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Canadian Rhapsody
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Sybille Forster-Rentmeister
The highlight of the first part of the evening followed, a commission from the Tuerr Family about Anne Tuerr’s life, starting with happy beginnings 1927 in the region of Banat, Yugoslavia, a 200 year old settlement of the Danube Swabians. In 1944 Anne was taken, as were many of her country folks, in cattle cars to the Ukraine, where she suffered unspeakable hardships, yet somehow managed to survive with the help of her faith. After 3 years of hard labour under catastrophic living conditions she was sent to Frankfurt an der Oder and then to Vienna, where she managed to reunite with some of her family, the part that had not perished in the war. Shortly thereafter, through much more hardship she arrived in Canada, where she met her husband Paul Tuerr. They married after all financial obligations had been cleared away and enjoyed a long and happy marriage with several children until Anne’s death in 2005.
Anne’s philosophy put into very simple words is valid no matter who is concerned, here or anywhere else in the world: "We should never forget our dead, but for the sake of our children we must forget and get on with our lives to build a better world, a world without hate, a world with peace." This theme as the leitmotif threads through the entire composition repetitively, less we forget its importance. The Musicians Drawing on classical examples of dramatic choral works Mr. Kunz managed to give this work a unique and Canadian flavour that transcends time effortlessly by including more avant-garde harmonies, slightly reminiscent of Orff’s works at some point, which adds tremendous drama to the story telling, actually underlining the importance of those passages. The composition was very well received and left a deep impression on the audience. After this moving performance it was most fitting to hear the Youth and Children’s Millenium division sing and play something really Canadian. Musical reflections of Hockey, Eskimo Lullaby, Spirit of the Sun, Do not weep, and Donkey Riding delighted everyone. Soloists of the Choirs
After an intermission we heard another commissioned work and it was all about Canada. The evening’s narrator was none other then Michael W. Higgins, who is leaving with his wife Krystyna, the participating choirs’ accompanist, to head up a University in Fredericton. He had asked Alfred Kunz, artistic director of this fantastic evening, to compose Canadian Portraits, of which there are three: Emily Carr a painter identified with painting our countries very soul. William Kurelek, prairie painter and illustrator of Ukrainian decent, who painted quaint and sometimes disturbing images of all our heritages. Bejamin Chee Chee, native Canadian artist extraordinaire! His Canada geese reflect the spirituality natural to our First Nation People.
This would have been a good time to end the concert, but
when so much work goes into a project so much wants to be said and shown and
shared.
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