Orchestra tells Amanda Todd story
The story of Port Coquitlam teen Amanda Todd, who was driven to suicide in 2012 by cyber bullying, harassment and exploitation, is the inspiration for a National Arts Centre Orchestra work slated for a one-night-only performance in Vancouver Thursday.
The 10-minute piece, titled My Name is Amanda Todd, is part of Life Reflected, a multimedia production inspired by the lives of four Canadian women that has toured the country for months. The piece made its debut in 2016.
For Carol Todd, Amanda’s mother, Thursday’s performance holds particular importance.
“Amanda’s come home,” Todd said earlier this week.
Todd said she has watched the performance in several cities, and each time she sees it, she is moved to tears. In part, it is the way in which Amanda is positioned by the piece — as a female who stands in the company of the other subjects of Life Reflected — astronaut Roberta Bondar, poet Rita Joe, and writer Alice Munro.
“It still makes me sit back and go ‘wow.’ When I see the posters and I see the performance and talk about it, it continues to stun me that Amanda’s story has created this kind of forward movement. That her voice is important now to be told.”
Amanda committed suicide shortly after posting a YouTube video that detailed bullying and sexual extortion she experienced.
Todd said she had been involved in the NAC production since 2015, but she initially had concerns that it was not going to work. So, too, did Vancouver-based composer Jocelyn Morlock. But then the two sat down for tea.
Morlock recalled that meeting in an interview.
“I did not want to be writing a requiem for a 15-year-old girl. I didn’t want to just be reliving the horror of that,” Morlock said.
“When I met Carol it was a really transformative moment. I realized how positive she was. She is my hero. She lives through her daughter killing herself five years ago — lives through this every day — in order to help other people.”
For Morlock, seeing Amanda’s story as that of a brave young woman who shared her story of bullying on the internet — “the very platform that had been used to hurt her” — transformed the project in her mind. She described
her composition as “emotionally direct music” that starts off as something of a lament, climaxes in sorrow, then becomes something positive.
It was Alexander Shelley who came up with the idea of a piece on Amanda’s life. For the NAC music director, Amanda’s story has become part of the tapestry of Canada.
“Amanda’s story stood out because of the great sensitivity around the subject, the fact that it was so recent, the fact that we’re talking about a young girl here.
“But it also is a very important part of our world nowadays … young people are so interconnected and bullying has always existed but it takes new forms,” Shelley said.
The production melds together 21st century graphic art and technology, photography, film, dance, word and music, and it appeals to a broad audience, Shelley said.
“What I do know is that we have a certain audience for Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Mozart in our halls, and that’s great. But I constantly see that there are these very curious, educated and engaged young people who go to galleries, theatres, experimental projects and pop-up shows who are out there saying, ‘what’s going on at the moment?’ … That’s what this is.”
Aydin Coban, 38, of The Netherlands faces charges in Canada in connection to Amanda Todd’s death that include extortion, possession of child pornography and attempting to lure a child online.