When Chitra Dath-McLellan invited the Journal to a Music Monday event at Great Lakes Secondary School, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was told there would be a few hundred students performing a song, in this case ‘We Are One’ by Connor Ross, in celebration of the 20th anniversary of Music Monday.
Dath-McLellan explains that normally they would celebrate this annual event, put on by the Coalition for Music Appreciation, by learning the selected song and performing it in class — but the 20th anniversary meant to her that they should do something different. “This year I thought let's do it on a larger scale. I want to get a lot of little kids involved. I want to get as many musicians as I can performing in the same space, on the same piece of music at the same time as I possibly can,” Dath-McLellan says.
Invites went out to the elementary schools that feed into Great Lakes and nine ended up participating, sending between 40 and 75 students each after learning the song on their own.
“We had never performed it together before today….dress rehearsal was the time when we figured out if this was going to work. And dress rehearsal went really well,” Dath-McLellan tells me.
As for the kids, everybody seemed to have a great time. Classes made signs representing their schools, some wore matching jerseys, and while you might expect it to be a bit chaotic with that many young students in one space, it was far from herding cats. But maybe that all comes down to the organization Dath-McLellan and company put into the event.
Everyone probably wishes they had a music teacher like Dath-McLellan. And she would probably be the first to tell you that this story shouldn’t be about her, it should be about the students and the music.
I would argue otherwise. When she’s conducting, each swing of her arms is done with the exuberance and skill of someone who is clearly in love with their job. A jump while conducting the jazz bands performance of Bruno Mars’ ‘Uptown Funk’ later in the afternoon is evidence Dath-McLellan is feeding off the crowd's energy. She encourages attendees to ‘chair dance’ but that doesn’t stop kids from dancing in the aisles and clearly feeding off of her energy. As Dath-McLellan tells the crowd, “you roll with the punches and go where the music takes you.”
A teacher at GLSS for five years and at SCITS for 21 years before that, her students and band members can’t help but sing her praises.
“Amazing. I really don’t think I could speak any higher of her, she is one of the best,” Grade 12 student Grace Cressman tells me after. Cressman is a member of the choir and plays trumpet in the school’s concert and jazz band and performed on stage for Music Monday. Fellow concert and jazz band member, Grade 10 student Joel Derkzen, echoes Cressman’s sentiments. “She’s [Dath-McLellan] very energetic. She really gets you pumped about it [music].”
The teacher's love of music is infectious and the two band members are eager to share what they hope students take away from Music Monday. “Just how fun music can be, and to see if they like it. It’s important to try,” says Derkzen.
“I hope they take away the fact that what they do as a musical being is very important and it is nurturing and it makes you feel good in your heart…it brings people together” Dath-McLellan tells me.
As for what she loves most about being a music teacher, the question makes her stop and think for a minute. “So many reasons, I can't even… It’s the kids, their faces and their hearts, and the spirit that they have and the way music heals them. They come in jaded and angry and upset and they leave this program inspired and nurtured and loved and positive…music is just a magical thing to heal kids.”