Liz Parker on Page Turning

Although Liz Parker does most of her work in Toronto as an extremely awesome publicist for classical musicians, she also moonlights as the top page turner in town. Steve Ladurantaye of the Human Facebook Project recently sat down with Liz for an interview about her experiences flipping Urtexts:

SL: You’ve done work as a page turner. Is that the stressiest job ever?

LP: It depends on who I’m turning for, and the repertoire. I usually turn for one of my brothers (Jon Kimura Parker or Jamie Parker) so it’s pretty relaxed, and both of them mark their music clearly so I know what’s going on. But yes, it’s stressful, because while you can’t add to the performance (unless you’re really hot) you can certainly detract by screwing up. The last time I turned for Jamie was a couple of weeks ago at Lula Lounge and the music had a ridiculous number of turn-backs, flip-aheads, etc. I didn’t turn all the way back like I was supposed to, but Jamie quickly turned to the right place. Fortunately, the violinist let out a whopper of a wrong note, so nobody really notice how flustered I was. You also have to make sure you don’t wear a plunging neckline, of course.