“I was excited about the opportunity it gave for our Boys’ Choir to go and meet two other boys’ choirs because there are so few boys’ choirs here in North America, and the opportunity to go and sing with two and socialize, we’d organised a basketball tournament and a Boston pizza party.”

The reason why the trip was cancelled hardly needs explanation anymore. President Donald Trump.

“When we planned the trip to Boston, everybody was very excited,” McAnerney recalls.

But after news of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy being bullied at the White House, mass deportations, Canadians being detained or deported at the border, the trade war, and Trump’s threats against Canada’s sovereignty, the U.S. looked like a very different neighbour.

“I was worrying about taking the choir across the border to the States,” McAnerney said. “And then all the economic threats that have been made against the country. It was very distasteful, the idea that we’d be spending $36,000 of our hard-earned and fundraised money in the United States.”

When they when back to the families to ask if they wanted to go ahead with the trip, McAnerney said 90 percent of them said, “‘No, we don’t want to go ahead with the trip. We don’t want to spend our money in the States. We don’t want to take the risk crossing the border.”

It was a difficult and sad decision, he said, because “it’s taking an opportunity away from our boys. It’s taking away an opportunity for cultural exchange and all the good things that come with it.” He added that there was a financial cost as well because they lost their deposits on the hotel in Boston. “It’s never good to lose money like that,” he acknowledged, but he and the organizers now have peace of mind and are relieved of worries about complications crossing the border.

McAnerney said both of the host churches they would have visited in Boston were very gracious. “They understood why we had made that decision. They understood that the choristers and their parents were concerned about making the trip.” The door is open for a trip in the future.

For now, the silver lining is the Boys’ Choir was able to arrange an alternate trip to Quebec City. “Holy Trinity Cathedral in Québec City have been very welcoming, and we’re going to go and sing there instead with their choir, so I’m delighted for that, ” he said.

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Editor’s note: This story has been revised to include changes to events on June 14. A Saturday afternoon event marking the 10^th anniversary of the conclusion of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has been cancelled. The 10:30 am worship service on June 15, focusing on the National Indigenous Day of Prayer, will take place as planned at Christ Church Cathedral, Ottawa.

Prominent Cree composer Andrew Balfour will help the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa mark National Indigenous History Month and the National Indigenous Day of Prayer on June 14 and 15 by bringing his music to a workshop for singers, a public event, and a special service at Christ Church Cathedral.

Andrew McAnerney, associate director of music at Christ Church Cathedral, shared his excitement about the Juno-nominated composer’s collaborative visit. “He’s a great talent,” he said. “And he’s a really interesting voice, not only about Anglican church music, which he knows well because he was a chorister, but also because of his identity and his background and … his own journey that he shares as a discovery of music and culture.”

Balfour was taken away from his Cree mother as a part of the Sixties Scoop. He was adopted as an infant by a Winnipeg family with Scottish roots and a love of music. His mother was a violinist and his father was an Anglican priest, who encouraged his interest in choral music.

As a young man, however, he struggled with questions about his identity, and later with poverty, alcohol, and a brief incarceration. Along the way, however, he reconnected with his Indigenous heritage and then found his path as a musician bringing Indigenous and classical choral music together in innovative ways. He is now known as a composer, conductor, singer and sound designer with a large body of choral, instrumental, electro-acoustic and orchestral works.

Balfour has been commissioned by the Winnipeg, Regina and Toronto Symphony Orchestras, Ensemble Caprice, Groundswell, the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra, the Winnipeg Singers, the Kingston Chamber Choir, Roomful of Teeth, Tafelmusik and Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. He is the founder and artistic director of the innovative vocal group Dead of Winter (formerly Camerata Nova), now in its 25th year of offering a concert series in Winnipeg. With Dead of Winter, he writes that he specializes in creating “concept concerts,” many with Indigenous subject matter (​Wa Wa Tey Wak ​[Northern Lights], ​Medieval Inuit​, Fallen​)​. These works “explore a theme through an eclectic array of music, including new works, arrangements and inter-genre and interdisciplinary collaborations.”

In March, Balfour was slated to debut at Carnegie Hall in New York City, conducting selections from his work Tapwe: Songs of Truth with the Amabile Choirs, but due to an error in the paperwork for his stay in the U.S. and rigorous border security, he was denied entry into the U.S. and had to return to Canada.

“That whole concert at Carnegie was all about truth and love and compassion. So, I guess it’s kind of ironic that I get turfed,” he said in an interview with the Winnipeg Free Press.

