Stan Van Zuylen

Trombone

How many years have you played with EPO?
I think I’ve been with the EPO for about 7 years now. I very much enjoy the EPO, the innumerable talented musicians, the repertoire, and its close to home. What could be finer!

What is your experience as a musician?

My musical “career” began back in 2 or 3 when a teacher started up a recorder club. I went on to enjoy playing the recorder well into university. When I hit grade 7, I was put in a beginners’ band class, put on the trombone (the only instrument left available) and took to it like a duck to water. After high school, I spent 4 years at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto followed by a year at the Faculty of Education. And then, Presto, I was licensed to wreak musical havoc in the schools of Ontario! I consider myself most fortunate to have enjoyed a very rewarding and fulfilling 32-year career teaching high school music, all of it in the Etobicoke area. My longest tenures were at the Etobicoke School of the Arts, Etobicoke Collegiate and Martingrove Collegiate. As well as teaching, over the years I have played with (or against?) many of the community bands and orchestras in the GTA. Still working on the trombone! I enjoy playing and listening to a wide variety of music.

What do you do outside of the orchestra?

I never played organized hockey as a kid. But the Faculty of Music had an interfaculty hockey team (the infamous “GUSTAFF MAULERS”) that was desperate for “players” and so began a 40-year “career” playing beer league/men’s league hockey. Still working on my game!

Another passion, shared with my family, is wilderness canoe tripping. I have been very fortunate to have paddled well over 12,000 kms of lakes and rivers from the Yukon to northern Labrador (although none of them in the canoe I’m “wearing”!). Perhaps the most epic of these trips was a transverse of the Labrador Peninsula from the Nachvak Fiord on the North Atlantic side, through the Torngat Mountains, up the Palmer and down the Koroc Rivers to Ungava Bay. Should you ever find yourself bored and wanting to see a seldom visited but spectacular area of Canada, you could check out “Torngat Tapestries”, a 23-minute film on YouTube I very much enjoy tripping based on our trip, complete with stunning scenery, an insightful and thought-provoking script, and a superb soundtrack. “Fun” for the whole family!

As a family we did an epic trip retracing the route of the Klondike Gold Rush. This involved car camping to Skagway Alaska. There we switched to backpacking for 5 days hiking the Chilkoot Trail, including the infamous Golden Staircase. The Chilkoot Trail ends at Bennett Lake where we switched to canoe travel from Bennett Lake, down the Yukon River, eventually reaching Dawson City. This 6-week trip, all of it under canvas, covered 14,000 km of driving and 3 weeks in the backcountry of northern BC and the Yukon Territory.

I still do some canoe tripping every year but stay a bit closer to home! I very much enjoy tripping with my kids, especially now that they can portage the canoe! A more recent passion has been restoring old cedar canvas canoes. I’m very proud to say I’ve saved more than a few old “Chestnuts” from being roasted in an open pyre!