Note: a transcript of this show and a translation of episode é157 podium 2024 - que pouvons-nous chanter et faire de plus ? can be found in the 'Transcript' tab.
Welcome to a special episode of the conscient podcast featuring a bilingual panel that I facilitate called ‘Voicing the ecological crisis: what more can we sing and do? It recorded on Sunday, May 19, 2024, as part of Podium 2024, the Open Voices, Open Minds choral conference and festival organized by Choral Canada and l’Alliance chorale du Québec in Tiohtià:ke on the unceded traditional territory of the Kanien'keha:kaé (Montreal).
I had the honor of selecting the panelists and moderating this important conversation.
You will hear the presentations of Deantha Edmunds and Elise Naccarato in English in this episode. I invite you to listen to é157 of balado conscient to hear the French language presentations from this panel by Megan Chartrand and Sarah Fioravanti. You’ll find a transcription of their presentations in the ‘transcript’ section of this episode.
I have to admit that the subject of our conversation that Sunday afternoon was extremely serious, complex and I'd even say existential, but I reminded the assembly that I had promised in the program that we would ‘leave the conversation with a practical reality check while humming with hope’.
But how does one ‘hum with hope’ when we are facing imminent societal collapse due to ? I asked the group and I asked myself how choral music or collective singing can help?
I also reminded delegates that the ecological crisis, be it climate change, loss of biodiversity, the ravages of extractive capitalism, etc is deepening at a frightening pace, leaving many, including artists, feeling disempowered, demoralized and sometimes in denial.
So when Meghan Hila, the Executive Director of Choral Canada, asked me to help out with this panel, I was very pleased to facilitate conversations about climate change specifically and how commissioning new works on ecological themes, strategies to decrease the carbon footprint of choral music activities and how to engage in increased collective political action as a community of artists and singers. I admire the leadership of Choral Canada and learned a lot from listening to their artistic work and innovative strategies.
The congress itself was quite fabulous and it was good to remember that the Canadian choral community has a long history of engagement and foresight with environmental issues.
For example, during Podium 2024, Nicholas Fairbank talked about Environmental Topics in Canadian Choral Music and the long list of choral music that are already in circulation on environmental themes.
I also attended a session by composer Katerina Gimon, poet Lauren Peat and conductor Elise Naccarato about their Unsung: If the Earth Could Sing project, an environmentally-inspired choral cycle and so on over 3 days.
I also heard about choral activities that explore some of the root causes of the ecological crisis such as colonisation and disconnection from nature. The Friday night, May 17th I attended a groundbreaking concert called Ahskennon’nia : songs of peace where one of our panelists, Deantha Edmunds, was a soloist. She talks about it during her presentation.
Deantha was also a soloist on May 18th with her Song of the Whale composition performed with the Holy Heart Chamber Choir of Newfoundland. I was deeply moved by this gorgeous soundscape composition that ends with the words ‘carry the song on, evolve’.
Those 5 words stayed with me : ‘Carry the song on, evolve…’
I also heard some engaging discourse about the intersection of indigenous and non-indigenous musical collaborations, about moving from the colonial notion of choirs towards collective and group singing, about how choirs are often a microcosm of the diversity of our society with all its complexities, how the canon of choral music is being challenged and rethought, how listening itself is evolving and so on.
However, what I do not hear at this congress, and to be honest, I don’t hear it much elsewhere in the arts sector, is a recognition and a sense of urgency that we are in an existential climate and nature emergency.
This was troubling to me.
For example, as we spoke on May 19th, wildfires were ravaging across western Canada and our fellow citizens were migrating to safer ground and that sadly this pattern will be amplified in the future.
But I also said that who better than artists, singers, composers and educators to help society work through these complexities…
For example, professor Adam Con from the University of Victoria mentioned at a panel on education that choral music is well suited to the challenges that we face because collective singing is participative, community engaging, cooperative, inclusive and accessible activity.
I agree with Professor Con and think we’re going to need more choral community activities about the ecological crisis as our future unfolds.
First you’ll hear Inuk singer and composer Deantha Edmunds, who will talk about her experience with performances about the ecological crisis and reconciliation.
She speaks for 10 minutes followed by conductor and choral music director Elise Naccarato, who will share her experience and insights with commissioning and producing choral works about social justice and ecological issues.
