taiko

Music, Music Mondays

Taiko: Indigenous Asian-Canadian Music

May 14, 2012, By Gary Cristall

May is Asian Heritage Month! Music historian Gary Cristall explores taiko drumming, a musical form that he asserts has transcended its origins to become distinctly Canadian!

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Music, Music Mondays

Taiko: Indigenous Asian-Canadian Music

May 14, 2012, By Gary Cristall

Asia is big! Technically it begins in Turkey and ends not far from Alaska in the north west or Singapore in the south west. That’s a lot of turf and hundreds of cultures. Many of them are represented by significant communities in Canada, from Koreans to Armenians to Lebanese to Punjabis to Tamils to Vietnamese to Chinese and Japanese.

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In the News, Music, Music Mondays

Celebrating Police Week

May 11, 2012, By Gary Cristall
Police week music

A man sits at Queen and John Sts. in front front of a line of riot police during G20 protests in Toronto on June 26, 2010. (Image: Steve Russell, Toronto Star)

When I discovered that there is a National Police Week that runs from May 7 through 15 in Canada, I was delighted. There are so many songs that deal with the bad behavior of the police over many years, and this gives me the opportunity to share a few. It is probable that the first song about the unjust behavior of the police was written within days, if not hours, of the establishment of the first police force.

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Culture, History

VE-Day and CANLOAN

May 8, 2012, By James Roxby Stewart

My grandfather John R. Surtees, a CANLOAN officer, 1945.

In Ottawa, a simple memorial stands in a park along the Rideau Canal. On it are the names, CDN numbers and British Regiments of the 128 men who died in Europe during the Second World War as CANLOAN soldiers. The memorial is inscribed:

“Erected by the Governments of Canada and the United Kingdom, the British Regiments, the CANLOAN Army Officers’ Association, and CANLOAN next-of-kin. Designated CANLOAN, 673 Canadian Officers volunteered for loan to the British Army and took part in the invasion and liberation of Europe 1944-45. CANLOAN total casualties were 465, of which 128 were fatal. Their fallen are honoured in this quiet place in gratitude and remembrance of the cost of liberty”.

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Au Fil Des Mots, In the News

A Rough Spring!

May 1, 2012, Par Myriam Fontaine
student-protests

Students march through the downtown streets during a demonstration against higher tuition fees Thursday, February 23, 2012 in Montreal. (Ryan Remiorz / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

“ …a corrupt elite, an elite that sees education only as an investment in human capital, that sees a tree only as a sheet of paper and a child only as a future employee.” (Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, spokesperson for CLASSE [Coalition large de l’Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante]).

“…the CLASSE has excluded itself…you cannot take on acts of serious social and economic disruption with impunity …” (Line Beauchamp, Québec Minister of Education)

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Au Fil Des Mots, Français

Un printemps dur et un dur printemps!

May 1, 2012, Par Myriam Fontaine
Manifestation monstre à Montréal.

Manifestation monstre à Montréal. De 100 000 à 200 000 personnes marchent pour protester contre la hausse des droits de scolarité. Photo: Marco Campanozzi, La Presse.

<< …une élite corrompue, une élite qui ne voit l’éducation que comme un investissement dans un capital humain, qui ne voit un arbre que comme une feuille de papier et qui ne voit un enfant que comme un futur employé >>. (Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, porte-parole de la CLASSE, i.e. la Coalition large de l’Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante).

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Music, Music Mondays

Music Mondays: May Day

April 30, 2012, By Gary Cristall
may day vancouver

In Vancouver, in 1935, as many as 30,000 demonstrators paraded from the Cambie Street Grounds to a rally in Stanley Park. Vancouver Public Library, via Lorne Brown, When Freedom was Lost (Black Rose Books, 1987)

While May Day is celebrated widely just about everywhere except North America, its roots are firmly in the United States, in Chicago to be precise. It is also a product of the struggle of workers for the eight-hour day, one of the key demands of workers during the late nienteenth century and much of the twentieth. While May Day is known as the day of international workers’ solidarity, there is no one song associated with it. “Solidarity Forever”, “Joe Hill, Hold The Fort” and “The Internationale” are all widely sung in Canada as is “Bread and Roses”.

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Culture, Inside TCE, Music

Remembering Helmut Kallmann, 1922 – 2012

April 17, 2012, By Davina Choy

On April 10th, friends, family members and colleagues of Helmut Kallmann gathered in the spacious main lobby of the University of Toronto’s Edward Johnson Building to remember Helmut Kallmann, who passed away on February 12, 2012.

Helmut Kallmann was the pioneer scholar of Canadian music history and the founder of the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada and author of A History of Music in Canada 1534-1941. He was co-founder of the Canadian Music Library Association and the first chief of the National Library of Canada’s Music Division (1970-1987).

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Culture, History, Literature, Reading In Canadian

The Wreck of the Titanic, in Poetry

April 15, 2012, By Susanne Marshall
titanic-poems

A line from Thomas Hardy's "Convergence of the Twain."

The sinking of the Titanic has resonated now for 100 years in the consciousness of Canadians. The grief, wonder, and curiosity the disaster continues to inspire has been the impetus for countless literary works. While the majority of these are factual or biographical, significant imaginative works of poetry and prose have been produced, works that strive to understand the psychological, social and personal effects of the disaster. Here, then, is a survey of some of the most important works of poetry produced on the subject of the sinking of the Titanic, poetry read and loved by, and for the most part produced by, Canadians.

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History, Music, Music Mondays

Classic Shipwreck Songs

April 11, 2012, By Gary Cristall

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, I thought it was appropriate to revist some classic shipwreck songs, from the Jack-Johnson-inspired “Fare Thee Well Titanic” to a vibrant toast about escaping the Titanic’s sinking, and a popular Stan Rogers’ song about the fictional wreck and rebuilding of the the Mary Ellen Carter.

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History, In the News

Remembering the Titanic

April 10, 2012, By Martin K. McNicholl

The Titanic, named for the Titans, or god-giants of Greek mythology, was the largest (269 m), most luxurious ocean liner to its time. It was touted to be unsinkable, but it struck an iceberg just before midnight on April 14, 1912, on the fifth day of its maiden voyage, and sank in 2 hours, 40 minutes, with the loss of 1513-1522 lives, including the captain and Canadian railway tycoon Charles Melville Hays.

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