CITY’S MANAGER TO CALL IT A DAY
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THE DAY KIDS’ FREEDOM ENDED
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EFRY OPPONENTS VOW TO CONTINUE
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FRIDAY
JUNE 29 2012
www.newwestnewsleader.com
It’s time to show your true colours, Canada. The festivities return Sunday to Queen’s Park. See Page A8
City hall not moving: Wright Grant Granger ggranger@newwestnewsleader.com
MARIO BARTEL/NEWSLEADER
Lindita Musaraj, a violinist from New Westminster, and Jim DeFina, a Burnaby clarinetist, are among 34 members of the West Coast Symphony Orchestra leaving Friday for a goodwill tour to Albania. They’re also bringing with them a container of instruments to help start a music school in Antigone.
Sharing the love of music Mario Bartel photo@burnabynewsleader.com
Music is an international language. So when 34 members of the West Coast Symphony Orchestra play a special Canada Day concert in Tirana, Albania, they won’t need a translator. Their instruments will do the talking. The orchestra, which is comprised of more than 80 musicians from around the Lower Mainland and conducted by Bujar Llapaj of New Westminster, embarks Friday on a two-week goodwill tour of Albania and Macedonia, sharing the camaraderie of music through a
series of six concerts in the Balkan countries. They’ll also hold master classes for young musicians. It’s a homecoming for Llapaj and his partner, violinist Lindita Musaraj, who emigrated from Albania nine years ago. “People share music in the same way,” says Musaraj, whose love for music was forged as a child when she accompanied her mother to the opera in Tirana. “I can communicate perfectly with anybody with music.” The West Coast Symphony Orchestra isn’t a professional group, although many of its more than 80
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members earn their living teaching music, or as freelance session players. There are also teachers, doctors, a longshoreman and even a B.C. Supreme Court judge. “We do it for the love of music,” says Burnaby’s Jim DeFina, a clarinetist and also the orchestra’s vice president. “Our mission is to present high quality programs at a low cost.” In fact, their 14 annual concerts are free or with admission by donation to support their costs. When they get to Albania their magnanimity will take on a further dimension. In preparing for their trip, the
orchestra’s musicians have been mining their own collections of instruments and acquiring used ones from rental programs to be donated to a new music school being started in Llapaj’s home village, Antigone, in southern Albania, near the Antigonia archeological site which dates to the third century BC. A container of almost 30 saxophones, clarinets, Àutes, violins and even a cello was shipped last week. “It’s just a beginning,” says Musaraj of the donation. “It’s like a little precious treasury.” Please see GOAL TO ENRICH, A11
Although Mayor Wayne Wright would like to see city hall moved to Downtown New Westminster he denied rumours it will move into the of¿ce complex being developed on top of the new civic centre, and sell the current location for development. Wright said city hall’s original home was Downtown and he is a proponent of it returning there because of easy access to transit, shops and restaurants. “But that’s not happening, I wish it was. I don’t have any support on that. There’s just no substance to [the rumour] ... There’s no traction for that type of thing.” The current city hall location on Royal Avenue, said Wright, can’t be sold to a developer since it is of¿cially park land. Instead of residential development, he suggests a seniors residence or some other public facility would be appropriate. Wright doesn’t expect city hall will be moved during what he has said will be not only his fourth, but ¿nal, term as mayor, but believes that due to its deteriorating condition will eventually have to be dealt with.