ASPEN FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA
STUDENTSPOTLIGHT BLAKE POULIOT
first violin, first stand, inside chair Aspen Music Festival and School student Blake Pouliot was about five years old and already playing the piano when he decided he also wanted to try his hand at violin. “I thought it was the coolest instrument because I thought it was the most versatile,” explains Pouliot, now twenty one years old. “I always wanted to sing, but I don’t think I have a very good voice. So I thought the violin was the closest thing, that I could manipulate the sound to make it sound like I was singing.” It took a couple of years before the ambitious, energetic youngster could convince his parents that playing the violin wasn’t just a passing whim. Eventually, they got him an instrument—but later, as a teenager, Pouliot did end up taking some time to evaluate whether the violin was really for him. “When I was fourteen, I quit violin for a year to pursue acting and musical theater,” he explains. “I loved being onstage and I loved performing, but what I realized is that I didn’t like performing as a different person. I liked performing as myself, and being able to share what I thought, and my ideas and feelings.” Around the same time, Pouliot—a native of Toronto—headed to Ottawa to participate in the National Arts Centre Orchestra Young Artists Program, a summer academy founded and led by respected violinist Pinchas Zukerman.
“
I want the opportunity to share the way I
think, musically and emotionally and
artistically, with a lot of people.
– BLAKE POULIOT
“He lit a fire [in me], and told me I could go far but I needed to work hard,” says Pouliot of Zukerman. “Having him guide me, and being around other kids my age who wanted the same thing, pushed me to a point where I thought, ‘This is what I want to do with my life.’” With Pouliot’s passion for violin renewed, he threw himself into the many opportunities available in his hometown, including joining the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra and participating in a pre-college program at the Royal Conservatory of Music. Then, when it came time for college, Pouliot decided to explore the music scene in the United States and headed to the Colburn School in Los Angeles. This fall, Pouliot will enter his senior year at Colburn—but until then, he’s in Aspen for his second summer studying at the AMFS. A recipient of a Kay and Matthew Bucksbaum New Horizons Fellowship, Pouliot studies with artist-faculty member Robert Lipsett, with whom he also works back in Los Angeles. And he’s also part of the Aspen Festival Orchestra, which he says is an important learning experience even though he ultimately wants to pursue a career as a solo violinist. “I get to sit next to these incredible concertmasters and I get to work with great conductors,” he says of his AFO experience so far this summer. Plus, he gets to perform alongside his friends, like in today’s concert featuring AMFS alumna and fellow Colburn student Simone Porter. “She’s one of my closest friends,” says Pouliot, “so it’ll be really fun to sit at the front stand and play with her when she does the Barber Violin Concerto.” It’s sure to be inspiring, too, considering Pouliot’s own soloist dreams. “I find being a soloist similar to being a writer or something. I feel like there’s a duty to create your own stamp on things,” he says of what motivates him to take center stage. “I want the opportunity to share the way I think, musically and emotionally and artistically, with a lot of people.”
THE ASPEN FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA STUDENT SPOTLIGHT IS SPONSORED BY LINDA AND DENNIS VAUGHN