A Choir in the Image of Montreal

On the Radio-Canada website, you will find here an article and a video about our friend Dimitri Ilias and his extraordinary choir project, that brings your children with hundreds of others from all parts of Montreal. Click on this link to see the good work and all its positive results.

 The following is the translation of the article:

A Young Choir in the Image of Today’s Montreal

Translated from a text by Tanya Lapointe, Radio-Canada

Three hundred and twenty young people participated in a major project in Montreal. They are part of a choir created for the recording of a CD-book, and the narrative was entrusted to actor Guy Nadon.

In all, students from thirty cultural communities gathered to sing in French.

Dimitri Ilias is the instigator of a musical project that continues to grow. Originally created for a class of 22 students in a Greek school, he helped initiate 320 young people to choral singing.

The choir brings together students from the third to the sixth grade of École Socrates-Démosthène, the English Montreal School Board and Marguerite-Bourgeoy school. It receives financial support from the City of Montreal.

Within a month, the vocal ensemble will record in the Oscar Peterson Concert Hall at Concordia University, an album entitled Le temps des fleurs, le temps des neiges, to be published this fall. This work is the French adaptation of a published record-book in English, illustrated by Philippe Béha. This achievement will also be the subject of a book, to be published by Planète Rebelle editions.

The CD and the book focus on the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone.

Singing to improve French speaking
From different cultural communities, young singers learned the songs in French, which is their second or even their third language, in some cases. Sylvie Lambert, Director of l’École Bois-Franc-Aquarelle says that singing helps for a better learning of vocabulary and the understanding of texts.

Assistance for music programs

Almost half of the profits from book sales will be paid to schools for their music program, according to Dimitri Ilias.
The publication of two books from Greek mythology is expected in the coming years.