On behalf of the Zafer family, welcome to the David Zafer Archive. Please feel free to share a story, an idea for the site, anything that comes to mind that celebrates the life and legacy of DZ. Let the chatting begin! Thank you very much, Paul, Ellen and the DZA team.
Thank you for this—I played under him for years in his chamber orchestra at U of T, and learned so much from him, yet I never once heard him play…
Thank you! More tracks coming soon… Dohnányi, Dolin, Milhaud etc.
Ellen
From Jeff Wall
I studied with David formally from 1972 to 1974 at U of T, and informally from 1974-77, including three summers at the Banff School of Fine Art as a member of the Canadian Chamber Orchestra and after joining Orchestra London.
David had the rare ability among teachers to take a reclamation project like me—I was assigned to him as a result of the sudden death of another faculty member and was not a Performance major—and give him or her the tools to win a professional audition in under three years. His comment after our first lesson—“You know, you get around pretty well for the way you’re doing things…” (probably still true, although I fancy I’ve figured out a few things over the intervening decades) was a prelude to two months of nothing but open strings and Dounis finger exercises. I could have benefited from more time with him, “to pick his brain” as Art Jansons put it. But I owe my life in orchestras to his work with me in the years that followed. And I often still hear him correcting me when I’m practising.
What stands out in memory? Well, unvarnished analysis of one’s playing, certainly—“It really is in the cracks, Jeff”—along with the smell of Gitanes and Sobranis in the studio—but also a lot of laughter, and earnest and enlightening discussions of various recordings, often over Scotch or Negronis—usually on his tab—and a generous capacity to listen to and understand the travails of a young man in the process of growing up. And ultimately, the great bear hugs he gave me on greeting and departure the last time I saw him. I write all this with a lump in my throat.
I don’t have many photos, but I’d like to send one that stands out as being a bit different from the others I see in the archive, taken in August 1977 in the student dorm at Banff as we listened to Milstein’s Brahms Concerto with Jochum conducting. From seeing another snap taken at the same time, I can say it’s Teacher’s in the glass. How very appropriate.
Unfortunately, I don’t know where to send that picture—I can attach it to an email if someone can send me an address.
I’m very grateful to all involved for putting the Archive together and sharing their pictures—and very proud to belong to a vast diaspora of David’s students.
Hi Jeff,
Thank you for this wonderful post. I’ll get an email address to you ASAP.
All best,
Paul
I am David’s cousin my mother Bella and David’s father Alec were brother and sister and I would love to know more about David’s family I know David’s two sister Gail and Karen both died some years ago but perhaps you could tell me more I have a picture of David and Gail with their parents and our grandmother taken before they went to Canada and did see David a few times when he came to visit our cousin Helen perhaps you could send me news of the family
Many Thanks Judy Obrart
From Jeff Wall:
Hi Ellen:
Glad to make your acquaintance! I’m sure the generations of David’s students have much to share about their time with him, and I look forward to hearing/reading their contributions. I see a couple of faces in the group photo (not the ‘Zafer Strings’–what a hoot!) who have been colleagues here in London and Kitchener (Sheilanne Lindsay and Anita Walsh) and I have lately had Jonathan Garabedian as a stand partner, who kindly informed me of DZ’s passing and sent me the link to your site.
Here is the snapshot, attached in two formats, for comparison and in case one is more practical to post. The camera was Kodak’s 2nd cheapest at the time–can you tell? 😉 –so it could have been fuzzier. Anyway, I cropped the original Jpeg (which you can compare in the PDF) to lose my luggage and metronome and the bottle of Chartreuse (this was apparently taken the day before we had to leave–I dated it August 20, 1977) and sharpened the face slightly. I’m not sure whose back that is at the lower right, but I think it’s Mark Friedman (he had hair in those days!).
Thanks for getting back to me–and please pass on my love and condolences to Miki, Michael and Paul, and gratitude for all their kindness and hospitality in those now-distant days.
Cheers and best wishes,
Jeff