DIRECTOR LED COAL MINERS’ CHOIR FOR 50 YEARS

A musician and teacher who served for 50 years as director of the well-known Cape Breton choir Men of the Deeps is being remembered for preserving the culture of coal miners through song. John (Jack) O’Donnell died Thursday in Antigonish, N.S., at 83. Former miners who sang for him say while O’Donnell was trained in piano and Gregorian chant, he was also a down-to-earth lead- er who gained a passion for collecting and arranging songs about the lives of the sootcovered men who made their living underground. The choir performed in their coveralls, workboots and hard hats with traditional miner’s lamps, in venues that have ranged from community centres across Canada to such platforms as Massey Hall.