The Church of St. Barnabas Apostle and Martyr was filled with glorious choral music on July 27 as the parish hosted the Chapel Choir of Pembroke College, Cambridge, U.K. during the Ottawa portion of the choir’s Canadian tour.
The choir of Pembroke students is led by renowned organist, conductor and broadcaster Anna Lapwood, who is just finishing her tenure as director of music at Pembroke and has been appointed as the organist at the Royal Albert Hall in London. She serves as the Artist in Association with the BBC singers.
Their concert at St. Barnabas included Vigilate by 16th century composer William Byrd but most of the pieces they sang were from contemporary composers, including Lapwood’s own composition Arise, Shine, which she said reflects on Jesus as the light of the world.
They also performed her arrangements of pop songs — Bob Dylan’s “Make you feel my love,” and Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” Lapwood said the master of Pembroke had asked her to do an arrangement of “Hallelujah,” one of his favourite songs, and they added it to their program for their Canadian tour because Cohen was Canadian.
The concert also included Eleanor Daley’s “Grandmother Moon” with lyrics by Mi’kmaq poet, Mary Louise Martin, which Lapwood said the choir has sung and loved for years and had special meaning for them as they visited Canada.
The Canadian tour included stops in Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, Kingston and Toronto. Lapwood said she and the choir were enjoying their trip and were particularly gratified by the warm audiences who had given them standing ovations at every concert. Ottawa was the first stop where they were being accommodated in home stays. Parishioners at St. Barnabas were hosting the choir members in their homes, and Lapwood thanked them during the concert for making them feel that they were with family.
The choristers were looking forward to the adventure of white-water rafting on the Ottawa River during their visit to the city.
Lapwood is a passionate advocate for music education, diversity and equal opportunities in music. The choir travels to Zambia every three years, and Lapwood has visited to teach music programs every year since she went as an undergraduate student in 2017.
Even though, Lapwood is just 30 years old, she was told during her musical education to “play like a man.” In an interview with Perspective after the choir arrived in Ottawa, she said such bias continues to exist. “A lot of people have also said, ‘Stop banging on about it, it doesn’t happen anymore, that was 10 years ago, it’s not relevant anymore.’ Actually, one of my students told me as recently as maybe four months ago that they have been told exactly the same thing, and it just is there in historically gendered spaces,” she said. “I think the ease with which people can slip into gendered language, which is implying that one gender is better than the other is slightly scary, and so what I’m trying to do is just be the opposite of that and try and tell everyone that they’re welcome and valid and that gender doesn’t mean anything in terms of musical ability. It’s just it’s complete nonsense. And I guess because I’m quite vocal about it, female organists tend to come and want to work with me because I talk about it quite a lot. And I’m lucky that we have two amazing female organ scholars. I’ve also had two brilliant male organ scholars. I think it’s just trying to make sure everyone feels welcome and included.”
Lapwood tells her students to be and play like themselves. The concert performance at St. Barnabas attests to the stellar success of that approach. As the crowd stood and applauded until Lapwood offered them an encore of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” arranged by one of the young choristers, she was alight with pride in their achievements.
They returned to St. Barnabas the following day to sing at the Sunday evensong service. The choir donated 25 percent of the price of their sold-out tickets to the parish.
St. Stephen’s, Ottawa — Deanery of Central Ottawa