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TOM BATEMAN TIMES & TRANSCRIPT
The Canada 150 song composed by an Oscar winner, sung by a Juno Award winner, and performed by the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra will hit iTunes this Friday.
“Sea to Sea,” by three-time Oscar winner Howard Shore (Lord of the Rings) and led by Fredericton-born soprano Measha Brueggergos - man debuted in front of about 7,000 people at Moncton’s Riverfront Park on Canada Day weekend. It will be available on the online music service on Friday, said Ken MacLeod, NBYO president and CEO.
Brueggergosman joined the NBYO and singers from Moncton’s Harmony District Children’s Choir and the Jeune Chanteurs d’Acadie on the record, commissioned to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday.
Its production offered “an unprecedented opportunity for a Canadian youth orchestra,” MacLeod said on Monday.
The federal government contributed $270,000 to the year-long $400,000 project project from the $210-million Canada 150 fund. The city provided funding and in-kind donations.
As part of the project, the NBYO also commissoned an essay by Herménégilde Chiasson and a visual art piece by Natalie Sappier-Samaqani Cocahq from Tobique First Nation.
In an update to city council on Monday, MacLeod presented a print of Sappier’s work to Moncton mayor Dawn Arnold. The original is at NBYO headquarters.
MacLeod said NBYO musicians performed 15 concerts across the province and as far away as Ottawa this year.
He told council that more than 400 children from Metro Moncton are now in intensive music programs under the NBYO umbrella, including 280 in the three-hour, five-day-a-week Sistema program, an additional 65 in the Moncton Youth Orchestra and 41 in the NBYO itself.
The non-profit NBYO is the largest youth music program in Canada, with an annual budget of about $3 million.
