Denis Brott, a renowned cellist who helped to establish Canada Council’s Musical Instrument Bank, was driving when he got a call from the Governor General’s office asking him if he would accept an appointment to the Order of Canada.
“It was a total surprise,” Brott said of the phone call he got out of the blue at the end of last month.
Any Canadian can nominate a candidate for appointment to the Order of Canada, which recognizes outstanding achievement, dedication to the community and service to the nation, but information about nominations is kept confidential for reasons of privacy.
A native Montrealer, Brott, 64, said he was thrilled to accept the unexpected honour of being named a member of the Order of Canada.
“Recognition is not anything I have sought,” he said. “I do what I do because I’m passionate about it, whether it’s playing, teaching, or the instrument bank. Getting this recognition is particularly sweet because it’s unsolicited and it comes from my country.”
As a player, Brott is an international star who has toured the world. He came into prominence after winning the second prize in the Munich International Cello Competition in 1973 and has been mentored by some of the world’s greatest cellists. He played with the Orford String Quartet for eight years, during which the quartet recorded 25 CDs, and he has made several solo recordings.
Brott teaches at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec, and he’s the founder and artistic director of the Montreal Chamber Music Festival. He had a pivotal role in launching the Musical Instrument Bank in 1985.
The bank currently holds 22 historically significant violins, cellos and bows made by luthiers including Stradivari, Guarneri and Gagliano from 1600 to 1900, valued at about $40 million.
As a young cellist in his 30s, Brott saw the need for an instrument bank. “I needed a great cello,” he said. “A great instrument is really your voice. It’s a tool of your trade.”
But a “great” cello can cost up to $1 million, which was beyond Brott’s means. He wrote to several CEOs for help in creating an instrument bank and only one replied, William Turner of Consolidated-Bathurst, a newsprint company that has since been sold. Through Turner’s connections in corporate Canada, they raised enough money, a quarter of a million dollars, to start the bank.
Brott is still active in acquiring instruments, which are left to the bank in people’s wills or are purchased outright, which involves fundraising. He explained that you can buy excellent new pianos, clarinets and other orchestral instruments, but that’s not the case with strings.
“With age, string instruments only get better,” he said. “These instruments need to be played and should be played by great performers.”
In 1995, Brott and his wife, Julie, founded the annual Montreal Chamber Music Festival “around their kitchen table,” he said. This year, for the festival’s 20th anniversary, about half of the instrument bank winners will be playing at the March to June event.
The 2015 edition of the festival commemorates “the end of the war, the end of the Holocaust and focuses on the resilience of the human spirit,” Brott said.
It’s an understatement to say that Brott was raised in a musical family. His father was the late violinist and composer Alexander Brott and his mother is the cellist Lotte Brott. Denis’ brother is the conductor Boris Brott.
“My parents were totally devoted to their professions,” Denis said. “Music was my parents’ outlet and what they talked about around the dinner table.” He said initially he took up piano to get his parents’ approval. He switched to cello around the age of eight, eventually finding within himself a passion for music.
“I never question what I do. It’s a force greater than myself,” he said.
Brott is a member of Montreal’s Temple Emanu-El-Beth Sholom, where each year he plays Kol Nidre on cello. “It’s a pleasure,” he said, “and a poignant and meaningful work to play at that time of year.”
