There’s nothing like a working holiday for anyone who has ever sung in a choir. Touring choirs are a summertime tradition in many Western countries — and Canada is no exception.
Among this year’s travellers are the Choir of St Thomas’s Church in Toronto, who are having a very grand time of it — having sung for three days at Canterbury Cathedral earlier this week. They set up tomorrow at St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle before going to Westminster Abbey next week.
As impressive (and fun for the choristers) as this is, there is some very important missionary work going on at the same time.
Yes, a Toronto choir is gracing some very significant religious sites. More importantly, though, the hundreds of locals and tourists from all parts of the world who happen to be in these buildings while the choir is singing are getting to hear the work of Canadian composers.
On Wednesday at Canterbury Cathedral, for example, the choir sang an anthem by Toronto composer Derek Holman — O Lord, Support Us All the Day Long.
That it is being heard by ears who would otherwise not have been touched by Canadian music is significant — and something we can’t really put through a cost-benefit analysis.
As St Thomas chorister Julia Armstrong wrote in her blog post from the road, the progress of a piece of music from pen to person is unpredictable:
Derek Holman was a friend of the late Canadian Opera Company artistic director Richard Bradshaw. When Bradshaw died suddenly in 2007, this anthem was first sung at the funeral. Richard Bradshaw’s son sang as a boy chorister at the Church of St. Simon-the-Apostle in Toronto, where Dr. Holman was organist and choirmaster of a very fine men and boys choir for many years. In fact, all four of [St Thomas music director] John and Diana Tuttle’s sons sang as boys at St. Simon’s.
The Toronto choir Cantores Fabularum performed the anthem next, in a concert featuring several works by Derek Holman, conducted by Elizabeth Anderson (St. Thomas’s organ scholar). Derek asked John Tuttle if he might be interested in having a copy, and it has come to be a favourite anthem in the St. Thomas’s repertoire.
How many other pieces could become favourites somewhere, given the opportunity to be performed and heard?
John Terauds