Peterborough is a city filled with music

Is absolutely everyone in this city, maybe in this country, singing? For a weekend in May, it felt like that. And this summary doesn’t even capture the night scene: coffee houses and pubs and jazz places and rooftops.

It covers just choral music: for large group enthusiasts who have some training, an ability to carry a tune, a love of the voice and the benefit of astute, charming directors.

I used to live in a culture where one heard singing daily on the streets and yards. Even on public transport. People moved about in a personal world they were creating, one of joy or often, of grief and lament, expressing it all with human voice and body rhythm and a lack of embarrassment.

Here in Canada, on the other hand, we value as much silence as we can get Or we listen to other voices singing on our many technical devices. It may seem that the art and pleasure of the spontaneous song are being lost.

But maybe, not so. The kids, the young ones, hum and chirp all around. And for the Peterborough concert-goer, it’s been a gold mine.

The combined choirs of the Jubilaires for women and the Bonachords for men gave a rousing and patriotic public concert at Murray Street Baptist Church in May. The afternoon event was entitled “150,Eh?” and featured the gifted conductor Arlene Gray, who selected the songs and then commented wittily on the genesis of each.

True to the spirit of Canadiana, we heard Lots of Fish in Bonavist’ Harbour, and Fare Thee Well, Love from Newfoundland, Song for the Mira from Nova Scotia and even the Stoney Lake song sung by popular folksinger Bob Trennum. We crossed the country to include Ian Tyson’s Springtime in Alberta, and the traditional Red River Valley.

There was acknowledgement of the indigenous land ,and a francophone song.

Nobody was having more fun than the 100 singers. Afterwards, Mike Peterman, who writes in these pages, said “I had to give up hockey but I took up singing!”.

Of course, via northern Ontario came Stompin Tom’s The Hockey Song. Words were displayed so we could all join in lustily. Images of this vast and varied country were projected in large screens. Accompanying the two groups is an accomplished musician, Laurel Robinson-Lachance.

The was the very day after George Street United Church was filled to capacity to hear the Peterborough Singers, 100 more Peterburians of talent, under the direction of Syd Birrell, offer several Mozart arias and a full rendition of his haunting “Requiem” mass.

Music captures what we intuit but are often unable to express verbally. Love of land, hope for the future, grief for loss, and gratitude for the environment. Even a happy birthday wish. These were all in the air in our community this spring.

So, riding high on popular and classical music, and as my personal Canada 150 project, I took the plunge and bought a ticket to Toronto to the Canadian Opera Company’s production of the opera Louis Riel.

A mighty new rendition of the 50-yearold composition about the Metis rebel in western Canada in 1880, a hero to many, Louis Riel, it was staged by the COC and directed by John Hinton in the glorious glass building on Queen Street called the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.

The work was controversial from the beginning. Indigenous people found it unfair in its depiction of Riel as a villain. Hinton brought in fresher perspectives with the addition of a kind of Greek chorus of indigenous voices.

Riel was ultimately hanged by the colonial government for treason.

For an opera ingenue like me, it was good the words were projected, in three languages above the stage: English, French and Cree.

I can’t hum you a tune, but I learned a lot.