This hasn’t been the milestone anniversary members of the West Vancouver Youth Band had hoped for, but they’re not bringing out the tiny violins just yet.
The youth band, Canada’s oldest community youth band and the longest continually operating youth band in the region, is 90 years old this year.
There was a lot planned for the band’s banner year, but like everything else during the COVID-19 pandemic, things haven't gone according to plan.
“It would have been a very public thing with concerts and a trip to Ottawa planned – a cross-Canada tour, basically,” said Douglas Macaulay, the band’s principal conductor, on what they had up their sleeve for the 90th year.
Instead, the maestro and his seven ensembles – four band and three string ensembles – are trying something new.
Although the full symphonic, 90-piece ensemble has not been able to meet in person this year, smaller groups have started to practice together again in the auditory grandeur of West Vancouver Community Centre’s music hall, the band’s permanent home for the past decade.
Some youth in the non-auditioned band, which includes players from eight to 19 years of age, have opted to tune in remotely to band rehearsal, continuing what started as the customary practice for the entire band when strict COVID-19 restrictions were implemented earlier this year.
“Last spring was awful because last spring was fully online. That was not a pleasant experience for anyone. It was very hard to accomplish anything,” notes Macaulay, who adds a planned collaborative performance between his youth band and Squamish Nation performers based on Indigenous songs and legends had to be cancelled this past summer as well.
They’re finding a way to accomplish a lot now.
While the band and its various ensembles – which West Vancouver mayor and council circa 1995 officially proclaimed as “West Vancouver’s Official Youth Band” – have been accustomed to performing a dozen official concerts every year, in addition to playing at community events, they’ve firmly entered the digital realm this year.
Since his band ensembles couldn’t perform concerts in person this year, they’ve endeavoured to make recordings and video performances employing their usual musical bravado when playing everything from Canadian orchestral works, contemporary pieces, jazz, films scores and more, says Macaulay.
The band recently recorded and released a special video for Remembrance Day, with plans to try their hand at producing more recordings and videos every week, he says, noting how challenging it was to record five band parts separately before splicing them together into a single track.
“I played it for the kids this week and they were just blown away. It’s the first time this year that they’ve got to hear the whole band together,” says Macaulay. “You can either whine about the situation or you can get on with it and see the opportunities that come.”
It took nine decades for the youth band to arrive at this moment.
Founded in 1930 because none of the schools on the North Shore had band programs at the time, the first iteration of the youth band was housed in École Pauline Johnson Elementary.
In 1933, the band grew substantially under the direction of Arthur W. Delamont, who led the youth ensembles until 1958.
“He’s the legendary Delamont who conducted and founded the Kitsilano Boys Band, the North Vancouver Youth Band, the Point Grey Band – he taught everybody from Jimmy Pattison to Dal Richards to Robert Buckley, the great Canadian composer,” explains Macaulay.
Under Delamont’s direction, the band grew in size and scope, winning awards and competitions throughout North American and Europe, including at the Chicago World’s Fair.
When Macaulay took the reins decades later, he was only supposed to stay on as band director and principal conductor for three years. Instead, he’s been with the band for almost 30, making him its longest serving director. “I don’t know how that happened,” he muses.
Macaulay was in a tight spot when he took the top job in 1993. Participation in the youth band had waned throughout the ’70s and ’80s to the point where there were only several dozen young musicians in the band when he took over.
After some careful re-jigging, including restructuring the band into different levels and employing the help from dedicated parents, Macaulay was able to rebuild. Although numbers have dipped slightly this year due to the pandemic, the band, which is open to all skill levels and doesn’t require an audition, now routinely caps out at 200 members.
“We are the last of Vancouver’s original youth bands,” says Macaulay, noting that the Kitsilano Boys Band and North Vancouver Youth Band are both long gone.
Former West Vancouver mayor Derek Humphreys, opining on the importance of the youth band on its 50th anniversary in 1980, perhaps summed it up best when he said: “… no other organization eclipses them in their place in the fabric of our community.”
During its 90 years so far, the West Vancouver Youth Band has been accustomed to adding sound and colour to so many community events – from festivals and parades to Remembrance Day ceremonies and holiday traditions.
While that hasn’t been able to happen this year – or, at least, not in the manner they’ve been used to – Macaulay has been thrilled with how his young musicians have adapted to the challenge and invested themselves in the process of performing together while largely staying apart during the pandemic.
“It’s probably the finest example of community that you can come across. These kids give so much of their time to this organization.”