After the panel presentations there were 3 questions from the audience.
This first was about the predominance of women in climate change advocacy. Deantha Edmunds responded. The second intervention was from veteran choral music composer Donald Patriquin.
The final question was about programming and audience response to socially engaged music to which Elise Naccarato and Deantha Edmunds responded.
Please see links in the episode notes for the panlists bios and note that the sound quality was not optimal because of the reverberation in the room so please pay close attention or consult the transcription when in doubt.
Transcription of English language presentations by Deantha Edmunds, Elise Naccarato and questions and translation of French language presentations by Megan Chartrand, Sarah Fioravanti and questions
Deantha Edmunds’ presentation
Inuit have been speaking out on the issue of climate change for decades and decades. Inuit Circumpolar Council leaders from Canada, Alaska, Greenland, and Chukotka, have delivered speeches on this topic to audiences worldwide to bring Arctic and Inuit perspectives on climate change to the attention of decision makers. Here are some of the facts that are top of my mind. Contaminants make their way to the Arctic and stay there because of the cold climate. They move up the food web and become health and environment concerns for the Inuit. Inuit Circumpolar Council is fighting against the rampant spread of forever chemicals and the scourge of plastic pollution.
Studies reveal that the Arctic Deep-Sea harbors disproportionately high concentrations of microplastics and ranks among the highest measured globally. We know how microplastics and even smaller particles of nano plastics can affect local wildlife and human health. The Arctic is warming three times as fast as the global average. This is mainly because melting of snow and ice exposes a darker surface and increases the amount of solar energy absorbed in these areas. The Greenland ice sheet is the world's second largest repository of fresh water. As it melts into the ocean and raises sea levels, the effects are felt around the world.
I'm not a scientist by any means, but I do care deeply about this. I read about what's going on. I pay attention on social media to the accounts that track this, and I try to use my writing, composing, and performing as activism. It's a privilege to have this platform, and I'm very grateful for it every day. A few years ago, I decided to start using my voice and raising my voice in a different way. And this is one of the ways in which I've changed my work. The path to reconciliation is all about connecting, talking to one another, sharing our stories, and really, really listening. To understand each other. It takes time and change happens slowly.
On Friday night, as Claude said, I was honored to perform as a soloist in Ahskennon’nia, a program ofIndigenousmusic andIndigenouslanguages byIndigenousartists. I shared my Song of the River, which is from my most recent album, Connections. That song is all about how we are all connected in this river of life. It is a song of peace and a gentle reminder that we are all more alike than different, and we need to work together to bring change.
Another work of mine is Angmalukisaa which means round in Inuktitut. It was commissioned by MarkFewer,andit issung in English, andit'samulti-songcycle that has the theme of rings:the rings that tell the age of a tree, the spiral structure of aniglu,concentric soundrings, and ripples of water. This work comes from a very personal place and speaks to how we relate to one another and our planet, our treatment of the land, the water, and each other will reverberate throughout the universe for eons. We can all do more to take care of ourselves,one another, and our environment. We need our call to action to resonate, reverberate, and rebound- alegacy left in honor of our descendants.
Angmalukisaa is a solo work with strings. We premiered it at the Stratford Summer Music Festival last year, and I performed it with Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra in St. John's in January. We also recorded it then. The album is calledAlikeness,and it will be released by Leaf Music in August, and I hope you'll check it out. Claude mentioned that yesterday I performed my Song of the Whale with Holy Heart Chamber Choir, led by RobertColbournewith oboist CarolinePlamondon.(this is correct)This work was commissioned by Dr. JaneLeibelat Memorial University School of Music. I wrote the lyrics in English, and I asked an Inuk elder in Nunatsiavut,the ancestral homeland of Labrador Inuit from where my father came.I asked her to interpret and translate my words intoInuktitut.I wrote the vocal melody and some of the choral harmonies and a wonderful friend, a musician and composer, Bill Brennan arranged it and composed the original oboe and english horn part.
When I worked with the youth, the teenagers of Holy Heart Chamber Choir, I spoke to them about this piece and what it means to me and where it came from. I told them that this is not just a pretty song that we are singing. It is a call to action. It is an example of truth and reconciliation and how I weave activism into my art. I spoke to them about how activism isn't just standing at the front lines protesting. It's also how we move through this world and how we use our own voice. For those of you who could not attend the concert yesterday, I will give you a little background. As I said,my late father came from Hopedale on the north coast of Labrador, inNunatsiavut, the ancestral homeland of Labrador Inuit.
