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INTERVIEW WITH 3 CANADIAN CHORAL COMPOSERS

periences found in the music of younger people and tion to each Canadian piece; they instantly related to
composers coming from diverse backgrounds. the music, understood it, and reacted positively. The
spaciousness of our country, the high skies, the open-
WASHBURN: Right now, fresh into retirement, I’m ness of sound, the great diversity of colours within the
engrossed in the history, statistics, and archives of the Canadian landscape were all in the music. And there
Vancouver Chamber Choir’s first forty-eight years. was also a polite enthusiasm, a yearning for the good

Now that I have fewer pressing deadlines, I’m fi nding life, and a sense of adventuring into musical frontiers.
I have more time to just listen to music. I’m exploring As Canadian music has evolved since then, these char-
the many facets of YouTube as never before. There are acteristics have now become more complex, as has our
so many useful examples of famous conductors that society and the world itself, but Canadian composers
could potentially be valuable to conducting students today continue forward with this exploration of sound
(and teachers), but often they are unreliable because that speaks of who we are as a people.
of persistent time lags between audio and video tracks.
This dismays me. I wonder if anyone can explain it WASHBURN: The strict answer to the question
and propose a remedy? “What is Canadian identity in music?” is perhaps too
Lastly, I’m looking for interesting short-term proj- straight-forward to be interesting. Any music written
ects, particularly where I can continue to share my by a Canadian is ipso facto Canadian music, no mat-
conducting insights with future generations of young ter what it sounds like or whether we like it. Now, we
conductors. are a nation of immigrants (like me) and we accept
immigrant composers as Canadian, too, from the mo-
8) Music is often considered to be an “inter- ment they make that commitment of saying “this is
national language” that transcends borders. home.” (This is not related to offi cial ceremonies, but
Apart from Canadian folk songs and songs to heart-level acceptance of things like toques, snow,
about Canada, do you consider music written and poutine [in Vancouver I’m tempted to make it
by Canadians to have a “Canadian identity”? umbrellas, rain and sushi!]) We even include Canadi-
ans who move south of the border and become US
NICKEL: This is a tough one, eh? Canada, like the citizens—once a Canuck, always a Canuck. The styles
USA, is inhabited by immigrants from every nation and characters of various composers around the coun-
on earth. My grandparents fled Russia during the try are just as diverse as those found in the States. De-

Bolshevik revolution and were given a homestead in spite having only a tenth of the population of the US,
Saskatchewan. People arriving at the airport in Van- we have a lively composing scene in Canada, partic-
couver might wonder what country in which they’ve ularly in the choral area. There is much camarade-
landed! Canada, ergo, is a moocher of folk songs from rie between the two North American partners, which
other countries. We freely admit it. Many publications we hope will extend to Mexico, too, as economic ties
of folk song arrangements can be traced to places strengthen and choral activity continues to grow in all
overseas. We have many writers—guitar strummers three countries.
without music degrees—who tell our stories. Cypress
has many choral settings that explore our Canadian
heritage.

TELFER: When music composed by Canadian com-
posers fi rst started to become more common at Cana-
dian concerts in the 70s and 80s, the audiences were
not aware which pieces were by Canadians. However,
it was obvious that audiences had a very strong reac-

50 CHORAL JOURNAL April 2021 Volume 61 Number 9