Singing ‘In Flanders Fields’: Canadian Reflections on War and Remembrance
Acadia students are keeping the memories of Nova Scotian World War I soldiers alive in a unique way.
In the spring of 2024, members of the Acadia University Singers embarked on an incredible choir tour across France and Belgium. Participating in WWI-oriented research projects conducted by Dr. Michelle Boyd (School of Music) and Wendy Robicheau (Acadia Archives), the choir offered concerts, visited the gravesites of Acadia’s WWI soldiers, and—literally—sang in Flanders Fields.
The “Singing ‘In Flanders Fields’” project took 13 Acadia students on the trip of a lifetime across Belgium and France.
Led by Dr. Boyd, the “Singing ‘In Flanders Fields’” project examines how music helps audiences to interpret, appreciate, and draw meaning from John McCrae’s famous poem. The spring 2024 tour was a natural extension of her project, allowing her students to embody the connections between their lives today and Nova Scotian soldiers over a century ago.
In addition to travelling to memorial sites, the choir performed two concerts, one in Arras and the other in Ypres. The concert program featured different musical settings of McCrae’s poem, “In Flanders Fields,” and other Remembrance-themed music, all from Canadian composers, including a hauntingly beautiful arrangement of “Farewell to Nova Scotia” by Acadia alumnus Lucas Oickle.
Boyd says “it was also very exciting to feature new music written by two of our own singers: recent graduate Freya Milliken sang her own composition of ‘In Flanders Fields’ and the choir performed third-year student Maria Zimmerman’s ‘Ici Repose’ (a setting of a poem by Bernard Freeman Trotter, who was the son of Acadia’s fifth president and who was killed in action in France in 1917).”
Tracing the path to the front
Before setting off for what would be a life-changing trip, the each of the 13 students in the choir “adopted” a solider who once called Acadia home. The “Adopt-a-Soldier” program, directed by Robicheau, brings back to life the stories of the hundreds of Acadia student soldiers who served in WWI. The adopters researched the lives and deaths of their adopted soldiers, often drawing parallels between the soldiers’ lives and their own.
The students followed the same route that many Acadia soldiers walked over 100 years ago, travelling from Nova Scotia, to London, to Folkestone, then taking a ferry across the channel to France, and finally onto Belgium. Along the way, they stopped at WWI memorials, sang at the base of the Vimy Ridge memorial, placed ribbons and sang at the gravesites of their adopted soldiers, and performed concerts.
“It took my breath away,” said Emily Markwart, realizing that she stood where her soldier once had. “It was the first moment I truly felt the gravity of what this trip really meant.”
The choir gathered to sing the Acadia fight song at the hotel in Folkstone where Acadia students-turned-soldiers had gathered for a dinner and sang that very same song before heading to the front. Emily felt the gravity of the moment, thinking about how she and her soldier, Leonard Eaton, were in the same place, at the same age, 26.
“You cannot prepare for standing where your soldier stood and I had truly not prepared for standing where he stood, celebrating with friends, knowing where his path would lead him,” Emily explained.
The Acadia University Singers wrote and recorded reflection pieces on the experience of connecting with their adopted soldiers.
“… immense grief for someone you didn’t even know.”
Seeing the places that the students had spent months researching through the eyes of their soldiers was a moving experience. On visiting the former front lines at Beaumont-Hamel, where her great-great-grandfather once fought, Freya Milliken, said “when I saw the first set of trenches, I nearly fell to the ground from the huge wave of shock that took over me. It’s incredible how you can feel such immense grief for someone you didn’t even know.”
Jane Bach, reflecting on signing at the grave of her soldier, Captain James Grant McNeill, said “the whole experience of singing this piece felt so different, guttural. Like the music was just an illusion in every other setting, but now it was somehow real.”
The experience brought forth surprising emotions, both positive and challenging. On visiting her soldier’s grave, Jane said “I was angry at how hard it was to picture the individuals contained in a field of crosses. … How the more we step back and remember the enormity of war the more we forget the significance of a single life. … I think I rediscovered some of my humanity at Ramillies Cemetery in the form of outrage.”
Freya is the only member of her family to have been able to visit Beaumont-Hamel, where her great-great-grandfather fought. “I’m so grateful to have this experience to share with them and carry for the rest of my life.”
Dr. Michelle Boyd, Emily Markwart, and Maria Zimmerman were featured on CBC’s “This is Nova Scotia.” They joined Portia Clark to discuss their journey from Wolfville to Ypres.