The children's choir with the Coquitlam-based Coastal Sound Music Academy (CSMA) understood for the first time what it meant to carry the torch.
Choir director Diana Clark said she led the 28-member ensemble to Nova Scotia last month for a SEVEC (Society for Educational Visits and Exchanges in Canada) exchange; the month prior, young singers from that province had travelled to the Tri-Cities to learn about B.C. and its regional songs.
While in the Maritimes, Clark said her singers sang in Lunenburg at St. John's Anglican Church, a place of worship since 1753 that was rebuilt by wooden boat builders in 2010 following a fire.
The choir also sang The Bluenose song next to the Bluenose schooner as well as at Grand Pré, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the Annapolis Valley that was the centre of Acadian settlement from 1682 to 1755, when they were deported.
"It was a very moving and very profound experience," said Clark, who last week was awarded the 2015 SEVEC Ambassador Award. "They were told as a choir, they had a responsibility to carry history through folk song and that it's really important to share that sense of who we are and where we come from…. It really opened their eyes and they really got what it meant."
Among the Acadian deportation hymns that the CSMA sung at Grand Pré was Tout Passe.
On Sunday, the choir will repeat its performance at its year-end show at Coquitlam's Evergreen Cultural Centre (1205 Pinetree Way) at 7 p.m.
The children's choir, along with four other CSMA choirs (but not the youth choir), will also sing The Bluenose, present an Acadian folk song medley and lead an audience sing-along in the B.C. shanty Where the Coho Flash Silver.
Clark, who is also the musical director at Blakeburn elementary school in Port Coquitlam and the CSMA artistic director, said finale will be a nice wrap-up of their coast-to-coast season. "You can really learn a lot about Canadian history through the lens of choral music," she said, "and especially about the east coast. They have such a rich history that we just don't have here."
• Tickets at $20/$15/$10 for Coastal Sound Music: From Sea to Sea on Sunday, June 7 are available by calling the box office at 604-927-6555 or visiting evergreenculturalcentre.ca. The show is a co-presentation with the Evergreen Cultural Centre.