Hopedale's original name isArvertok, the place of whales. The lyrics translate as ‘listen to the whale song, let us care more, carry the song, evolve.’ When I wrote this piece, I was thinking about how whales know so much more than us about the state of the world's water. Ancient knowledge lives within them and their songs travel. Sound travels faster in water than air, so they know the danger ahead of us.
The whales call to us to take better care of the ocean and her creatures. It is taking far too long for us to acknowledge the damage we have done to the world's water and toIndigenouspeople, and to take action: truth, reconciliation, change. Scientists have discovered that some whale songs actually evolve over time. It is my hope that the choirs who perform this work with me and all those who hear it will refuse to let what the whales are saying get lost in the ocean and will join their song in calling for respect and reciprocity.
Elise Naccarato’s presentation
Good afternoon, everybody. My name's Elise Naccarato, and I'm the artistic director of Myriad Ensemble and the managing director of Chorus Niagara. My background is both in the arts and business collectively, and I work actively in both spheres. So today I'd like to talk to you a little bit about a project that Myriad Ensemble, undertook back in 2019, a project called Unsung, if the Earth Could Sing by Katerina Gimon and Katerina is our composer in residence at Myriad and a very good friend. We grew up in the Hamilton Children's Choir together, and in 2019, we went for brunch, just as friends with our poet friend Lauren Peat. We were just having brunch and all good things are conceived over food and on a napkin, we were just chatting, and we were just had chatting about topics and issues that were important to us as young people. And at the time we were all under the age of 30 now, all 30 and saying, what can we do as artists? We have this unique pairing as a conductor, a composer, and a poet. How can we use our voice to advocate for issues that matter to us?
So, on a napkin we wrote down that the environmental crisis was an issue that was really important to us. I'm originally from the West coast, or born and raised just outside of Vancouver, BC now living in Burlington, Ontario and ironically, Katerina was born and raised in Burlington, now living on the West coast and Lauren likewise is born and raised in Hamilton and now living on the West coast. So, we bring not a holistic, but we do bring cross country perspective to it from different perspectives of our childhood and our lives. And so we were talking about how can we represent the environmental crisis and its effect on Canada in a piece of choral music and be able to, in our own voice, in our own words, express this and in a way that we felt the singers might too be able to be part of the experience. So, we thought, well, let's apply to the Council for a commission (Claude says 'Go Canada Council') and let's apply for a commission for a five-to-10-minute work that would speak about the environmental crisis from the voice of the landscapes. And the piece originally was called if the Earth Could Sing and we were very fortunate to receive the grant in February of 2020.
So you all know it came in March of 2020 and the entire world changed. And as we navigated that, the work too changed, and the scope of the work and the meaning of this work and the title eventually of Lauren's poems became unsung because we don't often: how can we hear the earth? How can we hear his voice? And this idea that the this, that the earth is singing for the first time, and we can be part of giving it voice of as a choral, as a choir, and as a choral community. So, this project evolved from a five to 10 minute mini piece into a now 25 minute five movement work for cello, upper voice choir and percussion that not only speaks about the environmental crisis, but adds to the genre of choral music. And that's something that has become important to Katerina in our work as conductors and composers and music educators.
So that was the beginning of something and I I won't speak too much more about the details of the work because it was very, I think, good session by Katerina and Lauren and I that you can find on the Podium App, which you'll hear from Lauren and Katerina themselves and I don't want to put words to their ideas and thoughts, so it's best to hear from them. So, I'm going to jump right to the rehearsal process. So what happens next? Well, I'm very fortunate that I have 60 singers in front of me, many of whom are here today, and maybe that just shows how proud of they are of this work and the voice that they've had in creating it, so we brought it to the rehearsal process and put this in front of them and I started with the fifth movement, which is titled Glacier and speaks about the melting of the glaciers.
