The Icelandic connection - 01.12.2020, Blaðsíða 38

180
ICELANDIC CONNECTION
Vol. 71 #4
Saskatchewan and there she had started
taking piano lesson and sang in choirs.
She had attended St Mary’s Academy
in Winnipeg and took voice lessons
and continued with her piano lessons.
Unfortunately the outbreak of the
Spanish flu put a stop to her further music
education at that time and she returned to
Saskatchewan. She later had opportunity
to study voice lessons and piano lessons
and became an accomplished pianist. She
taught piano lessons, sang as a soloist for
concerts, sang in choirs and conducted
choirs, and played piano for church
services. She had a keen interest in music
and so would someone have given this set
of little choir boys to her, recognizing that
interest? Likely she
would have listened
to the beautiful sound
of the amazing voices
of an all boy choir
and would just have
acquired this set of
little choir boys for
herself, possibly.
Anna’s talent in
the arts came by her
rightly. Her mother,
Rosa Davidsdottir, was
a first cousin to S. K.
Hall, the renowned
pianist, piano teacher
and composer. Anna’s
mother Rosa was also
a first cousin to K. N.
Julius, renowned in the
arts, not for music but
as a poet and rhymester.
Rosa herself loved to
sing and acted in the
local play productions.
Further to this interest
in musical arts, Anna
endowed a monetary
gift to Iceland to fund
the establishment of a
scholarship in her parents name to go to
students interested in continuing studies
in singing.
My little choir boys wear floor
length red cassock. Cassocks are typically
buttoned from the collar to the hem and
over the cassocks the little choir boys
wear surplices. Surplices have a square
yoked neckline and are worn to mid-
thigh length and have a wide full sleeve.
The cloth collars are large red satin bows
at the throat. As a child I had never seen
boys dressed in these exotic ecclesiastic
garments except perhaps on Christmas
cards. One year my aunt gave my brothers
a long play record of a Vienna boys choir