In Their Own Words: Canadian Choral Conductors

2001

Part I

Career Stories

Pierre Anthian

Iwas born in Tlemcen, Algeria. My parents were both French citizens, and my father, an officer in the French army, was stationed there because of the Algerian Civil War. When I was four years old we returned to France. We settled in Pau, near Bordeaux in the south of France, and here I began both my schooling and my musical training at the local conservatory.

We are adherents of the Mormon faith, which requires us to serve others when they are in need. It was my mother’s habit to invite homeless people to share our lunch at home, and when I was twelve I decided to become a volunteer at the town’s shelter for the homeless. I helped to cook and serve the food.

At seventeen I began training to be a dental technician; this has been my livelihood ever since. I also joined a group of young missionaries who helped poor people in various communities in France and Switzerland. We worked, as volunteers, twelve hours a day, seeking out street people in the poorest areas of each town, distributing food and teaching those who were illiterate to read and write. This intense period of missionary work gave me plenty of experience to reflect on and time to sort out my thinking about the problems of poverty, and what part I might play in solving those problems in the future. I began to believe that music would somehow play a role, and I decided to return to my studies in a serious way. I was now twenty-one years old.

I was accepted by the Cannes Conservatory of Music, where I chose to concentrate on choir training and voice. I was particularly lucky to have Suzanna Rosender as my teacher. She encouraged her students to attend many concerts and to take part in a wide range of musical activities: choir, opera, operetta, dance, and musicals. We were singers, actors, stage managers, even tour organizers.

Meanwhile, I was living in a simple way and supporting myself as a dental technician. I am happy to make dentures for people without teeth: dentures make it possible for them to eat, and help them to keep a smile! I also continued to work as a volunteer at the homeless shelter, preparing and serving food. I even found time to play on a soccer team.

In 1990, when I was twenty-nine, I moved to Paris. With some help from my parents, who were still living in Pau, I set up a dental laboratory. This was an independent venture; I was not out to develop a big firm. At lunchtime I helped to serve food at La Mie de Pain, the largest shelter for homeless people in Paris.

And I was again singing. I had joined Le Choeur Françoise Legrand, which performed all over Europe and won many prizes. Françoise Legrand, the director, is a relative of Michel Legrand, the distinguished composer, and it was an honour for me to be accepted into this choir (one of the top choirs in Europe); the repertoire was a mix of classical, religious, popular and folkloric. It was a wonderful experience.

Paris has a sizeable number of Mormons—perhaps 30,000 when I was there—and there are also Mormons living throughout France. They are simple-living people, committed to living by Christian principles, like Christ. We are Mormons every day, not just on Sundays. The duty to serve those less fortunate than ourselves is a tenet of our faith. In my volunteer work I was nourishing hungry bodies with food. Now I began to search for a way to nourish the spirit, to help the poor and helpless regain a sense of dignity and autonomy. An idea was beginning to form—something to do with music. Perhaps I could create a choir of homeless people in Paris.

But now something unexpected happened, altering my plans. I fell in love.

I had paid a visit to my brother and sister, who were living in Montreal, Quebec, and there I met Yvette. I decided to immigrate to Canada and start a new life, with her. It was 1995, and I was thirty-four.

In Montreal, I inquired about a shelter to which I might offer my usual services, and I heard about Accueil Bonneau from a Montreal Tourist Bureau employee, who had been a volunteer there. That was how it came about that one day after my arrival, I came to be connected with that organization. Once again, I set up my dental laboratory, using my same old tools and techniques, adapted to different electricity. I began to love Montreal, a big North American–style city, but permeated with French culture. And I had a wonderful girlfriend.

Until suddenly, after only six months, Yvette broke off the relationship. I was stunned and heartbroken. My heart is still not fixed; I am healing but I still need more time. I must heal completely before I find a new Yvette. I cannot use someone’s love just as therapy for myself. I considered returning to France but was kept here by the choir, which I had finally begun putting together. The choir had become a commitment. In the beginning I worked four and a half days a week in my laboratory, setting aside a half day to work at the Accueil Bonneau. Now, four years later, it’s the other way around. The lab gets a scant half-day, and my work with the choir is almost full time. It has become a labour of love.

