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Running For Congress | Edmonton’s Allison Balcetis will be moistening her reed at the prestigious 15th World Saxophonist Congress in Bangkok this July.

For a composer who likes to explore the unknown, few things are better than working with similarly minded performers — people like Allison Balcetis. A self-described “white chick from suburbia,” bearing that load of North American Christian middle-class values upon her shoulders, she’s nonetheless managed to become a first-class musician, and a saxophonist at that.

Was it difficult? “No, not really,” Balcetis says. “My parents have always supported my ‘twisted’ ambitions; it was very different from what I often hear people must go through! I don’t have to pretend I was a martyr who’d sacrifice something important to get where I am now. A lot of hard work, yeah, and a lot of your usual challenges when you study abroad, like living away from home, eating frugally” — she laughs — “but nothing drastically painful.”

But why take up the saxophone, stereotyped as a “male” instrument? “Really?” Balcetis winks and gives me one of her broad, warmly mischievous smiles. “I don’t know about that! There’s some fantastic women saxophonists. But I think we classical artists have it easier than women in jazz, yes. As for myself, I started playing sax in a school band and then ... we just stuck together.”

Times have changed, at least for female classical saxophonists. However, not many musicians, male or female, indulge in complex avant-garde music with Balcetis’ eagerness (or skill). Once, to be totally faithful to the score, she even learned an ancient Chinese text, recited between musical phrases.

“I may attribute this,” she says, “to the influence of my three major teachers, John Sampen, Marie-Bernadette Charrier, and William H. Street — he’s a genius and a major reason why I chose to come here — who’ve devoted most of their careers to playing music that is considered ‘new’ regardless of when it was first composed. Mind you, a lot of stuff from the 1950s and ’60s still sounds newer than what we often hear now! I remember having this conversation with Jean-Marie Londeix [one of the greatest saxophonists of all time] who said to me, ‘Allison, if you play saxophone but do not like modern [classical] music or jazz, you’ve picked [the] wrong instrument!’ What he meant was there are many instruments that can do a good job on older music, but the saxophone is by nature a perfect vehicle for trying things out. I just love to experiment and work with composers who experiment. These days I play more and more music with electronics. The sound becomes something out of this world — trippy, mind-blowing!”

Balcetis’ commitment is paying off. A doctoral student at the University of Alberta, she is already enjoying an international reputation as a superb interpreter, and was accepted to perform this July at the saxophone community’s most prestigious event, the 15th World Saxophone Congress in Bangkok, Thailand.

“My main goal,” she says, “is to make sure that people understand what I say through playing.

Technical proficiency is important, but secondary to the interpretation, which must be truthful to the composer’s intentions. I want to be more of a musician than a technician!”

Given the string of world premières under her belt, Balcetis needn’t worry about looking for another job.