June 2000 - Nr. 6
Views and Reviews
by Alidë Kohlhaas
The joy of music-making shone on the faces of about 400 youngsters, who graced Roy Thomson Hall’s stage on April 28. There to take part in the Millennium Hymn for Youth Project presented by Music Canada Musique 2000, they came from schools across the GTA to celebrate music in all its variations. They attested to the vital role music education plays in every child’s life.
The Millennium Children’s Choir and the Millennium Youth Choir sang popular, folk and classical songs. In the finale they joined with the OISE/UT Brass and Percussion Ensemble to present the world premiere of Victor Mio’s Millennium Hymn for Youth, its text based on Rudyard Kipling’s rousing and very fitting "Land of our Birth". Others taking part in this worthy endeavour were the O’Neill and Fanfare Brass Quintets, Brooks Road Orff Drumming and Movement Ensemble, North York Flute Ensemble, Stradivari Strings, and Jazz Lab.
With me at the concert was a 14-year-old Grade 8 student from Germany, who had spent his three-week Easter vacation auditing a Canadian Grade 8 class to improve his English. He was enthralled by the concert. Days earlier he had expressed amazement that "here music is taught on real instruments." Now he witnessed the result. His enthusiasm bubbled over when a group of elementary school moppets called the Dunbar Stompin’ Sixes made music with great fun and finesse on such found objects as trash cans, metal pipes, plastic wash basins, etc.
The concert, the brainchild of luminaries Nicholas Goldschmidt and Walter Pitman, was the final push he needed to voice his desire to come to Canada for a full high school year. Surely, no greater compliment could have been paid to the young performers, and to our school system.
And
while on the subject of music, let me rhapsodize on a new CD brought out by
CBC Records, Maureen Forrester, Grande Dame of Song. The first nine
songs are taken from a rare and highly prized CBC transcription recording
made in 1968 with the contralto’s long-time accompanist, John Newmark. The
remaining 10 feature Thomas Muraco on piano, and songs 10 and 11 also
violist Rivka Golani. They are from a live concert of Brahms music recorded
in 1981. Placed together on a CD they are a superb showcase for Miss
Forrester’s vocal artistry.
Newmark, born in 1904 in Bremen, came to Canada via England as a war internee with many other German émigrés, such as writer Erich Koch and impresario Walter Homburger. Like them, he stayed to enrich our cultural lives. Likely to him Miss Forrester owes her flawless German pronunciation as she sings songs by Johannes Brahms, and Richard Wagner’s Wesendonk Lieder. Her enunciation and her warmly coloured voice, all the more beautiful because of the emotional depth she brings to each song, make this a most pleasurable album to listen to, and a "must have" treasure. [Maureen Forrester, Grande Dame of song, CBC Records, Millennium Series, PSCD 2017, (416) 205-3498]
Music of a different nature, but no less beautiful is The Angels Still Sing, with words and music by Fr. Mark Curtis. It garnered this remarkable priest, who over 25 years has produced 10 recordings, his first running nomination for a Juno.
Until I heard this album I knew Fr. Mark’s fine voice only through services at Milton’s Holy Rosary Church services, and lately at services at St. Simon’s Anglican Church in Oakville, where he is now an associate priest. His striking tenor adds something extraordinary to the service; on his CD it captivates and uplifts you with his deeply expressive songs.
His lyrics speak of the love for God, for life, and for that special someone in his life, his wife, Rita Albin-Curtis. The songs are varied in style, sometimes gentle, sometimes upbeat, and never boring. They invite one to sing or hum along.
Ms Albin-Curtis, who is her husband’s agent among many other activities, was named a Woman of the Year in May at a gala sponsored by the Women’s Information and Support Centre of Halton. And, just for interest, she is of part German descent, and can speak the language.
To hear Fr. Mark sing, why not attend the outdoor benefit
concert in support of Rose Cherry’s Home, a children’s hospice, to be
held June 11 at the Sladek residence in Acton, (519)853-5288, or ticket
information at (905) 876-3379 or (905) 876-1084.
[And the Angels Still Sing, WordSong Communications, 420 Main St. E., #496,
Milton, ON L9T 5G3)
Anne
of Green Gables is for many the first introduction to life in Canada. This
red-haired, independent-minded little orphan has endeared herself around the
world as no other children’s book heroine has. A new book of writings by
scholars, authors, and journalists from Canada, the USA, Britain and Japan, L.M.
Montgomery and Canadian Culture, dwells on Montgomery’s contribution
to Canadian culture. These writings analyze, dissect, and positively
acknowledge her work as being not just children’s fiction, but a social
history by a writer who, like no other of her time, expressed Canadian
values that to this day inform the world of who we are.
Adrienne Clarkson, now our Governor General, admitted in the book’s foreword that "L.M. Montgomery’s world gave me an extended family that taught me about the rivalries of Tory and Grit, Protestant and Catholic, in a highly microscopic way; it was a background, a heritage that I gained literarily and that made my becoming Canadian very easy and attractive." As it was for her, so Anne of Green Gables was a blueprint for my integration into Canadian society, though I had an added advantage, Canadian relatives, who helped to ease my way.
If Anne’s world had meaning to you in your early days, you will enjoy this book. While it is on the scholarly side, it also offers interviews and lively personal reflections by Margaret Atwood and other writers and journalists. [L.M. Montgomery and Canadian Culture, University of Toronto Press, 267 pages]
What does Ortona mean to the average Canadian? Nothing, I venture to guess, although in December 1943 it made headlines in newspapers across North America and Britain as being a "Little Stalingrad". Farley Mowat wrote about this Italian town on the Adriatic in his book, And No Bird Sang. Now Mark Zuehlke has told the full story of the battle for Ortona. It cost 502 Canadian lives, 1837 wounded, and accounts for another 166 missing, as well as about 1,600 casualties due to severe illnesses caused by the circumstances of this month-long military action. It’s a worthy story told with compassion, insight, and considerable colour. It gives a view from both sides of the battle, and it lets those in-between, the civilians, speak to great effect. [Ortona: Canada’s Epic World War II Battle, Mark Zuehlke, Stoddart, 443 pages, $40.00].
Comments to: alide@echoworld.com
