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Choir Hopes Old Music Will Help Heal Modern Crisis

Drawn from a century-old tradition begun in the coal-mining valleys of Wales, a New World choir sings to help psychiatrists and psychiatry residents harmed by natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina.

APA annual meeting attendees can listen to a century-old musical tradition and help psychiatrists who were victims of Hurricane Katrina at the same time.

The Toronto Welsh Male Voice Choir will perform selections from its wide repertoire in a benefit concert at the Toronto Convention Centre on Monday evening, May 22, at 7 p.m. The proceeds will go the Disaster Relief Fund of APA and the American Psychiatric Foundation.

Toronto psychiatrist and APA member D. Ray Freebury, M.D., suggested the program. The 60-member choir includes a number of physicians. Freebury graduated from the Welsh National School of Medicine in Cardiff, Wales, as did two of his fellow choristers. Child psychiatrist Gordon Yanchyshyn, M.D., is also a member. Together, the group could probably staff a small clinic.

The Toronto Welsh Male Voice Choir performs about a quarter of its music in Welsh. Photo courtesy of the Toronto Welsh Male Voice Choir

"We also have a pediatrician, a radiologist, and a couple of family physicians, one of whom has been known to leave practice early to deliver a baby," said Freebury in an interview.

Founded in 1995, the majority of the choir are Welsh expatriates living in the Toronto area, but anyone who can sing is welcome to join. The choir performs about 25 percent of its music in Welsh, mostly hymns and folk songs, but includes operatic selections, Broadway show tunes, and spirituals. "I suspect you will hear `When the Saints Go Marching in' and `The Battle Hymn of the Republic,' too," said Freebury.

The Welsh male choral tradition began in the coal-mining valleys of Wales. Men sang to lighten the burdens of a miner's life or, in more recent years, the hard times that came when the mines closed.

"For the non-native speaker, Welsh is a difficult language to sing because there aren't a whole lot of vowels," said music writer Joan Oliver Goldsmith, author of How Can We Keep From Singing: Music and the Passionate Life (W.W. Norton, 2001), a book of essays on choral singing, in an interview. "But singing in the language of their ancestors is one way the Welsh have kept their heritage alive and added to the richness of the new world."

The Toronto choir is a registered charity, and previous concerts have raised funds to support refugee resettlement services, hospice and seniors programs, and scholarships for music students.

More information about the Toronto Welsh Male Voice Choir is posted on its Web site at <www.twmvc.com>.

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