IN REMEMBRANCE
Ottawa composer sets veteran’s famous poem to music
Ottawa composer Elise Letourneau was surfing through poems a few years ago when she came across a wartime piece written by a Canadian veteran.
Prayer For Victory was written in a Montreal hotel room in 1942 by Maj. Richard Diespecker, a British-born journalist and broadcaster who spent most of his career in British Columbia before serving in the army. He died in San Francisco in 1973. It was considered his most famous work, and was broadcast on radio stations around the world.
Inspired by the poem’s call for a better world, Letourneau spent more than a year setting the text to music, creating parts for a choir, two vocal soloists, piano and a small ensemble. The extended vocal work, titled Salute to Service, will be launched Sunday when the Canadian Centennial Choir performs it for the first time. The world première also features soprano Rebecca Noelle, baritone Lee Carter and pianist Jenna Richards. A recording will be available, too. The concert, which opens the choir’s 52nd season, also includes Ēriks Ešenvalds’ Only In Sleep and selected hits from the 1940s.
In this edited interview, the 52-year-old composer and music teacher talks about the poem, finding her path as a composer and the personal significance of Remembrance Day.
Q How did you discover
Prayer For Victory?
A I was surfing (the internet) and I probably put in the right combination of keywords that led me to it. I love poetry and I spend a lot of time reading, and tend to file poems away when they strike me as pieces I’d like to spend time with. I do believe every poem contains the seeds of its own music. They might not be there for me to find but they’re there for somebody to find. This particular poem spoke to me and I wanted to set it.
Q What drew you to it?
A The imagery, the tone. I found it really inviting, and it seemed to speak to everybody, not just to veterans. It interprets victory as being stewards of peace rather than winners of battle, and I think that speaks to everybody, both in Canada and on the planet.
Q How do you get started on a project like this?
A I think the starting place for me is always to read the text aloud to myself in full voice because I don’t think poetry fully lives until it’s read out loud, fully spoken. And also when you speak it and feel the physicality of delivering it, you hear inflections of the rhythm of different vowel sounds. The sounds of the words start to suggest their music, at least to me.
Q Did you envision it as a full-choir piece right away?
A Oh yeah. Actually I envisioned it even bigger but then I had to say, ‘OK, what’s realistically possible?’ I knew the piece was going to get written because I received an Ontario Arts Council grant to record it … But I knew I wanted to write the piece anyway, even without a grant.
Q What brought the Canadian Centennial Choir into it?
A Lots of choirs would love to première a piece but they don’t necessarily get the grants to do that, and I’m a composer who has a piece that needs a première so somewhere there’s going to be a good match. The first person I reached out to was Marg Stubington (music director, Canadian Centennial Choir) and I was absolutely thrilled when she said yes. They’ve sung some of my other pieces, and I think the world of Marg. It was a natural fit.
Q Were there challenges in creating this piece?
A I found myself wishing I could talk to the poet. I found myself wishing I could connect with him because I found the words so beautiful. I know many veterans don’t want to talk about the specifics of their experience, and I don’t know if I want to hear about that but I just found the poem so evocative, I wanted to hear more.
Q Tell me a bit about your path to becoming a composer.
A I’m sure there are as many different ways to become a composer as there are composers. But for me, I was lucky to receive music lessons as a kid. I was one of those kids who spent just as much if not more time noodling, as piano teachers like to call it, as I did on my actual assignments. I was always making stuff up at the piano, and trying to figure out how to write it down, and then getting out a cassette and recording it. When I got to university, I found myself taking all the writing courses. I couldn’t get enough of them.
Q Are there challenges in being a female composer?
A There are things I could dwell on, if I chose to, but I was fortunate to have some really fabulous mentors. When I was coming up through the ranks, one of the best bits of advice I ever received, and I don’t want to minimize the experience for women in music — the issues are real — but one of the best bits of advice I received was, ‘Elise, you are going to be loved and successful and respected for what you do because of what you are, not because of what you’re not. You’re a woman and a composer and a musician.’ That stuck with me. I would just turn around and give that advice right back to any of my female students.
Q Does Remembrance Day have special significance for you?
A Four generations of my family have served, from the First World War to the present day, so it honours them personally. But also, I’m female, I’m an artist, I’m Canadian-born, and I express myself artistically without fear. Not all women on the planet have that privilege. I direct a women’s choir, and I’ve had women in my choir from time to time saying they’re so glad they found the choir because in their country, they would be punished for singing. That blows my mind.