Boy battling leukemia conducts symphony
A seven-year-old Grande Prairie boy battling leukemia realized a dream with conducting the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra playing the national anthem at Monday’s performance of Candy Cane Christmas at the Winspear Centre.
The ESO has been working closely with Ronald McDonald House to make Jordan Cartwright’s dream of conducting an orchestra come to life. This was the first time someone as young as Jordan has conducted the orchestra.
“This is a totally new venture for us,” said Janice Moore with the Winspear and ESO.
Jordan was diagnosed with highrisk stage 4 leukemia nine months ago and moved into Ronald McDonald House with his family. During his treatment, he took an interest in music after being visited by a music therapist. After he wrote a song, which the therapist then sang for him, staff started to take notice.
Ronald McDonald House began working with the orchestra to make special arrangements for Jordan.
“They just did one thing after another,” said father Scott Cartwright. “It just turned into a snowball effect of love.”
Jordan wore a pint-sized tuxedo for rehearsal Monday afternoon. He said he wasn’t nervous, although he did admit afterward to having been worried about making mistakes.
For his father, the most important part is his son getting a break from hospitals and treatment.
“For a little while our son gets to forget that he’s got cancer,” he said.
Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson made an appearance at the rehearsal and awarded Jordan with an official letter of welcome to the City of Edmonton.
Their hotel room, provided free of charge at the Fairmont Hotel Macdonald, was filled with Christmas gifts and letters when they arrived from Grande Prairie on a flight courtesy of Air Canada.
The past two years have been particularly hard on the Cartwright family, who lost their Westlock home to a fire nine months before Jordan’s diagnosis. “We didn’t have any insurance, so we lost everything,” said Scott Cartwright.
The family then moved to Grande Prairie where Jordan’s younger sister, Hope, was born a few months later.
Ronald McDonald House has helped the kids keep up with school through an in-house teacher.
“When we walked through the doors there, it was the most welcoming, love-filled house I’ve ever been to,” said Scott Cartwright. “Everything about that house has changed me forever. They’re the best group of people I’ve ever met.”