He will be warmly welcomed at Christ Church Cathedral.

McAnerney outlined the plans for three events on Saturday, June 14 and Sunday, June 15.

On the morning of Saturday, June 14, there will be a music workshop for singers. McAnerney explained that participants don’t have to be choir members, and there is no fee. Anyone who wants to participate just needs to rregister on the Cathedral website https://www.ottawacathedral.ca/

The morning workshop will also include a moderated conversation with Balfour about his music, about his art, and about being a Cree composer brought up in the Anglican choral tradition, McAnerney said. “Andrew was a boy chorister himself. That’s not a comfortable story. It’s a story that’s going to talk about that intersection of Indigenous identity and the Anglican Church because he lived that. He was adopted from his family by an Anglican priest, so we’re going to have a conversation with him about that.”

Turning back to the music itself, McAnerney explained: “We’re going to be singing four pieces, which Andrew has created. Two of those are his own composition. One is called Ambe, and that’s based on a text about welcome for all things walking on two legs. There’s Qilak, which is in Inuktitut, and it’s a piece that’s inspired by travels on Baffin Island. It’s a piece about the views, about the skies, about the snow.”

The other two pieces are fusions with choral music from the 16th and 17th centuries. Ispiciwin [Journey] sets Cree words to music by English composer Orlando Gibbons. Four Directions is an Ojibway text set to music by English composer Thomas Tallis. “There are bird songs. There are ideas of the natural world combined with this ancient English piece of polyphony,” he said.

McAnerney noted that he will offer a rehearsal for participants on June 10 at the Cathedral between 7 and 8.30. “If people want to come and learn the music before the workshop, they can do that with me. And that will be lots of fun. We’ll also have resources on the event page for the text and for learning in advance,” he said. “We recommend if people want to participate, that they do that work in advance because they’ll get more from the workshop and more from Andrew if they’ve taken some time to be familiar with the music and pieces.”

On Sunday, June 15, there will be a special worship service at 10:30 am focused on the National Indigenous Day of Prayer. Balfour will lead the music, including William Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices as well as his own compositions Ispicwin and Ambe, with the Cathedral choirs.

McAnerney added that Balfour is well-acquainted with Ottawa, having brought one of his choirs to the city last year to perform from his Juno nominated album, Nagamo. “I’ve been a big fan of his work and his art,” McAnerney added, mentioning that a professional choir he directs in Montréal is commissioning a new work from Balfour that he hopes the choir will be able to perform at the Cathedral next year.“

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The clergy already had ample evidence that people in the parish and the wider community love sacred choral music. An advertised performance by a visiting choir from Christ’s College, Cambridge in July had phones at the church ringing non-stop, and it was a packed house for on the concert on that hot summer evening.

And when Calkin offered Nov. 11 as one of the possible dates, the Rev. Gillian Hoyer recounted: “We thought what better way to mark Remembrance Day in a military community than to offer this Requiem for All Souls with the music of Fauré’s Requiem sung by the combined cathedral choirs?”

Much planning and rehearsing later, the combined choir arrived in Pembroke on Nov. 11, including members from the girls and boys choirs, mens’ choir and the lay clerks. Hoyer estimated there were 35 to 40 altogether.

Remembrance Day services are always important services at Holy Trinity because of Pembroke’s deep connection with the military. “Many of our parishioners are veterans or are active members of the military… and right now our curate in the parish, the Reverend Claire Bramma, is in her two-year civilian posting before becoming a military chaplain herself,” said Hoyer.

More than $1,300 in donations were collected for Wounded Warriors Service Dogs. “We know that there are a lot of veterans in our communities who have been beneficiaries of that organization, and in the absence of a specifically local veterans’ charity, we wanted a veterans charity that has a local connection,” Hoyer explained.

The service was very well attended, and Hoyer said many parishioners said how moved they were to hear the music in a service as Faure intended.

Parishioner Lesley Lancaster wrote to thank the clergy for making the special service possible. “The level of musicianship totally blew us away and to be so close to the singers was a real joy. I have sung this requiem in the past and heard it in concert. Some movements were sung at my father-in-law’s funeral in 2001 by his church choir in England…but I have never heard it before as part of a full Requiem Mass and found it very moving.”

The Holy Trinity Anglican Church Women group went all out preparing a ham and turkey supper as thank you to the choirs before they travelled back to Ottawa.

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