by Tamara Belkov
Stacey Llewellyn's love of the flute began in 1998 after
watching a video of a Yanni concert that her parents, Paul and
Donna, brought home from a new-age music concert.
Her mother recalls when Stacey saw Yanni's orchestra on the TV,
she proclaimed to her parents, "I want to play the flute like
that man."
The man was Pedro Eustach, recognized around the world as a
talented flutist and a key figure in Yanni's orchestra.
"It was a Yanni concert, but it was the way Pedro Eustach was
moving on the stage that I noticed," recalls Stacey.
"He looked like he was really enjoying it and I thought, I
want to do that too."
With her parent's encouragement and support, she set out to
accomplish her goal.
"That first year we rented her a flute from Toronto and she
took private lessons," Donna says. "The next year we had to buy
one."
Seven years later, she is playing a new higher quality flute
in the Sudbury Symphony Orchestra and is still taking private
lessons.
Elise Leblanc has been her flute teacher since the
beginning.
"She hadn't played before," Leblanc says. "And, just like
now, she was very enthusiastic. It has been fun for me to see
her going for a career in music."
Now a third-year music major at Laurentian University,
Stacey enjoys music so much she wants to work in the field.
"I'd like to get my Masters," she says. "I'd like to teach
music but not at a high school level. There's not enough
respect for music in high school."
The 19-year-old still admires Pedro Eustach, but her musical
influences are now more classical in nature and she has added
playing the cello to her list of talents.
 "Stacey always worked hard," recalls Roger Finlay, her
music teacher from LaSalle Secondary School.
Finlay is not surprised at his former student's current
success.
"She was always in the music room practising or showing one
of her friends how to play something. Her enthusiasm for music
has always been there."
As an accomplished musician himself, Finlay says it was a
pleasure to play in the Sudbury Symphony Orchestra at the same
time as his former student.
"She was a stand out student in my music class. Stacey goes out and finds it for herself, that's key for a musician.
She'd come into class and say have you heard this? Or, can
you teach me to play this. She's keen on learning everything
about music."
Stacey won two golds and a high gold at the Sudbury Kiwanis
Music Festival held in February. She took high gold in the
Senior Woodwind Solo Senior Concerto, and gold in both the
Senior Woodwind Solo, Grade 9 and in the Senior Woodwind,
accompanied by Stephen Worton.
In June, Llewellyn competed in the provincial finals of the
Kiwanis Music Festival at the University of Western Ontario
where she earned an honourable mention in Woodwinds Grade 9.
Stacey is very busy now practising on her new flute, taking cello lessons, and working two jobs, but she dreams of the day when she can travel through Europe, her beloved flute and cello strapped to her back.
