Later this month, the Salt Spring Singers community choir will gather for the last time under the leadership of Don Conley.
The longtime director of the choir recently announced his retirement from the position, but not before putting together what he calls “a multi-genre and multi-themed potpourri of summer bliss.”
The Tree of Life concert, which runs at All Saints by-the-Sea on Saturday, June 21 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, June 22 at 2:30 p.m., was inspired by the example of Indigenous peoples’ love of the natural world — with the timing for the performance coinciding with National Indigenous Peoples Day on June 21 and an activity-filled Indigenous Peoples Weekend on Salt Spring.
“We’re trying to avoid enculturation of Indigenous music, so we wouldn’t be doing Indigenous music. But the whole idea is that it’s inspired by the Indigenous Peoples Weekend and celebrations that are going on. So we have songs in place that sort of celebrate some of the same themes.”
Well-known contemporary pieces like Away From the Roll of the Sea, by Allister MacGillivray, or Ian and Sylvia Tyson’s Four Strong Winds, and the Hampshire folk song called There was a Tree celebrate love of nature, for example.
The French folk song J’ai vu le loup, The Lion Sleeps Tonight and Eric Whitacre’s The Seal Lullaby honour love of creatures, while friendship is highlighted in Bridge Over Troubled Water and in a beautiful song by Rolf Løvland Brendan Graham called You Raise Me Up, recorded by some 100 artists and perhaps most popularly by Josh Groban in 2004.
Five songs are featured in The Circle of Life section of the concert, including two by Pete Seeger: Turn, Turn, Turn and To My Old Brown Earth.
One piece Conley is particularly excited for his choir to perform is called What Happens When a Woman by Alexandra Olsavsky, which was first performed during last year’s U.S. presidential election race.
“It was circulating around on YouTube, and I heard it, and it is so rousing and so fun that it went viral,” he said.
The lyrics ask, “What happens when a woman takes power? What happens when she won’t back down? What happens she wears the crown? What happens when she rules her own body? What happens when she sets the beat? What happens when she bows to nobody? What happens when she stands on her own two feet?”
The singers answer: “Woah, we rise above. Woah, we lead with love. Woah, we have won. We are one. We’ve just begun.”
“The men aren’t singing because this is for the women,” explained Conley, “and so they’re stomping and clapping their hands and beating their chest to make a rhythmic sound while the women sing this upbeat, jazzy-sounding song. I think it’ll be a show stopper, because it’s so powerful, really.”
In line with a patriotic mood in the country these days, Conley has also programmed not only Oh Canada for the end of the concert, but an alternate “anthem” called This is My Home, by Brian Gibson and Bob Buckley, which made its debut for Expo ‘86 in Vancouver.
Tickets for the concert ($30 for adults and $5 for students) are available in advance at the ArtSpring box office and at the door of the church before the shows.