And all of a sudden, the choir was faced with words and texts and stories that they had never encountered. I even remember sitting in rehearsal googling, is it Crystal Lynn, crystal line? What the heck is that? And it's a small fracture of the glacier that occurs as it melts. And this was a piece of language all of a sudden, we had to investigate, and we collectively learned about, and it heightens the awareness too for the singers of what is happening, what are what are the technical terms that are breathing life, into the crisis? How do we speak about it in a way that feels educated and feels relevant and feels timely? So, we started with this movement called glaciers the hardest of the five movements, but I didn't know that because I do not have the other movements. We performed it at our winter concert and my firm belief in programming is that we must have something fun.
We must have something that the audience knows, loves, must have something educational as well. And this was a piece on a Christmas concert, a holiday concert that was about the melting of the glaciers brilliant release . And yet that was a piece of education that I not only wanted to give to the choir but give to the 400 people sitting in our audience. Then January came of 2022, and it was time to learn the other four movements of this work. And the one we started with next was called Grassland and it speaks about the prairie region and how birds and bison are all migrating, and it was so powerful just in the land, in the choral harmony is it's homophonic. It's the only movement that moves together and the choir all of a sudden understood it.
They had gone from the hardest movement glacier to something they understood, and now they became the bison. They became the birds. They had to embody this in their singing and in their understanding, and therefore they had to, along with me, to research about why? Why is this happening and why is it important that we sing about it in a way that feels authentic to us? That movement is very special, uh, to me personally, because we also adopted our newfound choral mascot called Benny the Bison from it and it sounds like a joke, but Benny became, he was a crocheted stuffed animal that became a therapy animal and he would, Benny the bison, would come to choir and would go around to all the singers, and they would hold him and they would hug him. This is an adult upper voice choir, . This is not children's choir. These are 18-year-old and up. What it did was it gave unsung a new life.
Not only now were we speaking about the environmental crisis, but we're speaking now about the crisis inside ourselves and how those two things are not disconnected. And so Benny, for me, became a motif, a motif of this. I could not see how the singers were connecting with the music. How the singers were engaging and struggling in their own lives, and became a very powerful process, a very powerful tool of healing and Unsung has now been, in fact, we have never performed it live yet. We performed Hurricane here at Podium and in our own concerts.
So the first movement, but the entire, all five movements could be found in video form online through our YouTube channel. That was another piece of the project that evolved from its original inception, was the video element and I know Megan (Chartrand) has spoken about building partnerships and collaborations, and for many of us that are conductors, we often talk about how do we make choral music new? How do we make it accessible and beyond the soundscape piece of it? And so we decided, let's put video to it because why should we just hear about this? Why shouldn't we see it as well? And so we're very fortunate in mart to work with a phenomenal video crew, and they embrace the project in its full entirety, and we're just as chaotically creative as we were and have really brought the five movements to life in a very sensitive way.
So commissioning, can it be expensive? Yes. Can putting a project together like unsung would be expensive? Yes. Is it worth every penny of investment? Yes! I highly encourage you, don't shy away if you, if you're like, man, my choir can't do that. because we don't have penny to spend. Talk to others, build connections and you might just find yourself maybe in a commissioning consortium, maybe doing a piece of music that already exists and engaging with artists that bring their voice to that music that can provide a different educational landscape that you can provide. So I would say continue to stay humble, stay humble, keep listening and keep learning. And that is how we will use choral music as a way to advocate and change the environmental crisis that we're facing ourself in.
Question 1 from the audience
I take note that all the panelists today are female presenting, and historically women have been at the forefront of climate change advocacy. I guess my question is more so how do you feel your position of power in the current structure that we have to navigate impacts your ability for social change in the choral space?
Deantha Edmunds
That's a great question, and it's a lot to think about. I'm going to speak briefly about another commission I've done, um, it's going to be premiered in Toronto in June. I'm singing a piece that I put together called Braiding Voices with Amadeus, choir. It focuses on celebrating women because women are the life givers in Inuit culture. Women are the fire keepers. They kept the Qulliq, the crescent shaped oil lamp lit while the men were away for long periods of time. The women kept the fire going in so many ways. They cooked over it. They dried their clothes over it. It warmed them, it brought them light, and it gave them hope.
And so, this piece that I wrote, Braiding Voices involves throat singers who weave in and out throughout the piece. Amadeus choir will be singing some Hildegard Von Bingen chant and I have written a section in Inuktitut. I'm also going be speaking in English poem and at the end we'll be saying the chant using the Inuktitut lyrics all in our own time because I really wanted to pay tribute to the fact that women REALLY do carry so much, and we can do so much.