During my first summer in Montreal I took my choir idea to the Accueil Bonneau, and quickly received their support. I designed some flyers and distributed them to all the daytime users of the shelter, around six hundred men (only a handful are women). Then I went out and paced the Montreal streets, handing out my bilingual flyers to every beggar I met. Some of them immediately threw the flyers away unread, others read them and laughed, but there were others still who responded respectfully, though incredulously. If they said, I can’t sing, or I don’t know anything about music, or I can’t do this, I’m hooked on drugs, I firmly replied, Don’t worry about that. I suggested that they should just give the venture a try. If they took it seriously enough, the choir could succeed. I also assured then they would be paid!

This was during the summer of 1995. and it didn’t work, precisely because it was the summer. Homeless men have an easier time of it in the warm weather: they can sleep outside, and they don’t have to think about the future. Winter would provide the motivation. The choir really started up in the winter of 1996, when three people showed up for the first rehearsal, then seven, then twelve. Our number is now fixed at twenty-two members.

We now rehearse twice a week for three hours. We have some rules. Everyone is expected to show up. The members must be sober, punctual, committed, and respectful—respectful of the other members, the director, the public, and themselves. They must work hard. But those who revert to bad habits are not kicked out. Rather, they are encouraged to take a break and reflect on whether they truly still need the choir or not. If they want out, they have my support. It’s their life. But if they want to stay in, they must accept the rules. Sometimes members leave for a happier reason: because they have re-established themselves in their families or in a job (old or new). It is wonderful to see a man who was once crushed into dependency by life’s blows slowly regaining his self-respect and autonomy. For these people, the choir has done its job.

I am very busy between rehearsals, because except for the work done by my secretary, Monique, I am responsible for everything. I select the repertoire, organize and arrange the music, plan all the concerts and tours, and book the buses and hotel rooms. If I take charge of all this myself, I feel a comfortable sense of connection between the music and the logistics of concertizing, and everything goes smoothly, I do not have an assistant. God is my helper.

Our repertoire includes popular, classical, secular, religious and folkloric. The singers like to add instruments and dance to the program. Their exuberance makes audiences feel their joy, sometimes even to the point of joining in themselves. The choristers’ absence of musical training has been no great problem for me. They soon become disciplined enough to learn by rote and imitation, and now sing in four parts. Some are learning to read music. A strategy I use that works well is to place the word or syllable on the musical staff line where the note would be; this arrangement of note substitution has the bonus of helping the words stick in the memory very rapidly.

In the beginning the choir sang in Montreal Metro stations. We chose Berri-UQAM for our debut, and we were an instant success. Hurrying commuters stopped in their tracks and let two, three, four trains go by. Everyone was smiling and applauding, even crying.

I had promised each guy five dollars per concert, but on this debut occasion, each received one hundred dollars, and the next day a wonderful article came out in the Journal de Montréal. After that, invitations for the choir to appear came in steadily, and we now give 250 concerts a year, in all kinds of venues: supermarkets, churches, city hall, television shows, banks, businesses, schools, hospitals, the Old Port of Montreal. We are paid very well to sing the national anthem at hockey games at the Molson Centre.

I find French Canadians to be very musical. They sing a lot in their homes, and they play the guitar, the tambour—the drums—and harmonica. A few of the choir members like to dance, and right now I have five fine soloists. This all adds up to a varied and exciting concert. But who would have guessed that the songs they most like to sing would be hymns?

The money raised by a concert is distributed equally among all those who participated. For most, this is their only independent income. The sale of CDs also brings in some money. The profits of some concerts are donated to the Accueil Bonneau; the members were especially generous when, in June 1998, a gas explosion at the shelter killed three people and injured thirty-three. It also destroyed the building. It has since been rebuilt.

In November 1998 the choir went to France to perform in Paris and Versailles. Thanks to Air Transat, all the air travel was free. The men reached a new peak of excitement and nervousness; only one of them had been on a plane before. Everywhere they appeared they were treated like VIPs. The unusual sight of homeless men trying to better themselves endeared them to their new fans. Each day in Paris began with a seven o’clock morning show in the Auber Metro station, where in a mere two hours we earned enough money to pay for that day’s hotel bill and meals. Later in the day the choir performed in various churches and at the Canadian Embassy. When the group arrived back in Montreal two weeks later they were infused with a new confidence and pride.

