Dr. Bertrum MacDonald (SIM Professor and former Director) talked to Local Xpress about his love of music and information in this profile (excerpt below):

“The Halifax Camerata Singers, led by artistic director Jeff Joudrey, with the Rhapsody Quintet present Halifax 1917: From Dreams to Despair, with actor Jeremy Webb, in a sold-out show Saturday at the Halifax Central Library.

MacDonald is most deeply moved by a new commission for the choir and the quintet from Nova Scotia composer Chris Palmer that will end a theatrical concert depicting 1917 in music from the start of 1917 with New Year’s ragtime through operetta, vaudeville, sacred and secular choral music, patriotic band music and First World War songs up until the disaster.

“One of the privileges of singing in this choir is Jeff has been commissioning new works and been giving prominence to Canadian composers,” says MacDonald, “though we’ve done extraordinary work by international composers.”

Palmer’s piece is based on a poem he saw in Dalhousie University’s Rare Books Collection written in 1917 and first published in 1918 by D.M. Matheson, a former principal of Alexander McKay School.”