Claude Schryer
It's a very good question because when we selected the panel, all women, all leaders. I've noticed in my circle, maybe 80% of the leaders are women, whether it is Judi Pearl and Annette Hegel running an organization called SCALE, an art and climate organization that I start up. I'm very grateful for those women who worked so hard for us and with us, and its leadership.
Donald Patriquin
My name is Donald Patriquin. Before I became a musician, particularly a choral musician, I became a biologist and, uh, with a major in... I took one of the first university courses in ecology. My ecological pedigree included people like Dr. Langford with whom I studied. He was a disciple of Rachel Carson. Who doesn't know who Rachel Carson is. Good, good. I glad that name hasn't died entirely. And her great mentor, I don't think she met this person, was a gentleman named Henry David Thoreau. Good, good, good. Even more than Rachel Carson, great person. He lived in Massachusetts, and he was really America's first ecologist and he saw all this stuff in his own way. Everything's happening. So, I got just two things to say, and all written down here, so don't be very long. Choral Canada alone accounts for, what is it, 50,000, singers in north of 52,000, of which you are the umbrella.
Meghan Hila (Executive Director of Choral Canada)
Altogether, membership wise, it's about 42,000 singers, but that's just members. So, if we're talking about how many people sing in choirs in Canada, it's 3.5 million.
Donald Patriquin
Great. So, my point here is that with all of these people, in a way, I think that Choral Canada can become even more proactive than this whole ecological mess we're in. I, I think it's really very important, and I'm sure they will. There are so many of you spoke speak to it. I'm just amazed, I think I learned more this afternoon than I might heard from Dr. Langford It's remarkable. Second thing I want to say is that as a composer and as a proactive composer, singers and we must all get the ecological message out to those who will inherit the earth. Who are those: the children. There must be much more adapt there because they absorb so much. They absorb much more than we do at our age. So, let's composed works for children. I happen to have composed a work, it’s called Reflections on Golden Pond and the other one I wrote with my very good friend who was a Metis composer Bevan Skerratt, The Parking Lot Song, if that's of interest to anybody, but I'm not here to promote that.
Question 2 from the audience
Obviously social issues can be quite polarizing in general. So how do you balance the impact of doing more social cause pieces with the issue itself and maybe alienating audiences that were otherwise followers of your choir or organizations or work in general? Because obviously you can only have impact if people listen to your message. So having to kind of balance those two when either picking social issues to champion or taking a perspective on a social issue.
Elise Naccarato
I'm laughing because two of the questions come from my choristers so this answer might already be familiar, but I know with Myriad ensembles, something's really important is balance. It's trying to make the singers who are first walking in the choir feel seen and heard, and that I'm balancing pieces that I may only have one singer who identifies with that background topic, theme or interest, but that they feel seen and heard, and then they can use that to educate others along with making sure that the concert is balanced and there's always something that ends on a hopeful note Something that leaves the audience with that there's that piece of education that may come in the middle, that will always come in the middle, and that they're leaving, that they've learned something and they walk away inspired to do something about it and that changes from cons to concert themed theme but I think it's really important that there's that balance and that we're making connections with our audience in a way that feels authentic and true to not only to the choir's identity, but to my identity personally as a conductor.
I am not representative of everybody, but I can do my bit to educate myself through those that are in my circles, those who may are not in my circles, that I might want to connect with now, you know, like meeting different people, um, and making sure that I'm using our voice as a choir and my voice personally to share knowledge and wisdom with those who are, are listening to our music and connected to the choir in some way.
Deantha Edmunds
I spent decades primarily as a teacher of young children and teenagers, piano and voice and preschool and classroom music. It's only in the past five years that I decided to, as I said earlier, use my voice in a different way. I am sure most of it comes from age and life experience, but I decided that I wanted to create work that comes from my heart. I don't think about how people are going to receive it. Genuinely. I don't say I'm going I need this message. I really try to open up and write from a very personal place about the things that matter the most to me and so there's a song I've written called Legacy, which some of you may have heard of Podium a couple of years ago in Toronto that I sang with Shallaway Youth Choir and the Nathaniel Dett choir an it's to honor and uplift the voices the thousands and thousands of missing and murdered indigenous women, girls, and two-spirited folks and that song has such a life now. There are so many different arrangements of it.
