Dear Editor:
Word has reached Vancouver that the choir program at Yorkton Regional High School (YRHS) has been cancelled for the coming year with no plans to revive it. Such a grievous mistake! It鈥檚 happening everywhere. This is a disaster for the future of Canadian music.
I was in the Grade Nine class when YRHS first opened its doors in 1967 and I was in the graduating class of 1970. I鈥檓 a grateful alumnus. The choirs, the bands and the annual musical were seminal to the life I now lead as a professional composer and university professor of music. Without those programs, my life would have taken a completely different turn, one I don鈥檛 care to contemplate. Because of the YRHS music program, I found my future as a composer writing music and a professor teaching it at Simon Fraser University where I co-founded the program in contemporary music and where I鈥檝e taught since 1979.
The music I鈥檝e created is performed around the world and I鈥檝e been commissioned by producers everywhere including two shows in New York and performances in Paris, London UK, Sydney, Melbourne, Vienna, Madrid, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, Whitehorse, St. John鈥檚 and hundred others in between.
Without the music program at YRHS, the music I鈥檝e written wouldn鈥檛 exist, and, like 鈥淚t鈥檚 a Wonderful Life鈥�, those performances wouldn鈥檛 have happened, those lives wouldn鈥檛 have changed.
Sure, I played hockey, baseball and football, threw bails of hay, was a roddy surveying highways and a jockey pumping gas. But it was singing in the Young Troubadours, choir and musicals, playing French Horn in the concert band and trumpet in the jazz band that gave my life purpose, meaning and direction. Hundreds of academic studies have been done about the importance of music on developing minds and the verdict is clear and unequivocal: music is good for us! Music gives us joy, purpose, community, meaning and direction, teaching us how to work together toward excellence while inspiring discipline and commitment for working alone. Music is an incredible gift of love.
Like others from Yorkton, I found my future in the music rooms of YRHS. The music I鈥檝e written has its roots there. Cancelling the choir program is a huge, short-sighted mistake because there are kids who love to sing entering grade 10 this year. Where鈥檚 their future?
David MacIntyre,
Vancouver, BC
