Pach, Arlene Nimmons

CONVOCATION, OCTOBER, 1993
ARLENE NIMMONS PACH
to be Doctor of Letters

It is rare indeed for us to award honorary degrees simultaneously to two people, but it makes a good deal of sense for us to do so this year as Joe and Arlene Pach retire after 29 years as UNB's Resident Musicians. The Duo Pach, as we have come to know them, have been a remarkable partnership. Two highly talented musicians, Arlene and Joe decided many years ago to make music together, both as partners in a musical enterprise and as husband and wife. Their professional goal was to build a performing career on the basis of the enormously rich piano-violin repertoire. While in the end they were to accomplish much more than this, it was as a performing duo that they began and ended their unique relationship with UNB.

The Duo Pach has always been an equal partnership. As in sonata playing which has been their specialty, there is a time for each player to shine and others when the role must be supportive. The partners are alike in that each has been endowed with a high level of talent, virtuosic skill, and artistic commitment. On the other hand, each has brought something special to the relationship. Of the two, Arlene is the organizer, a thoughtful and disciplined person. Before she was part of the duo, she had extensive educational and performing experience which clearly established her credentials as a rising star among Canadian musicians. At the age of 18, she performed the challenging Mendelssohn Piano Concerto. She went on to perform in recitals and as guest soloist with chamber orchestras in several parts of Canada, she studied in Vancouver, Banff, and Lausanne, Switzerland, and she taught at music schools and as a private teacher. As a young adult, she worked briefly as a music columnist and also as a music critic for the CBC.

Joe, for his part, is witty, good-humoured, and free-spirited. A violinist's tone is what he makes it, and it can tell you a lot about the person. In Joe's case the tone is lush, romantic, and intense. Joseph Pach grew up in Toronto where, as a junior virtuoso, he dazzled crowds with gold-medal performances at the Canadian National Exhibition. At 18, he performed the monumental Tschaikovsky violin concerto with the Toronto Symphony. He embarked on a national and international performing career with an artist's diploma from the University of Toronto.

Together, the Duo Pach have performed for audiences all over Canada and Europe. Among the highlights of their early career together, they won the duo competition at the 9th International Munich Radio Competition. With this prestigious recognition, they embarked on an extended tour of the British Isles and West Germany, and then, in 1964, a coast-to-coast tour of Canada sponsored by the Canada Council. This tour brought them to UNB for the first time, and it was on the basis of their performance here that they were invited to become Artists-in-Residence. No one, least of all the Pachs, could have imagined that they would remain to develop their careers here. But because they did stay, the cultural life of UNB and of the larger New Brunswick community has been transformed by their artistic presence.

While there are many ways of describing their contribution, two stand out. First, the Duo educated us; they expanded our musical horizons. The Pachs came to a community which had no extended experience with chamber music, no regular exposure to the sonata literature, and no appreciation of the vast cultural heritage which this literature represents. The Pachs changed that. They educated a public, here at UNB and throughout New Brunswick. Later, when Joe decided to create a string quartet, the range of what they offered more than doubled. Both the duo and the quartet brought the sounds of the royal courts of Europe to Memorial Hall and to classrooms around the campus. They played Mozart and Beethoven to students carrying brown-bag lunches. They made familiar a mode of expression unique for its intimacy, transparency, and personal intensity. Larger centres had their symphony orchestras, but UNB had its chamber music and an audience that grew to love it.

If educating a public was simply part of the job, there was a second quality to the Pachs' contribution that was beyond the call of duty. This was their generosity. By this, one does not mean simply their hospitality, which among visiting artists was legendary, but more profoundly the generosity of the musician, the generosity that allows our Canadian society to pay musicians far less than they are worth, while enjoying the fruits of their talent and accomplishment. The Pachs shared generously, and they brought to us other musicians who also shared generously. One thinks particularly of Arlene's marvellous summer festival known as "Chamber Music and all that Jazz." For 18 summers, leading musicians from all over Canada came to Fredericton to enjoy making music together, and to let us hear them doing it.

Today we celebrate less a retirement than a lasting legacy. The Pachs have enriched the cultural life of our community with their music, their grace, and their artistry, and for this we will always be grateful. Fortunately for us all, they plan to continue to record and to perform in what is really only a semi-retirement. We wish them every future happiness and success.

From: Honoris Causa - UA Case 70, Box 3