'I like to risk it all': Clarinetist François Houle on his continuing creative journey
'There’s a restlessness; a sense of always trying to find new ways of doing things'
After studying classical music at McGill University, and completing his studies at Yale University, clarinetist François Houle was poised to have the symphonic career he had always dreamed of.
Instead, he took a break from music.
"I had sort of a bit of crisis and I didn't play for about a year," Houle told Hot Air host Margaret Gallagher.
Houle said his passion for creativity and collaboration didn't fit in with the highly regimented world of classical music.
"It really is an industry of sorts and it is run like an industry," he said.
So after graduating, the award-winning student took off to Paris in the late 1980s.
"I like putting everything on the line. I like to risk it all even if it makes me sound bad," Houle said. "I can say that I honestly tried."
Fortuitous discovery
It was in France he discovered a heavily discounted dusty cassette tape in a record store of jazz saxophonist Steve Lacy. It inspired Houle to change musical trajectories.
"I didn't really know much about jazz or improvised music [and] I don't have any formal training in jazz to this day," he said. "I just became a scholar of that music in some strange ways."
It served Houle well, who garnered acclaim as an avant-garde clarinetist with a talent for improvisation.
He has let that free spirit — which allowed him to walk away from a symphonic career — to continue to guide his creative journey.
"There's a restlessness; a sense of always trying to find new ways of doing things," he said. "I'm not attached to trying to please. I think those qualities make it so I have licence to do what I want to do musically."
Today, Houle is based in Vancouver and is a sought-after soloist with over 20 recordings as a leader, earning multiple Juno Award and West Coast Music Award nominations.
The Hockey Sweater
He is approaching his latest project with that openness. He'll be the narrator at the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra's production of The Hockey Sweater, featuring the classic children's story by Roch Carrier set to music by Abigail Richardson.
"When they approached me, I said I'm not a narrator, I'm a clarinet player." Houle said, laughing.
But the Montrealer and die-hard Habs fan eventually came around.
"I literally love this video and watched it inside out, and I thought, why not? Let's go for it."
The VSO's production of The Hockey Sweater is on Jan. 13. Houle's most recent album You Have Options, a project inspired by the late Ken Pickering, longtime Vancouver International Jazz Festival artistic director, was released in November 2018.
Listen to Hot Air episode featuring clarinetist François Houle:
With files from Hot Air