Vancouver Cantata Singers join forces with Stʼatʼimc-Lil’wat composer Russell Wallace

Concert program Rest includes two new choral arrangements of the artist’s songs, among other diverse works

By Gail Johnson

Russell Wallace.

Vancouver Cantata Singers present Rest on October 26 at 7:30 pm at Christ Church Cathedral

SOME SONGS JUST come to Russell Wallace, a composer and traditional singer from the Stʼatʼimc and Lil’wat Nations, when he least expects it. He recalls one such experience when Stir connects with him for a recent phone interview from his home in East Vancouver.

About 20 years ago, he was at the Toronto Council Fire Native Cultural Centre, when someone who also happened to hail from the West Coast suggested they show people there their traditional style of dance. He obliged.

“I’m not much of a dancer,” Wallace admits. “With a lot of West Coast style of dance, the centre of gravity is low and you’re kind of crouching and hopping. It’s a real nice workout, actually.

“I survived the song and I didn’t do too badly—until the next morning when I could barely walk,” he recalls. “I was really surprised by how much my thigh muscles and calf muscles all were so stiff.”

He had to walk to work, a trek that usually took 10 minutes but which, that day, took more than 20 minutes.

“I was in pain walking, and this melody came to me,” Wallace says. “The rhythm of the song matched how I was walking. I sang it all the way there, and when got to the space, I thought ‘I have to document this’ so I kept singing.

“I call it the ‘Journey’ song because I was on a journey to get someplace, but it was difficult and it was a challenge, and I thought, ‘Well, a lot of our journeys are like that: we have challenges in our life yet we persist, even though we’re in pain sometimes or things get in the way.’ We still have to get to where we’re going.”

He’s given a brand new choral arrangement to “Journey”, one of two pieces commissioned by the Vancouver Cantata Singers for its upcoming concert, Rest. Both are sung in the Stʼatʼimc language. Wallace collaborated with Sam Dabrusin, one of the singers, who helped with scoring the song. “Sam was there to check my music grammar,” Wallace explains. “I’m honoured to have had the opportunity.”

Wallace’s music has been featured on soundtracks for film, television, theatre, and dance productions across Canada and the U.S. He earned a 2018 Leo Award for best music for a documentary for his work on the APTN series 1491: The Untold History of the Americas Before Columbus, and received the Lieutenant Governor’s Art and Music Award in 2022 for artists who have demonstrated exceptional leadership, creativity, community engagement, and commitment through fostering and mentoring others in the fields of visual arts, music, or performance. His music was also featured at Biennale Arte 2022—the 59th International Art Exhibition in Venice.

For Rest, Wallace also gives a new choral setting to “Lil’wat Lullaby”, a piece originally created 30 or 40 years ago by his mother, Flora Wallace, from Xaxli’p and Lil’wat Nations. She was a great influence on Wallace and filled her home of 11 children with music as often as she could. This particular number features a sound that Wallace’s mom and elders would make with their mouths to help soothe kids in bed.

“She would tell us what the grandmothers would do to sing children to sleep,” Wallace explains. “There was a thing they did with their tongue. I call it a warble; it’s the tongue moving back and forth before the lips, and this is what the elders would do to make a melody. She created this song to demonstrate that. A lot of cultures did it, but you don’t really hear it around; it’s kind of a lost art form.”

Wallace, meanwhile, has taught students at Vancouver Community College’s Indigenous Vocal Ensemble the technique. His work is a way of keeping his mother’s legacy alive.

“She was a very talented person and an amazing singer,” Wallace says. “She would improvise every day, singing something off the radio or a traditional song, or she would make something up on the spot. She was a survivor of residential schools so there were parts of her life where she didn’t feel comfortable singing in front of people. She passed away 20 years ago. One of the things she told me was to keep sharing the music, keep sharing the songs, so that’s my task in life—to share her music that she taught me. I call myself a hereditary singer.”

The Vancouver Cantata Singers’ program will also feature works by Ramona Luengen, Tamsin Jones, J.S. Bach, Jaako Mäntyjärvi, Zoltan Kodály, and Gabriel Fauré.

“I’m so glad that the Cantata Singers have embraced these works and are choosing them as part of their repertoire,” Wallace says. “Our music can be part of other music.” 

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