For Mark Willsher and Joe Fingerote, the 2007 Banff International String Quartet competition was a homecoming of sorts. Ten years ago, Willsher and Fingerote were roommates in Banff, as participants in the Centre’s Audio Engineering Work Study program. For both, their experience at the Centre marked a turning point in their careers.

During this summer’s competition, Willsher and Fingerote shared the cramped quarters of the Eric Harvie Theatre audio booth. As BISQC guest faculty engineer, Willsher focused on ensuring that the performance of each quartet was captured at the highest possible quality for the 2007 BISQC CD and for the hundreds of thousands of listeners tuned into BISQC via CBC Radio Two and radio2.cbc.ca.

Fingerote, executive producer of Radio Music, Arts, and Entertainment for CBC Alberta, was the driving force behind CBC’s extensive coverage of BISQC, including over 15 hours of nation-wide broadcasts and — a first for CBC — live webcasts of the Saturday and Sunday evening performances.

Fingerote says the time he spent as an audio associate in Banff opened his eyes to the creative possibilities inherent in the recording industry. He had studied cello and piano at the University of Manitoba, and although he was attracted to the process of recording, he had conflicting feelings about abandoning performance. “In Banff I realized you could focus on recording and still be an artist. I learned I didn’t have to abandon “art” when I moved into the recording studio, I could still contribute to and connect with the music.”

“During that first summer in Banff I had the chance to work on jazz studio projects, film and television productions, and set up and record concerts … It lit a fire in me and I knew I wanted to continue in this field.” Fingerote went on to study sound recording at McGill University, and to work as a broadcaster, producer, and executive producer at CBC.

Willsher’s career after Banff took him even farther afield — into the recording studios of Los Angeles and London, England. Willsher spent three terms at Banff between 1996 and 2001. The connections he made at the Centre, in particular with faculty member George Massenburg, led to gigs at Skywalker Sound, and eventually to work as associate music producer for Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.

“Banff allowed me to experiment,” Willsher says. “We worked with top-calibre artists and we were given the creative freedom to try different approaches. Once you get out there in the real world, you don’t always have the ability to do that — the clock is always ticking.” Willsher’s current client list includes the Russian National Orchestra, Sony Pictures, New Line Cinema, the Kronos, St. Lawrence, Turtle Island, and Cypress string quartets, and Academy Award-winning composer Howard Shore; but he still makes time to return to the Centre regularly as guest audio faculty.

By some quirk of fate, both Fingerote and Willsher also credit the Centre with playing an important role in their personal lives — Willsher met his wife at the Centre, and Fingerote proposed to his then girlfriend soon after she visited him in Banff that first summer.

“Being here for BISQC brought back memories of an unforgettable time in my life,” Fingerote says. “It’s great to be back at the Centre and to be in a position to bring these amazing performances to listeners around the world.”