Presenter Profile
Bronwyn Thies-Thompson is a musician and researcher pursuing their PhD in Religions and Cultures at Concordia University in Montréal, Québec (Canada). Bronwyn’s 20-year ongoing practice as a professional church musician informs their autoethnographic and creative approach to their research, including their SSHRC-supported doctoral research project, which explores the Canadian choristership traditions.
Canadian Cathedral Music – A Uniquely Diverse, Hybrid, Multivocal Tradition
Canada’s cathedral music tradition, while sharing certain similarities with its English counterpart, possesses its own unique identity. This presentation will highlight the specificities and idiosyncrecies of Canada’s cathedral music tradition(s), exploring the multiple pedagogical and institutional frameworks currently in place, highlighting several composers, leaders, and organisations in these spaces, and the cultural exchange with the broader classical music milieu in Canada and abroad. Questions of musical hybridity and multivocality will be considered through an examination of how local folk repertoires are incorporated into the performances by these ensembles; while a case study will consider the entanglement of Canada’s Cathedral music tradition with its colonial heritage.