love and still does for how music is put together. For music theory. I remember him trying to teach me theory and so to, be able to go back and be like, ‘I know what I'm doing now’ will be really nice. And he's like, he's a great violinist, and it's it's a treat to be able to reconnect with people.”

For those who can’t attend in person, the SSO’s commitment to high-quality livestreaming - developed during the pandemic - means that Wedman’s performance will reach audiences far beyond Saskatoon.

“I think it's just so wonderful because something like streaming opens up being able to go to concerts for so many people who, you know, maybe are older or are living places that they can't get there. And so it just just creates that accessibility and gives people a taste of it who wouldn't necessarily be able to come. And I just think it's incredible.”

With a program that blends the familiar with the unexpected, and a spirit rooted in both scholarship and spontaneity, this concert is more than just an opening night. It’s a celebration of artistry, memory, and return—a musical journey through the seasons, and back home again.