In early 1999, La Chorale de l’Accueil Bonneau took on Toronto (we are indebted to VIA Rail and the Crowne Plaza Hotel for making this possible). We were invited to participate in a televised gala for the Raising the Roof fund drive, and an additional concert was sponsored by St. Andrew’s Church. Toronto homeless groups and the francophone community were invited to attend. Performers and audience alike were nervous at first, but before long, everyone was dancing in the aisles.

Then, in April 1999, I took the choristers to New York. The city swept them away, and they swept the New Yorkers away! Again, the day started with impromptu concerts in subway stations, followed by appearances later in the day at the United Nations building and the Lincoln Center.

Perhaps the men do not look very much like a choir when they perform. They wobble back and forth, some of them wearing red berets, others bandannas or baseball caps. But sing they can, with gusto and commitment. The experience of singing in the choir has helped them uncover their own gutsiness, musicianship and talent, and they are becoming consummate showmen—they are beginning to venture out to make contact with their audience. Their concerts, besides charming audiences, also break down barriers. People begin to see the homeless in a new light, as human beings who are trying to improve themselves—even better, as people who, through music, are giving something back to the community.

I founded La Chorale de l’Accueil Bonneau in the belief that music is good for the soul, and that homeless men who made music together would regain their self-confidence, dignity, and independence. My hopes have been amply borne out. The newcomers arrive with their life in a mess, the outcasts of society. Many are dependent on alcohol and drugs. Some are fragile mental patients with nowhere to go. The choir provides discipline, a new sense of order and structure, a measure of security, and a feeling of family. And income. Money in the pocket is liberating! From this new solid base, problems can be solved, and wounded spirits can heal. Everyone in the choir is an individual. I am not just the conductor, I am also a friend and a social worker. Members who get back on their feet graduate, making room for the next batch of newcomers; it is a never-ending process. Seeing it through has become my mission.

I am beginning to see another of my hopes realized: we have inspired the creation of choirs of homeless men in other cities. For a while we were unique, but now a small group of homeless men has taken the initiative and formed La Chorale de la Mie de Paris. Here in Canada, choirs are being formed in Halifax, Quebec City and (in the near future) Edmonton. I am very pleased to give this legacy to my newly adopted country.

John Barron

Iwas a loner as a child. Not by choice, but by circumstances. We lived in Trail, BC., where my brother and I had a paper route, and our time after school was spent delivering papers in the neighbourhood. Practising the piano—a lonely activity—took up a lot of time, too. I didn’t have the experience of hanging around with a crowd of kids my age, which left me shy on social and verbal skills, but also made me more independent. An aptitude test I took indicated I should become a pharmacist, but I wasn’t very excited about that.

I believe in destiny. A simple thing like going to a concert can change one’s life forever. I remember walking home alone one warm April evening when I was in grade thirteen; I had been to a concert by the men’s glee club from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, who were touring southern British Columbia. Their performance had left me spellbound, and not only by the music itself, but also by the idea that these young guys were thoroughly enjoying themselves, and making music at the same time. I longed to be part of a group, and if it was a group that made music, so much the better—for me, that would be the ideal existence. Thus was planted the seed of my musical ambitions.

A few months later, in my first year of study at the Faculty of Music Education at the University of Toronto, I had another seminal experience, this time a choral concert by the Festival Singers, conducted by Elmer Iseler. I couldn’t believe how softly the choir could sing—and the blend of the sopranos was unlike anything I had ever imagined, so perfect that they sounded like one voice. Once again, I became extraordinarily excited by the idea of being in a group that could produce anything so beautiful. It didn’t occur to me to study voice formally; I knew I was no soloist. However, following my bliss path (to use Joseph Campbell’s term), I did join the Hart House Glee Club, which was then under the direction of a brilliant musician, Rowland Pack.