I've collaborated with choirs across the country on it. I wrote about it in in a book that's going to be published soon. I write about the things that, that I need to write about for my own sake. And, uh, when I'm asked to write about something, um, it, it must be something I genuinely care about and get excited to work on. I think that shows in my work and it's such a pleasure to have the opportunity to share that.
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Presentation by Megan Chartrand(translated from the French language panel presentations, see é157 podium 2024 - que pouvons-nous chanter et faire de plus ?)
Thank you very much. I know my bio is elsewhere, but I'll take two seconds to introduce myself anyway. I'm from Alberta and went to school there. Are there any other Albertans here? I hope so. Then I really fell in love with choral singing. I studied singing, I'm not a choral conductor, and then I moved to the United States to do my master's degree. After that, I worked in New York as a professional singer. Then I started a choir with a social mission that does concerts with lots of other people. It's really a team effort, and I think that's what I've been asked to talk to you about today.
But just before I get into that, I want to acknowledge that it's a really difficult subject we're facing today. It's not easy to see how confronting the climate crisis is such a huge problem. And choral singing, how can it even be talked about? How can we even imagine these two things helping each other? I just want to acknowledge that we have a challenge, that it's 'overwhelming' maybe to even think about subscribing to this. Then I also want to thank the other artists who are here. I think we're all approaching this from very different perspectives. And I hope that, by listening to our stories, you'll come away with a little bit of something useful, something to think about afterwards.
Inspired is also the name of a choir we started in 2017, so it's been a while now. It was born out of a desire to confront the social problems we saw in the world with the tools we had as musicians. We have something very powerful as singers, backing singers, as Claude mentioned. It can allow us to discuss, to confront subjects that are difficult, that not everyone agrees on, and to do so in an approachable and safe way, and also to present a challenge to those listening to us.
So that's why we started inspired. There was a real desire among our colleagues in New York to do something similar. And our solution was that we weren't experts. We're not experts on these difficult subjects. We were confronted with many social differences, of which the climate crisis was only one. But we wanted to help, but we didn't always know how. Then I think it's okay to admit that as musicians. We don't have all the answers. Then we thought, well, there are no more answers. So that's great. It's the people who have organizations that do this every day, who deal with these problems on a daily basis.
So we approached an organization called 350 NYC. It's part of a larger worldwide organization, 350, which is an organization that knew what to do. After working with them for the first time, they managed to do a year's worth of Divest New York. So they were able to take out all the money: 'Divest New York City from Fossil Fuels'. So our concepts were created collaboratively by talking to these partners during the planning process. They contributed to the story. We talked and told stories during the concert, choosing the repertoire, inviting people to come and listen to us. It's a lot of work, I admit, but it's worth it. Then all our concerts were also followed by an educational reception for a conversational learning aspect for everyone in the room to take part in the concert too.
This partnership with 350, we started our conversation with them, and then the first thing we had to explain to them was that this wasn't a fund-raising concert, not a 'benefit concert'. It's more about celebrities, famous people who can make a lot of money doing concerts. It was really to start a conversation, to engage the world and have an educational aspect and build a community that knows each other better. Then, honestly, of all the partners we worked with, these people were the most engaged, the most interested. We had a lot of people from the environmental community who came to support us, who were curious about what we were doing. And like, afterwards, for the educational reception, we had posters all over the room that led to protests.
There were people there to explain what they were doing. The choir, during the rehearsal process was taught by people from 350 to explain what they were doing so that we could later explain it to the people who came to the concert. One of the most special aspects, I think, of what happened at this event was that we discovered that the founder of 350 NYC was herself a singer, a singer songwriter, a writer, a singer who had worked with this group for fifteen years, and then nobody knew how to sing it with them. Then we said, well, this is a song you like to sing. We said Ah yes, I've got one. The song was called Touch the water. Then we found someone to arrange this song, to have the choir, to sing with her. Then she went on stage and sang with us.
