‘I DID IT FOR PEACE’
Ousted Tenor goes solo
If you’re still wondering why singer Remigio Pereira veered from the script during a high-profile performance by his former group, The Tenors, his response is contained in the first new song of his postTenors solo career.
“I did it for love, I did it for peace,” croons Pereira in a rich, velvety voice brimming with emotion. In the arty black-and-white official video, he accompanies himself on grand piano, illuminated by a single candle.
“That’s the answer,” said the 43-year-old Boston-born musician who grew up in the Ottawa area. “I did it for peace. We live in a world that has lost a lot of empathy. I think we (have to) find it within ourselves to find the love that we were born into. We’re not hateful beings; hate is something that is learned.”
The song was written “in the middle of the chaos” Pereira found himself in two summers ago after he decided to deliver a message during The Tenors’ performance of O Canada at the Major League Baseball all-star game in San Diego. It was a surprise to his bandmates when Pereira changed the French lyrics during his solo turn. He sang, “We’re all brothers and sisters. All lives matter to the great,” and held up a sign that read “All Lives Matter.”
Widely interpreted as a rejection of the Black Lives Matter movement, the phrase ignited a storm of outrage on social media, and Pereira was soon fired from the quartet amid accusations of racism. The others distanced themselves from him and continued to perform as a trio, leaving Pereira to deal with the fallout, which included a litany of death threats.
Pereira feels his former bandmates cast a political shadow on his message, which was not intended as a political statement.
“Life is not political,” he says. “Every life is important. Every single life. I’m also a vegan, and for me, ‘all lives matter’ was a term that came at the turn of the century to give voices to the animals. I’m always going to stand up for life, for those who don’t have a voice, for the animals.”
Not long after the incident, he was at home in the Niagara region when the song came to him during a thunderstorm.
“The power went out, so I lit a candle and sat at the piano,” he recalls. “I didn’t know what I was going to do. I just sat there and started playing. I played, I sang and I didn’t even know what it was.”
Like many musicians, Pereira likes to capture his creative process, and was recording the impromptu session on his phone. “Three weeks later, I went back and listened to it, and the whole song was there, complete, from beginning to end,” he says. “I didn’t change a note, didn’t change a word. It all came out the way you hear it.
“It was right in the middle of the storm of fury that was going on in my life. It felt like some kind of divine force that came right through me. I didn’t do anything. I sat and sang and played. That’s never happened to me before.”
I Did It For Peace is the first song of an album that is expected to be released by February. Pereira has been working on it in his home studio for a year, doing it all himself, from writing and performing to engineering.
He has a lot to write about, he says, not the least of which is the sense of betrayal he felt when he was forced out of The Tenors after 10 years, cast off without an income to pay his mortgage or child support.
“I’m a 25 per cent owner of a company that I have no control over,” he says, noting that lawyers are involved. “I’m not asking for anything out of this world. I just want to be treated fairly.”
He’s also hurt that his musical “brothers” didn’t stand up for him against the accusations of racism.
The eighth and youngest child born to Portuguese immigrants, Pereira’s family moved to Gatineau when he was six months old. He grew up in a multicultural environment speaking three languages, and hung out with friends of “every race and creed and religion.”
A competitive hockey player until he was 14, Pereira didn’t discover the power of his voice until he was a student at the University of Ottawa. He had been taking guitar lessons, loved hard rock and metal and worked at the HMV music store in Rideau Centre for seven years.
A couple of music-student friends persuaded him to sing opera for them, and he was so shy he insisted on singing from a bathroom stall at the university. He made up a song about fettuccine alfredo — the first Italian words that came into his mind — and was surprised when it made them cry. Eventually, Pereira began lessons with Ottawa’s Laurence Ewashko, who brought him into the Opera Lyra chorus, and then Maria Pellegrini, the celebrated Ottawa soprano. In 2006, Pereira was one of the founding members of The Canadian Tenors, as the quartet was originally called, its members brought together by Victoriabased composer Jill Ann Siemens to play lush versions of pop songs and light classical numbers.
As the Tenors, remaining members Clifton Murray, Fraser Walters and Victor Micallef continue to perform around the world.