Singing songs of Canada
Bonachords, Jubilaires offer an afternoon of homegrown music
Early May is concert season across the country. Choirs of different shapes, sizes and levels of musical expertise offer up the spring programs they have been practicing all winter and beg the favour of a listening audience in their various communities. You should know that choir members are lucky souls. They experience weekly, if not more frequently, the sheer joy of singing and the camaraderie of sharing in the music together, however complicated the scores might be. They also know the magic and pleasure of presenting a great lineup of songs to their listeners.
‘My’ choir is an example. Our collective joy in spring emerges publicly both in our spring concert on May 7 and our chance to offer sing-outs at three retirement homes around Peterborough. We are called The Bonachords and, with our sister choir The Jubilaires, we are trained and conducted by Arlene Gary and accompanied by Laurel Robinson-Lachance. We’d be lost without our two very talented leaders. We know their value as we measure the growth we undergo from the moment we receive our music in January to the time we perform the program in May.
This year being the sesquicentennial anniversary of Canada, “our home and native land” (as we have been taught to sing), the Bonachords and Jubilaires have a really interesting program for May 7th. We are calling it “Canada150, eh?” and are offering a wide range of Canadian songs — folk songs, popular songs, forgotten songs, regional classics, anthems, you name it. Let me tell you about them and suggest that you might want to come and hear us sing them on May 7.
I remember as a little guy being enraptured by music on the radio. We had no television then, though there were a few popping up in our neighbourhood. Harry Chapin has written of that listening experience in one of his wonderful songs — “Remember when the music / came from wooden boxes strung with silver wire, / And as we sang the words, / it would set our minds on fire / For we believed in things, and so we’d sing… ”
I remember those days well; indeed, one of our songs takes me back powerfully to my boyhood years. It’s an old Manitoba folk song called The Red River Valley. It grabs my heartstrings each time we sing “From this valley they say you are going, / we will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile; / For they say you are taking the sunshine /that brightens our path for a-while.” The harmonies are warm, sinuous, and lingering. Harmonica riffs help to create and sustain the mood. It’s also splendid to imagine oneself (or remember oneself ) as “the cowboy who loved you so true.” That’s imagination for you, at work in a Toronto living room.
The Red River Valley is a simple love song to be sure, but it is also a loving tribute to a Manitoba valley and the great prairie west of which it is part. Our program concentrates in part on the many beauties of the Canadian landscape. It takes the listener across our vast and scenic country. We go from coast to coast. First, it is the west with The Red River Valley, two Ian Tyson songs--Four Strong Winds and Springtime in Alberta--as well as with Alan Moberg’s vigorous and swinging rodeo song, at the Williams Lake Stampede and Paul Gross’s powerful anthem, Ride Forever, a tribute to man’s need to stay active and strong as he ages. Gross wrote the song for the television show Due South and our own Tim Rowat sings it with particular gusto. You will likely have a hard time not singing along—in fact, we welcome such participation!
We celebrate our Atlantic coasts (there are several) with rollicking tunes like Lots o’ Fish in Bonavist Harbor, another folk song—this time from Newfoundland; Stan Rogers’ delightful love song, down in Fogarty’s Cove (Nova Scotia); Leon Dubinsky’s We Rise Again (a stirring Cape Breton classic made famous by The Rankin Family); James Rankins’ plaintive Fare Thee Well, Love; and two of Allister MacGillivray’s great Cape Breton compositions Song for the Mira and Song for Peace.
Quebec is represented by Ah! Si mon moine voulait dancer and, in a stretch, Leonard Cohen’s phenomenally popular anthem Hallelujah. Ontario gets a mixed look with Wade Hemsworth’s Black Fly Song; Trent University grad Ian Tamblyn’s Woodsmoke and Oranges; Stompin Tom Connors’ The Hockey Song; and Gordon Lightfoot’s version of Pussy Willows, Cattails. The chorus of Tamblyn’s Lake Superior ‘canoe’ song is quintessential Canadian— “In the land of the silver birch / Cry of the loon / There’s somethin’ about this country / It’s part of me and you.” As you can see, the concert offers a compelling range of moods, melodies and cultural insights; there are songs of heartbreak, songs of joy, and songs that capture a deep love of place.
The program also includes two Canadian railway songs that were new to me; but they are brilliant nonetheless. Lightfoot’s railroad trilogy is far too long for concert purposes, but Canadian Pacific by Ray Griff is a keeper. It reads in part--“Canadian Pacific / carry me three thousand miles; / thru the valleys and the forests / to the sunshine of your smile” and is, as the musical instructions read, to be sung in a “lively” manner.
Then there is Dave Baker’s Royal Hudson, another song sung with “locomotive energy” that celebrates the Hudson steam-powered train (#2850) that took King George VI and the queen from Quebec across Canada. It was the first time a reigning monarch had come to Canada, and the King, who was himself a railroad buff, was so pleased by the trip that he invited the CPR to rename the Hudson engine the Royal Hudson. Because diesel engines replaced the fleet of Hudsons and Royal Hudsons in the 1950s, we need to be reminded of this important part of our evolving history.
Patriotic moments will not be lacking. In addition to our national anthem, we present three old favorites. First up is All the Little Rivers of Canada. Then Alexander Muir’s The Maple Leaf Forever. Muir was a late-nineteenth-century, now forgotten poet whose famous line still rings strongly for many Canadians — “Within my heart, above my home, / The Maple Leaf forever!” And finally Freddy Grant’s They All Call it Canada (But I call it home).”
We always include a special guest, and this May it is a performer many of you will know. It’s the versatile and talented Bob Trennum. He will provide harmonica and guitar backup for the choirs and will sing two songs—his own beautiful Stoney Lake and Oscar Brand’s Something to Sing About. Mary Taves also joins us on the recorder and percussion.
We think that the whole concert is something to sing about — and you are invited. It takes place at Murray Street Baptist Church on Sunday May 7 at 2:30 pm. Tickets are only $20 and proceeds go to meet costs and to keep the Bonachords and Jubilaires singing into the future!