It was such a special moment to share with her community, but also with someone else. I also thought about sharing for this collaboration, especially with some somewhat unexpected results that I think speak a little bit to this subject. It made you wonder about the power of singing music. We're not going to reduce Gas that's in the atmosphere when there's no direct result happening in between. But after that concert we had several people from the organization come up and talk to us, who said: "It gave us energy in our day-to-day work. That's something. A bit 'thankless' to fight the climate crisis. It's a bit hopeless. And you have to appreciate the people who do it every day. Then they told us we felt appreciated, we felt renewed, and now we have the energy to continue this difficult work that nobody has ever done. Something similar for us before.
I don't have time to go on, but I just want to mention that this isn't the only project we've done with them, that it's very important when you're doing operations to renew the second concert well, that we've done collaborations with them with young people who've written poems we've had, who've been able to. We put them to music with the composer. These are very special memories.
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Presentation by Sarah Fioravanti
Yes, hello everyone, it's a great pleasure today to be able to discuss a subject that's been close to my heart since childhood. Particularly the responsibility we have towards our environment. Before working for the Centre for Sustainable Practices in the Arts, I had the opportunity to work as a field scientist, collecting air, water and soil samples to measure contaminant levels, particularly for oil companies seeking to decontaminate soils after decades of activity.
So, when I made the transition to sustainability in the arts and culture sector, I was asked about the relevance of this transition. Moving from the oil business to the arts because the arts are less polluting and I promise you, the relevance exists, and I really hope to share it with you today. So today, I have the opportunity to collaborate with organizations in the arts and culture sector that are seeking to understand and measure the environmental impact of their activities. What we're doing in this context is creating carbon footprints.
So our platform, the Creative Green tools, are a set of free carbon calculators that enable industries, especially in the arts and culture, to understand their impacts and with this data, make choices that are thoughtful and effective. There's also a lot of interest in discussing the environmental footprint today, but I think it's also important to define it so that we all understand that it's the carbon footprint.
So when we talk about it, we're talking about all the greenhouse gases emitted as a result of our activities. There are several types of greenhouse gases, including CO2, methane and water vapour, and what they have in common is the greenhouse effect, which means they retain heat once they're in the atmosphere. Each has a different strength. So when we talk about carbon footprints, we actually convert all these gases into a common unit of CO2 to simplify comparisons.
So now that we've clearly defined the carbon footprint, I think it's important to clarify why we're adding this weight on artists? It's not meant to be punitive at all, quite the contrary. It's mainly to empower. Because if we wait until the industries, the gas emitters in Canada, are the only ones to act, we can wait a long time and then feel powerless. In the meantime, it's really collectively that we've had the most powerful impact. And you, the choirs, are the most beautiful metaphor for this. It's the ensemble of individual singing that creates the grandiosity of the choir. If each individual choir member chooses not to sing in a show because his or her sound is drowned out by the crowd anyway, it's not going to be the same in the choir. In the choir, it's going to be a very quiet concert and I advise you to be 100% dedicated to a sustainable life.
Since the Second World War, we have collectively chosen to live in a world of total illusion. Material resources are infinite. So why wash the dishes when you can eat off a plastic plate and throw them away? Because there's a magic truck that comes every week to collect our rubbish and make it disappear. Why not buy 28 shows for the price of one when they're made on the other side of the world in miserable, polluting conditions?
So I invite you to be aware of every action we take. This will avoid the alarmist idea we have of our future. And speaking of every action we take; we can start with our travels. Think of choirs, concerts, rehearsals, frequent rehearsals. We can concentrate on that. It's a major source of emissions. So we can promote carpooling and public transport. The Montreal Polyphonic Choir is a fine example of a chorister who uses public transport to get to rehearsals, especially with a performance hall so easily accessible in an urban environment where parking is sometimes difficult, especially in Montreal. Not only can we carpool and promote public transport, it's also a way of promoting human exchanges and reducing the air pollution we breathe. I think it's important to define. Not to judge the goodness of an action by its carbon emissions, but rather by its overall social, environmental and economic impact.
If we also look at our waste management practices, it's going to be important to do things like use reusable bottles, promote digital programs for concerts and also to look at the type of practice we have and its effectiveness. So, for example, it's always better to reuse bottles, to reuse take-away food. Because today, the reality is that our recycling system is more a business than a standardized national practice in sustainability. Let's face it.
