Jeff, Cameron and I had our fist visit to the Montreal Symphony, as part of a wonderful three part series just for children: The Children's Corner of the Symphony. Each performance has some live acting component on stage to go along with the orchestra's performance. Here's a link to the program: http://www.osm.ca/en/series/childrens-corner-2013-14
The first performance was called The Phantoms of the Opera. At first I thought that meant the music would be from the Phantom of the Opera, but it turned out that it based on the music from The Sorcerer's Apprentice and the "phantoms" were all the musicians, the conductor and a couple of mimes. The show began with a dark stage and a mime coming out dressed on a ghostly kind of tucks, who walked out with a candelabra, laid it on the top of the organ which was stage right, then played the organ as a smokey haze from dry ice covered the stage. Then the musicians came out dressed in black but with ripped white cloth or toilet paper draping them, dragging themselves on stage like mummies rising from the dead, complete with groans and an occasional shriek.
Outside of the symphony there were placards showing the different groupings of instruments with the instrument names below.
All in all, a great performance. In the end, we got back on our bikes and rode 6 kilometers back to our apartment, a nice ride most of the way because of the bike path on one of the main roads.
Yesterday, October 14, was Canadian Thanksgiving. I hadn't realized it was Canadian Thanksgiving until last week when I heard students talking about having the day off. Jeff, Cameron and I were very fortunate to be invited to the home of two Montrealers, Deena and David, where we were served a wonderful vegetarian meal and had a great conversation. Here's a photo of us all.
Jeff, Cameron and I have started going to the Unitarian Church of Montreal. Cameron goes to the Sunday School classes there. This past Sunday, the day before Thanksgiving, the kids talked about what they are thankful for:
On Thanksgiving Day, I watched a segment on the CBC news about a program called Sharing Thanksgiving in which new Canadian citizens are invited to join other Canadian families for Thanksgiving dinner. It looked like a really neighborly and welcoming program. Below are some photos I took from the news segment about this tradition.
A week and a half ago I went to the first parent/teacher conference at Cameron's school, the Ecole Judith Jasmin, a French school. I'd met his teacher before and she seemed nice, but this was the first time she spoke with the parent group at some length with translators. The kids in this class are from all over the world, so there were three translations going on while the teacher spoke. One table had the Chinese parents and Koreans who understood Chinese, another table had someone speaking Farsi I think since there are a couple Persian (Iranean) kids, our table which was in English (which included the mom of Cameron's Tunisian friend who also speaks a little English), and then I was doing translation on the side for the parent from Venezuela since they didn't have a Spanish translator in the room.
Cameron is one of 17 children in a "Welcoming Class" for children in the school who don't yet speak French fluently. He's the only American but there are a few kids who speak a little English. They are all struggling along together learning French. His closest friends here so far are Nam-quu (from Korea), Mia (from China), and Escander (from Tunisia). The teacher spoke a bit of English and French in the beginning but is starting to do less and less English. Cameron says she will say things in French but also act them out so the kids can understand what she's saying.
Here are some photos of Cameron's class room that I took on parents' night. Cameron sits at the table on the far right that is empty in the picture.
Cameron's friend Mia is the shorter girl on the right in the pink.
Like back home, each child has a hook in the hallway with their name above it.
Here's the playground outside of Cameron's school. I was a little worried at first that there was no playground equipment or grass, but there are balls and kids who like to play soccer and dodge ball, so Cameron has been happy at recess time and has found his little group of friends.
There was a fun potluck welcoming party at Cameron's French school last week. He goes to the Ecole Judith-Jasmine. Here are some photos of the party (Fete).
I made brownies for the potluck.
The corn-on-the-cob was great. It was interesting how they served the butter. There would be several plates, each with a small brick of solid butter. Then people would roll their ear of corn like it's a spinning rolling pin on the brick of butter and move on, (see photo below).
Here's a video of the Quebecquois band performing at the Fete:
And a couple other short videos of the playground scene:
Here's Cameron is playing with a hoop that goes on your foot and you swing it around and jump over it with your other foot.
Soccer is a favorite every day. Cameron said about 60% of the kids he plays soccer with speak French. He doesn't understand what they say a lot of the time but they're nice about him playing.
On a different topic, was I was writing this blog entry, I wondered who Judith Jasmin was (... the school is named after her). I learned that she was Quebec's first female special correspondent. She was known to be a voice for those fighting against injustice, covering their protests in the streets. She was also a founding member of a group called the Mouvement Laique de langue francaise, "The Francophone Secular Movement". She was also a United Nations correspondent. She died of cancer in Montreal in 1972. Here's a photo of her and a video clip if you'd like to see her in action.
