The lyrics for the Gallery of Song are based on poems written by Ontario students in response to a province wide competition to write their thoughts after viewing paintings by Tom Thomson, The Group of Seven and Emily Carr.
Taking care to ensure the tone, style and structure of the poems could make a leap to a musical interpretation and setting, eight were selected from the almost 200 submissions. As no submissions were received for F.H. Varley’s ‘Moonlight at Lynn’, a collective poem was written by choristers from the Kanata Children’s Choir at a Sunday afternoon ‘pizza party’ workshop.
The inspiration and selections from the poetry, along with some of the music, is shared in each of the videos below.
J.E.H. MacDonald
Poetry – Stephanie B. – Age 16
Franklin Carmichael
Poetry – Sarah D. – Age 12
A.J. Casson
Poetry – Lauren P. – Age 11
Tom Thomson
Poetry – Stephanie B. – Age 16
Arthur Lismer
Poetry – Rebecca F. – Age 9
A.Y. Jackson
Poetry – Kate B. – Age 13
Emily Carr
Poetry – Charlotte O. – Age 9
F.H. Varley
Poetry – Kanata Children’s Choir
Lawren Harris
Poetry – Lauren P. – Age 11