Le cœur classique de Montréal, which had a concert just last night. We see digital programs following the purchase of tickets. They also project the lyrics on the walls during performances instead of printing them out and handing them out. I'm also thinking of conductor Mimi Lavigueur, who promotes digital programs, and so on. It's important to also think about the cultural aspect of your practice, because as an artist, you have the power to raise public awareness of environmental issues. We know that art manipulates the media and provokes debate, so we take advantage of it. Uh integrated, as has been mentioned, themes of sustainability, themes of environmental preservation, you can get people talking and thinking.
That said, when we think of choirs, we don't associate them with the biggest carbon footprints. And that footprint can grow when it comes to touring. So if we want to create a sustainable tour, we're going to think about favoring local resources. In other words, if you're traveling, you can collaborate with communities to source all the equipment and technical talent, so you only have to move the choristers and conductors. And that can also create a national collaboration of mutual aid between choristers that could be interesting to explore.
Obviously, if we're thinking about touring, we're thinking about partnering with venues that are certified eco-responsible, so that they already have sustainable practices. The same goes for hotel accommodation: we have hotels with eco-responsible certifications that we should work with. Let's also get crazy and talk about national collaborations, mutual aid between choristers. Why not host in the homes of local people and have choristers host in each other's homes? If we develop a network, not only does it reduce our carbon footprint, but the beauty of it is the development of human connection.
Today, it's almost crazy to think of connections outside, inside the screen. And if you think about choirs, the main environmental impact is going to be moving the audience around. So we want to communicate to the public the importance of coming to the concert using transport, active transport, public transport too. So we can develop initiatives such as ticket price reductions for people who come by public transport. We could also work with concert halls, promoters and ticket agents to include a round-trip public transport ticket in the price of the ticket. Why not?
What we do with Creative Green tools is help people understand how to collect and analyze this data, so that they can develop initiatives that are effective and relevant to your own context. Speaking of relevance, if we analyze the fact that powering a theater in Alberta generates 500 times more GG than powering the same theatre in Quebec. We can see how important it is to look at your geographical context, and the energy sources linked to that geographical context.
So for a choir in Alberta, you might want to prioritize your choice of venue, one that's powered by renewable energy. And for a Quebec choir, it would be more like choosing initiatives to promote alternative public transport. To conclude, I'd like to emphasize that using the carbon footprint as a sustainability factor is a very modern and limited way of looking at things. If we look at indigenous peoples, they have traditional knowledge that encompasses in-depth concepts of natural cycles, local ecosystems, sustainable practices or practices specific to their environment.
What would be wonderful for the future would be to integrate this traditional knowledge into our carbon footprint reduction initiatives, so that we can have a more holistic approach that includes not only environmental issues, but also the cultural, social and spiritual dimension that is very important today, with artificial intelligence solutions on the rise, we see the need to harness what makes us stronger than it. And that's consciousness, the awareness of understanding the impact of each of our actions. Combined with the tools we have to quantify that impact and reduce it. So I wish you all awareness and creativity. Thank you all.
Megan Chartrand (in response to the question 'I notice that all the panelists today are women, and historically, women have been at the forefront of climate change advocacy. I guess my question is more how do you think your position of power in the current structure we have to navigate impacts your ability to effect social change in the choral space?')
I mean, we're lucky it's women who are in charge. Then I didn't get the chance, but I just want to take two seconds. I'm going to show you a photo of Lena, who was also a woman and director of 350 NYC, and one of the dozens of women we worked with. It's true, it was really a lot of women who were there and her leadership was something very powerful and we're not going to let go. 'We're stubborn and but also optimistic so.'
Sarah Fioravanti (closing remarks)
I'd like to add two small aspects. The first is the Creative Green tools. We're making a consultation effort that we think is essential, particularly with aboriginal communities. Making sure that in data collection, we don't leave out all the remote or rural communities because we often talk about public transit, but sometimes when you're in a rural area, it's not an option. So it's important to address these differences, so that we all feel connected to the cause. The second beautiful aspect is that we're all affected to different degrees by the impact of our environment.
So sometimes, it's this connection that we all have that means we don't always have to mention the differences between certain groups and communities. What I also find refreshing is to be able to have a subject like environmental health, public health, to have this subject that we can share across communities. We no longer need to show this division between one community and the other. So to balance, as has been said, what's essential for inclusion, with the fact that we're all, regardless of the community affected by this cause, I think it's the perfect opportunity to bring us together.