In 1991, Coquitlam resident and Philippine native Del Gachallan composed a song in honour of the city's centennial year. The work by the retired engineer, musician and author was titled Coquitlam, My Town.
Twenty-five years on, the municipality has another tune to mark its milestone anniversary. And, ironically, the musical tale is also penned by an immigrant — this time, by George Chung, a Taiwanese-born Canadian who moved to Coquitlam with his family at the age of 10.
Chung's song is called Home and Love, a two-and-a-half minute choral piece that had its world premiere in June with the Coastal Sound Music Academy, the award-winning Coquitlam-based group of which Chung has been its youth choir accompanist since 1998 (the song was also sung last month at the opening ceremonies of Kaleidoscope, the signature festival of Coquitlam 125).
Reached this week in New York City, where he is undertaking his post-doctoral fellowship in medical genetics, Chung said he was honoured to have been invited to write the Coquitlam 125 song. "It means there's going to be another 125 years to come," he said in a phone interview on Monday.
Chung was asked to take on the project last year by Diana Clark, Coastal Sound's artistic director, children's choir director and Con Brio co-director. They applied for — and received — a grant for the commission through the Coquitlam Foundation and the city's Spirit of Coquitlam program, the latter of which is funded by gaming proceeds.
Chung said he dug around for a suitable text and landed on Robert William Service's poem, Home and Love. In the three verses, the late British author speaks how home and love are intertwined, each needing a place to survive:
"And if you've both, well then I'm sure/
You ought to sing the whole day long."
Chung said the poem connected with him. "Having a home without family or friends isn't so great," he said. "For me, many of my childhood friends are still there [in Coquitlam] and some have spread out to the east coast, like me, but we are is still very much Coquitlam."
Chung said he misses Coquitlam's green spaces and forests — "because New York is not very green!" — and the hills. "It's so close to nature. It's like a wild playground."
He wrote the song in A-flat major but turns the key into F-minor when the poem transitions to the two lines: "Home without Love is bitterness/Love without Home is often pain."
"I wanted to drive home the message that home isn't so sweet when there's no love," said the Port Moody secondary IB graduate (class of 2004).
As well, Chung also referenced Dvorak's patriotic New World Symphony in the mid-section.
Clark said Coastal Sound wanted a universal song that could be accessible to other choirs — "a piece for Coquitlam that could become part of the general choral repertoire in the world," she said, adding, "George's piece Home and Love turned out to be the perfect fit: A beautiful melody and lush harmonies benefitting Coquitlam's natural scenery and a pan-cultural message that sings about the idea that home and love have to co-exist."
Home and Love is Chung's second commission: He also wrote the music based on the text of The Little Prince for the Vancouver Youth Choir under the direction of Carrie Tennant, the associate artistic director and youth choir director for Coastal Sound.
•••••
HOME AND LOVE
Just Home and Love! the words are small
Four little letters unto each;
And yet you will not find in all
The wide and gracious range of speech
Two more so tenderly complete:
When angels talk in Heaven above,
I'm sure they have no words more sweet
Than Home and Love.
Just Home and Love! it's hard to guess
Which of the two were best to gain;
Home without Love is bitterness;
Love without Home is often pain.
No! each alone will seldom do;
Somehow they travel hand and glove:
If you win one you must have two,
Both Home and Love.
And if you've both, well then I'm sure
You ought to sing the whole day long;
It doesn't matter if you're poor
With these to make divine your song.
And so I praisefully repeat,
When angels talk in Heaven above,
There are no words more simply sweet
Than Home and Love.
Robert William Service
