B.C. tenor overcomes last-minute nerves for Carnegie Hall debut
Last Updated: Friday, January 23, 2009 | 1:19 PM ET
CBC News
Ken Lavigne says it was worth it to stage his own debut at Carnegie Hall. (kenlavigne.com) Standing backstage at Carnegie Hall, the only thing holding B.C. tenor Ken Lavigne back from fulfilling his dream Thursday night was a case of nerves.
"I was jumping round a lot back stage and I was pretty nervous. The conductor basically had to push me onto the stage. I wasn't sure how it was going to go," Lavigne told CBC's Q cultural affairs show on Friday, the morning after he made his New York debut at the famed concert hall.
"You plan and you plan and you hope for the best, but when it comes right down to it, stepping onto the stage is one of the hardest things you can possibly do," he said.
Lavigne invested $200,000 — money raised over months at concerts and fundraisers throughout the Lower Mainland — to get to Carnegie Hall. And the morning after, he's sure it was worth it.
"Absolutely, are you kidding me? It would have been worth a million bucks," he said. The only disappointment was that his father was too ill to attend.
Lavigne, 35, rented the hall himself and hired the New York Pops to accompany him in a program that included classical tenor songs and Canadiana such as Stan Rogers's Northwest Passage.
He said he was a third of the way into the concert before he relaxed and then he really enjoyed the second half.
"It was fantastic. I couldn't have asked for a better audience and a better night. It was really truly magical," he said.
Lavigne, who lives in the rural community of Chemainus, B.C., is a well-known tenor singer in the Victoria area.
A father of two, he has sung with choirs and symphony orchestras throughout Canada.
Singing at Carnegie Hall was a lifelong dream, and he became determined last year to make it happen.
"Just to stand on that stage and sing the music that I wanted to sing was an accomplishment and an ending in itself whether anyone comes or not it doesn't matter," he said.
The project proved bigger than he expected — first a long list of requirements from the hall itself, then the decision to hire the New York Pops, then calling on teams of friends on Vancouver Island and in New York to try to get word out about the concert.
In the end he filled about 1,200 seats in the 2,800-seat Carnegie Hall.
"That was totally unexpected because a week and a half before the show we had 68 tickets sold — we were looking at what could have been an entirely empty house. I'm relieved to say a lot of last-minute ticket buyers showed up at the door," he said.
