NEWS RELEASE
BEAR CREEK SECONDARY SCHOOL
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Each year, the first Monday in May is celebrated as Music Monday.
Organized by the Coalition for Music Education in Canada, this day has been set aside to celebrate and inform about the importance of music education in our schools and across our country. On this day, schools from coast to coast to coast are encouraged to gather to share in this important celebration in whatever way they can.
Biannually, a new piece is written or chosen as the Music Monday anthem. Schools are encouraged to learn the anthem and incorporate it into their celebration, with the goal of reaching a nation-wide performance.
This year’s anthem is titled Music is Our Medicine. With lyrics written by Indigenous songwriter Mimi O’Bonsawin and set to music by Oakville-born, McGill composition student Nicholas Ma, this piece celebrates the healing influence of music in our lives. The subtext around which the day has been centred focuses on the idea that “The Earth Has Music When We Look and Listen: Healing the Person, Healing the World.”
Seven Simcoe County District School Board (SCDSB) high schools will be gathering to celebrate Music Monday at Innisdale Secondary School on Monday, May 2. Schools from the SCDSB have enjoyed coming together for this celebration for some time, but it was sidelined by COVID in 2020 and 2021.
While the Coalition for Music Education organized a wonderful virtual event for those years, we are so excited to gather again in 2022. Over 225 musicians from Innisdale Secondary School, Bear Creek Secondary School, Eastview Secondary School, Nantyr Shores Secondary School, Georgian Bay District Secondary School, Orillia Secondary School and Collingwood Collegiate Institute will be participating on this day, which will begin in the morning with a rehearsal of the Music Monday anthem — Music is Our Medicine.
At 10:30 a.m., we will switch into performance mode, with all of the schools performing for each other. The middle of the performance will feature the mass ensemble, bringing the instrumentalists and singers from all seven schools together to perform both the Music Monday anthem and O Canada.
This will be one of the first opportunities for most of the schools to perform since March 2020 and we are all looking forward to the shared energy that will be sparked by bringing these schools together around music.
For more information, please see the Music Monday website at coalitioncanada.ca/en/events/music-monday-2022. You can also contact Lise Buelow, music teacher at Bear Creek Secondary School, at 705-725-7712, ext. 57608, or [email protected].
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