Chemotherapy forces Saskatoon violinist to relearn her craft
Musician Marla Cole had a dream at her fingertips. But cancer almost ripped it from her grasp.
Live music can make memories, but when the show is over, the music drifts away.
When Saskatoon violinist Marla Cole was diagnosed with life-threatening cancer, she started a project that would make her music live on.
In 2015, Cole received a grant from the Touchdown for Dreams program that helps women with life-threatening cancer to fulfill one of their dreams.
The program is a partnership between the Saskatchewan Roughriders, the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency and Cameco.
Lifelong dream
Cole's wish was to record an album with the Amati Quartet, of which she is a co-founder.
But when it was time to record, she was too sick to play.
Chemotherapy treatments and steroids caused her hands and feet to go numb, and her left hand never recovered.
"It's a very unusual sensation," she said.
"To play a string instrument you need to be able to feel the strings and the fingerboard and it has been a huge learning curve to get around that."
Cole had to retrain her brain to play using only her sight and muscle memory.
She said the problem got so bad she considered giving up. She worried her career as a violinist was over.
"It was a very scary process because I could feel it happening and, you know, it was just getting worse and worse," said Cole.
But with the support of her quartet, she rebuilt her technique while recovering from the side-effects of chemotherapy.
Making memories
She says the completed album will make her music last forever.
"As a musician who does live performances, people come and they hear it but they can't take it away and so they can't hear it again," she said.
"So I think it was really important to me to have a CD and to have something to give to my family and say 'we did this and this is what I used to do.'"
A release party for the recording of the Amati Quartet will be held at the Darrell Bell Gallery on Sunday, Sept. 25 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. All proceeds from the 69-minute recording go to the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency.
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With files from CBC Radio's Saskatoon Morning