Featured White Pines Local Author: Ian Hampton

The Port Moody Public Library White Pines Local Author collection highlights local authors, poets, and illustrators in our community. Every month, we will interview and feature one of the authors from the collection on the Library website.

The featured author of this month is Ian Hampton.

Author of the month: Ian Hampton

Ian Hampton is a professional cellist who began his career in the UK playing cello in the London Symphony Orchestra. Ian's other musical accomplishments include:

Principal cello for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra
Principal cello for the Vancouver Opera
29 years as principal cello for the CBC Radio Orchestra
Member of the Purcell String Quartet (PSQ)
Artistic Director of the Langley Community Music School

Ian and his wife, Sue, have lived in Port Moody for 36 years.

Book: Jan in 35 Pieces: A Memoir in Music

A humorous memoir structured around 35 musical masterpieces. The pieces hold great personal meaning and endeavour to bring the reader into the world of the professional musician by combining humorous anecdotes, music history, and encounters with renowned musicians.

Cool facts about the book:

Ian was so familiar with the pieces of music he was writing about, he never listened to them while he was writing. He was able to conjure them up from memory anytime he needed inspiration.

When did Ian first decide to record his musical experiences in writing?

The book had a long gestation period. While playing with the Purcell String Quartet (PSQ), Ian would often perform for schools and was tasked with explaining the music they were about to play to the students. Ian and the other members of the PSQ found it difficult to talk about the music given the audience had no historical context for it. By writing Jan in 35 Pieces, Ian hoped to draw people into the musician’s world and provide social and historical context for the pieces and the composers who wrote them.

What inspired Ian to structure his memoir around different pieces of music?

The structure came out of Ian's desire to simply write about music. "I didn't set out to write a memoir at all – I was writing about music!"

The original stories jumped around in time, so his editor, Barbara Nickel, decided the book needed a bit of reordering to draw readers in. By connecting the stories to different pieces of music, Jan in 35 Pieces developed a more solid structure for readers to follow.

Who drew the illustrations?

Illustrations by Ian Hampton

Ian did! "I guess I just like a book with pictures. Visual arts and music go very well together." Musicians don't always have anything solid to show - maybe a few recordings. "I decided to learn to draw so that I would have something to show at the end of the day".

What were the main challenges for Ian when writing Jan in 35 Pieces?

The challenges mainly came after Ian's initial writing was finished. After Barbara Nickel put Ian on track to get people interested in reading his manuscript, Ian had to work at restructuring everything. During this time, in order to connect anecdotes and finish stories, the manuscript grew to 550 pages!

Other challenges came during publication. Ian had to slim the manuscript back down to 300 pages. In addition, due to the specialized musical subject matter, Ian would continue to receive drafts back asking for more explanation on certain musical terms.

What were the highlights for Ian when writing Jan in 35 Pieces?

Getting it published! Ian was also excited when the book "got some profile" by being chosen as a finalist for the RBC Taylor Prize.

What was the publication process like for Ian?

"Painful, as it took a long time!"

Ian dealt with more than 10 months of rejection from publishers. He then tried to pitch the manuscript to academic presses, but had no better luck. When The Porcupine's Quill, an artisanal publishing house in Ontario, said they loved the book, Ian was thrilled. However, this led to more challenges, as they could only bind 300 pages, forcing Ian to get rid of a quarter of the book!

Does Ian have any advice for writers or musicians who want to record their life experiences as a memoir?

"I think it's always very valuable if you have experiences that may go into the bigger social history, you should write them down, as it will give an oblique slant on the person or the events".

Ian has always been interested in social history and believes that every individual who shares their experience of people and events makes an important contribution to the greater historical context.

"If someone chooses to become a musician, however humble, there's a chance they’ll come up against very well-known people and that is worth noting".

About the White Pines Local Author Collection

The Port Moody Public Library created the White Pines Local Author Collection to highlight and support local authors, poets, and illustrators from our community. We launched the collection in May 2019 with 12 inaugural authors. Learn more about this collection and how you can become a White Pines Local Author.

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