In the spring of my third year I heard another concert conducted by Elmer Iseler, this one by the CBC Youth Choir. I knew now that I wanted to sing with this man. By happy coincidence, I knew one of the singers, Bill Findley (who now plays cello with the Toronto Symphony). I asked him to ask Mr. Iseler if the choir needed any tenors (silly question), and soon I got a message to come and sing at their next rehearsal. I was softly humming my part as Elmer was rehearsing the sopranos, when he suddenly stopped, turned and told whoever was humming to please stop. I couldn’t believe he could hear me! He was extremely sensitive to sound: loud fans and air-conditioning systems, which are very disruptive of soft singing, drove him crazy.

After the rehearsal I sight-read some Schutz. It was in German, which I had never studied, but fortunately it was melismatic and I had no trouble reading the notes. My piano and percussion studies had paid off. I also managed to sing a few G’s and A’s. Elmer was satisfied and asked me to join the choir. What a thrill that was—I was going to sing with Iseler’s choir and be paid $100 for every performance! I was in heaven.

I was soon singing in a small instrumental/choral ensemble as well, the Rowland Pack Chamber Singers. At my first rehearsal with them we sang Tu es Petrus, by Palestrina. I had never sung Renaissance music in the proper style before and that evening was a revelation to me. I was in awe of Rolly Pack: not only could he play (on a little portative organ he had built himself) and conduct at the same time, he could also sing any vocal part at any given instant while playing and conducting. I had heard of Bach’s ability to do that, but here it was happening before my very eyes. Rolly also had perfect pitch and I suspect he had a photographic memory as well. There is a story about Rolly rehearsing the CBC Symphony in a twentieth-century composition: the music fell on the floor as a page was being turned, but Rolly kept on playing, even though he had seen the music only once before.

One Globe and Mail review headline about Rolly read something like Rowland Pack Chamber Choir concerts are so good, even musicians attend—an incredible tribute from any reviewer, let alone the terrifying John Kraglund. In another concert we sang Rise Up, My Love, by Healey Willan, and when we finished, the audience was so moved they forgot to applaud. The silence that followed that performance was truly a religious experience. In 1963, Rolly died of Hodgkin’s disease. He was only thirty-seven, and his passing was a terrible blow to the Canadian music world.

After graduation I sang with the Festival Singers under Elmer and for a time under Lloyd Bradshaw, and also with the Mendelssohn Choir. In those years I sang a huge amount of the choral literature, and learned a great deal.

Iseler’s rehearsals were always very swift; he could get the whole picture of any piece across to the singers with impressive speed. His sound model changed over the years. At first it was Healey Willan’s church choir sound, but as professional singers were added the sound couldn’t be contained as much and the whole colour spectrum grew. He was always experimenting with sound colours and musical styles. He was not attuned to all musical styles though; I never felt he was truly comfortable with spirituals—the sound he wanted was too perfect and some soul was missing. The greatest lesson I learned from Elmer was to find the dramatic element in a piece of music. He could sense it, and his performances always felt musically right.

In 1967 I went with Iseler’s choir to sing at the White House Christmas tree lighting ceremony, which was to include the lighting of an extra tree in honour of Canada’s Centennial year. We were positioned about ten feet from President Johnson and immediately behind him. I was wearing a second-hand tuxedo, which was a fairly good fit except that the braces were loose and the right one kept falling off my shoulder. As we were saying the Lord’s Prayer, I stuck my left hand under my tux to pull my shoulder strap up. My head was bowed but I was instantly aware that about four FBI men from each side were converging on me. I realized what they must think was happening and immediately put my hands down in front of me—and prayed. Later, as we left the platform, several of them were staring rather coldly at me, but nothing was said. I bought new braces shortly after.

My conducting career had not yet begun, even though I was for a few years officially both a singer and assistant conductor with the 120-member St. George’s United Church Choir under Lloyd Bradshaw. I conducted the choir only once, in 1964 when we were touring England. Lloyd asked me to conduct Healey Willan’s Hodie Christus natus est in Gloucestershire Cathedral. I knew about the cathedral’s seven-second echo, but I wasn’t used to the sound, and I had never been in front of the choir before (and this choir had singers like Mary Lou Fallis, Glyn Evans and Ross Doddington in it). I gave the downbeat, and away we went; the tenors sang, Hodie, hodie, hodie, and then there was meant to be a three-beat silence, but the sound kept going and going. I was so overwhelmed by the echo in that immense space that I forgot to bring the choir in again. Fortunately they didn’t need me; they all came in anyway and conducted me through the rest of the piece.

