May 4-5 in London, Ontario — In celebration of Canadian composers, the Village Opera directed by Adam Corrigan-Holowitz will present The Great Lakes Suite, which features six poems by James Reaney set to music by John Beckwith.
Reaney and Beckwith became friends when they were students at the University of Toronto in the late 1940s. The Great Lakes Suite is from The Red Heart (1949), James Reaney’s first poetry collection. Inspired by the poems, John Beckwith created a chamber cycle for two voices accompanied by a trio.
Along with John Beckwith, this presentation by the Village Opera also includes works by John Greer, London’s Matthew Emery, and two songs by Ontario composer Jeff Enns. The performers are Katy Clark, soprano, and Paul Grambo, baritone.
When: Saturday May 4 at 7:30 and Sunday May 5 at 3:00
Where: Elmwood Avenue Presbyterian Church, London, Ontario
Tickets: $25/$15 for students: https://villageopera.com/buy-tickets
James Reaney’s poem“Lake Superior” begins the suite:
Lake Superior
I am Lake Superior
Cold and gray.
I have no superior;
All other lakes
Haven’t got what it takes;
All are inferior.
I am Lake Superior
Cold and gray.
I am so cold
That because I chill them
The girls of Fort William
Can’t swim in me.
I am so deep
That when people drown in me
Their relatives weep
For they’ll never find them.
In me swims the fearsome
Great big sturgeon.
My shores are made of iron
Lined with tough, wizened trees.
No knife of a surgeon
Is sharper than these
Waves of mine
That glitter and shine
In the light of the Moon, my mother
In the light of the Sun, my grandmother.
James Reaney, 1949
For more about John Beckwith and James Reaney’s musical collaborations, see John Beckwith’s lecture on James Reaney and Music from November 2016: https://jamesreaney.com/gallery/john-beckwith-on-james-reaney-and-music-november-5-2016-at-museum-london/
For more about composer John Beckwith, see his 2012 autobiography Unheard of: Memoirs of a Canadian Composer, available from Wilfrid Laurier University Press, and also the Canadian Music Centre’s Composer Showcase.
