The many friends and associates of Wallace Leung, who died on Friday, would like it remembered that his importance went far beyond Prince George, whose orchestra he conducted. Leung was only 33 when he died of viral encephalitis while visiting his girlfriend in New York. His untimely passing ended possibilities that seemed headed for greatness, but he had already achieved a bewilderingly wide influence on music in the Lower Mainland, and even abroad.

Says Laurie Townsend of the University of B.C. music school, where Leung graduated in 1994, "He was much more than the exciting new conductor at Prince George. He turned around that orchestra, which had been in trouble, but in a quieter way he'd been doing things like that here for years."

Violinist Paul Luchkow of the Burney Ensemble went to UBC with Leung where the two formed a smallish classical-sized student orchestra that could perform the neglected repertory of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven -- it was called "Wallace and Paul's Excellent Orchestra."

Says Luchkow, "Wallace's recent work with the Prince George Symphony is a real testament to the kind of person that he was: always generous, always supportive, always concerned with doing the very best that he could to make really good music, always encouraging of others to do likewise and always looking for ways to make music accessible to all people -- seasoned concert-goers or curious newcomers."

In the Vancouver area, Leung was involved with the Delta Youth Orchestra as a player, then as conductor. At Vancouver Community College he did summer work to develop educational concerts in schools around the Vancouver area.

While at UBC, he co-founded Vancouver's off-beat The Little Chamber Music Series That Could, now 11 years old and housed by the Vancouver East Cultural Centre. He was the founding director of the now inactive Canada West Chamber Orchestra, which attempted to be a consistent outlet for the chamber orchestra repertory. He also founded the Helicon Ensemble for the performance of contemporary music and commissioned many new works.

He was music director of the Vancouver Philharmonic Orchestra, an amateur community orchestra that made considerable strides under his guidance. Rather than restrict it to the usual chestnuts, Leung stretched the programming, once including the violin concerto by Vancouver composer Jean Coulthard -- she was 90 when she attended and heard what was only its second performance.

It was at Richmond Gateway Theatre, where he was music director, that many people were familiar with Leung, from his conducting of the annual Christmas musical such as, recently, Oliver! The Gateway producer Simon Johnston says, "I shall miss him as a friend and valued colleague." The Gateway is setting up a scholarship fund in Leung's memory and many commemorative concerts are being planned for the near future, including one by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, according to conductor Bramwell Tovey.

Townsend says, "He was a driven young man who got involved with everything he could. I don't think he slept a lot. He made time for people."

Luchkow adds, "Wallace worked endlessly and tirelessly in pursuit of that 'something better' that he understood music and its related facets could provide for us all. Those facets sparkled in him more brightly than most and will continue to shine in our hearts and in our lives forever."

Courtesy of the Vancouver Sun