In 1965 Dr. Willan called Lloyd one day and said, My dear man, look, I’m going to be short a few tenors next Sunday. Could you send some down for mass at eleven? About six of us went, and never came back—we stayed with the choir at St. Mary Magdalene Church for several years. Dr. Willan was at the end of his illustrious career, but I still managed to learn a few things from this great man. In particular, I was impressed by his sensitivity to words and poetry. Dr. Willan played the organ and the choir sang at my wedding to Lowell: he improvised (of course) the procession, all interludes and the recession. It was the finest service one could ask for, and our wedding tape is a treasure.

My conducting career began quietly in 1970 when I moved with my family—we now had a newborn daughter—to London, Ontario, to form an adult choir, the London Pro Musica—which still flourishes, though my involvement with it ended after two years when I became president of the Ontario Choral Foundation. In 1975 I conducted the Ontario Youth Choir, with Robert Cooper as my assistant. We entered two competitions: the CBC National Choral Competition and the Let the Peoples Sing international choral competition, and won both.

It had been a dream of mine to conduct a girls’ choir ever since the 1960s, when I had heard a impressive performance of Benjamin Britten’s Friday Afternoons, sung by Helen Simms’ voice students, at the Ontario Art Gallery in a beautifully resonate room with a domed ceiling. In the 1980s in London, my daughter Julie began studying voice with Brenda Zadorsky, who conducted a triple trio, in fact two of them, which she entered in the Kiwanis Music Festival. And I had a triple trio that I had started at a school where I was developing a Kodály-based music education program. In the spring of 1985, all three trios were in competition. I conducted my own and also accompanied Brenda’s (they were called the La Vox and the Amabile).

After the event we all went for an ice cream. Coincidentally there were risers set up in the mall, and all twenty-seven girls got up and sang the test piece. The sound was thrilling. Here at last was my girls’ choir! I suggested to Brenda that there was something there that was worth pursuing, and she agreed. With these girls as the nucleus, we formed the Amabile Youth Choir. Soon we had forty members. This was in September 1985, and we agreed to stay together until Christmas.

After ten weeks’ rehearsal, we gave our first public performance at a Murray Schafer symposium. The girls sang Miniwanka from memory, and I considered that if we could perform this twentieth-century piece after only ten weeks, we had a pretty good choir to work with. I accompanied Brenda’s pieces and conducted a capella works myself. Needless to say, nobody wanted to disband at Christmas, and in February we even entered the CBC choral competition. We didn’t hear who had won until months later, in September, when we were leaving for a weekend retreat; but then at last the CBC sent its congratulations. We started the new year at camp screaming our fool heads off as I read the news to the young ladies: we had won in the youth choir category, and the prize was a thousand dollars.

Compact discs were just coming on the market at the time, and after a surprise gift of $5,000 from the London Foundation we decided to make a CD, the first of six the Amabile Choir has recorded to date. We have also travelled and performed internationally (in Australia and New Zealand, the British Isles, Europe and all over North America) and won many choral awards. Two that stand out in my mind were the CBC competition in 1994, at which we won best choir in the youth category and best overall performance, of 164 competitors, and Let the Peoples Sing in 1997, at which we won in the youth category. The exciting and even terrifying part of the latter competition was that our performance was broadcast live via satellite to hundreds of thousands of listeners in Europe.

During all these years, beginning in 1972, I was music consultant to the Middlesex County Board of Education. My colleagues and I set up a system that put a music specialist in each elementary school, and music classes were given two, three and sometimes four times in a sixday cycle. Working with other music instructors, I also wrote eight Music Programme Planning Guides, one for each grade level, containing songs and other musical materials suited to children in that grade, a student’s songbook for each grade, and a teacher’s handbook containing all the wisdom I had gained in 1976–78 in Kecskemét, Hungary, where I went to study the Kodály philosophy of music. These books formed the core of the music education program in the county, which for a few years was recognized as one of the finest in the country.

Unfortunately, after my retirement in 1996, the education policy of the Province of Ontario changed and the system was allowed to decline. Board music consultants were returned to the classroom or not replaced on retirement; there are now only one or two rare examples of music specialists left in Ontario. Our program planning guidebooks have been shredded, and only a few survive. Elementary music education (kindergarten to grade six) at my former board is now taught by the classroom teacher. In my view, this will set the cause of music education back forty years.

However, a book I wrote called Ride with Me: A Journey from Unison to Part-Singing and a series of part-singing arrangement of Canadian folk songs that I commissioned and edited, called Reflections of Canada, are both still in use in schools across Canada, and both adhere to the Kodály philosophy.

Interestingly enough, the decline in school systems all over North America has led to a rapid expansion in community children’s choirs. The Amabile Choirs are a good example. In the short span of fifteen years we have bloomed from the dream of two conductors who wanted to form one youth choir to an internationally known ensemble of seven choirs, six conductors, five accompanists, 180 dedicated singers and 300 excited parents. In addition, since 1990 the organization has fostered Canadian composing as well, commissioning thirty new works from Stephen Hatfield (our composer in non-residence); Stephen’s innovative multicultural compositions have become part of the repertoire of choirs around the world.

Another important area of choral development is summer programs or camps. Such programs have existed for many years but lately they have been needed more than ever, to fill the gap left by the school systems. In Nova Scotia, for example, where I conducted the Youth Choir Summer Camp (1999), at Berwick, kids return year after year to sing and renew friendships with others they haven’t seen for a year. That single week is the one exciting choral experience they will have all year and many can’t wait to return again and again. In this as in my other musical endeavours I feel privileged to have been able to help children in my community to love, as I do, choral music-making.

Ged Blackmore

Iwas born in Grand Falls, Newfoundland, in the central part of the province. My father was a pioneer in the printing business, for Grand Falls was a paper town (the production of newsprint was a brand-new industry in Newfoundland at the time). He started a little print shop down in the back of the house, and ended up running a newspaper, for which my mother served as editor for over thirty years. She was also a community activist and was well ahead of her time, in the sense that she was not the traditional stay-at-home mother of the time.

As a young single woman, she had come to Grand Falls to take up a job in adult education. Her students were older people, mainly men, a large number of whom were illiterate. Her assignment was to teach evening classes, and she taught them all to read and write. She was one of the biggest influences in my life—and certainly my musical life. She had actually finished school and gone to university (not entirely common at the time for women), and she was extraordinarily gifted musically. For years she studied piano with the Sisters of Mercy, and in 1924 she won the Victoria Medal.

All five of us children went to convent schools up to grade nine. I started playing the piano in kindergarten; the nuns gave us individual tutoring throughout the school day and their approach was very disciplined. They were equally thorough in the teaching of music theory, and they ran a strong choral program, thus laying the foundation for the outstanding choral achievement in Newfoundland today. These nuns deserve recognition for the preservation of music in Newfoundland, beyond a doubt.

I progressed through years of Trinity College of Music examinations. The examiners from London would travel annually all over the Commonwealth. I performed well, but lacked the competitive spirit and I wasn’t particularly good at sight-reading (but was good at playing by ear).

I was good enough to play at the Kiwanis Festivals, though, and the one in 1955 leads to a Sir Ernest MacMillan story. It was at St. John’s when I was in grade eight; I had prepared a piece by Haydn, and a piece by Beethoven. Getting Sir Ernest over from Toronto to adjudicate was a real coup. For two weeks he had to listen to all these little kids playing for him, day in and day out, including me. When all forty-six kids in my division had performed, he invited three people to play again—and I was one of them! My mother was aghast when I mumbled, Why can’t this man make up his mind, why should we have to play twice? Later, I met him again in the dining room of the old Newfoundland Hotel and he said to me, I believe you have a remarkable ability to play the piano. Have you ever considered following a career in this? I muttered something in reply, and then he asked, I wonder if I could get you to play for me after supper? I paused, then replied, Well, actually, I’m playing again on Thursday, and he said, Okay. My mother was surprised I hadn’t jumped at the chance; I think she saw it as a lost opportunity. I did end up getting a fifty-dollar scholarship. But those competitions did little for me. I did not have a musically competitive bone in my body then and still don’t today. I think music should stand on its own merits.

When I hit high school, I started playing in a dance band, much to my mother’s