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Friday June 11, 2004
Edmonton Journal
It’s no secret; Masons plan unique multimedia event
Artist will ‘paint’ music as it’s being played and sung
Bill Rankin
Freemasons will be anything but secretive this weekend as the Grand Lodge of Alberta hosts a multimedia event unlike any the city has ever seen.
As the Edmonton Symphony and a choir perform the premiere of George Blondheim’s three-part Symphonia Masonica, Vancouver artist James Picard, perched high above the Winspear stage on a scaffold in the choir loft, will “paint the music” on an enormous triangular canvas symbolizing the levels of a Masons spiritual development.
The Alberta Masons commissioned Blondheim –who’s not a Mason- to write Symphonia Masonica in part to celebrate next year’s centennial of Freemasonry in Alberta.
“There’s never been a music lodge open to the public like this,” says Blondheim, who also organized the music for last fall’s historic outdoor hockey games at Commonwealth Stadium and the gala concert at the Winspear Centre.
Edmonton Mason Cameron MacKay says the event has two purposes: to raise money to boost a bursary fund, which supported 100 Alberta students last year to a tune of $1500 each, and to revive Masonry’s tradition of supporting the arts.
“Historically in Europe, Freemasons were always patrons of the arts, and in modern times we got away from that,” MacKay says. “We decided we were going to return to be patrons of the arts.” The Masons are the largest private donors of higher-education scholarships in Alberta, says MacKay, an Edmonton lawyer.
Picard works in a variety of styles and media, but he says he tends to work figuratively. He has no idea, though, what the painting will look like when it’s done a couple of hours after he starts.
“(The music) is going to reflect completely everything I paint. For me, I’m just going to get into the zone and let the music dictate,” Picard says. He will be hearing the music for the first time, just as the aaudience will.
He already has an image of the event in his mind’s eye that hearkens back to the days of Leonardo daVinci.
“We’ve got the canvas, we’ve got all the music together, we’ve got this old sort of Renaissance scaffolding and I’ll be up there painting on the canvas just to give it that whole feel. I think it’s going to be pretty incredible.”
Most people who know anything about Freemasons probably got their images from the Flintstones or the Simpsons. The two cartoon series did spoofs of the supposedly secret male society that may have begun centuries before the birth of Christ and evolved into a philanthropic organization best known these days in North America through its Shriner’s Circus and its support of children’s hospitals throughout North America.
Fred Flintstone intoning the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes’ secret password, “Ack Acka Dak Dak Daka Ack” or Homer Simpson in turmoil over how he can join the secret fraternity of Stonecutters and still be able to enjoy his Spare Ribs and Beer Night at Mo’s, are light-hearted parodies of a group that goes back at least to the 12th century, and has had members as illustrious as kings of Europe and the first leaders of both Canada and the United States, as well as numerous other influential men, including Alberta’s own former premier Peter Lougheed.
Pert of the history of Freemasonry also includes warnings that the powerful men drawn to its lodges have secretly plotted over the centuries to take over the world.
MacKay chuckles when asked whether Masons are hankering fro world domination.
“As far as (Masonry) being utilized as a vast world conspiracy, we really have trouble enough organizing the symphony, never mind organizing a world conspiracy,” he says.
Cameron, a former officer in the Grand Lodge of Alberta, says the group’s reputation as some ominous secret society is highly overstated.
“The only secret it has, which are mostly traditional customs that have been followed for centuries, are a means of identification to satisfy Masons that are having a meeting that, yes, Mason, and of course this is a private club.”
MacKay hopes proceeds from the event, as well as possibleCD sales, will allow the organization to increase the size of their annual 100 bursaries and the number of them.
He believes the Alberta Masons are leading the way in bringing back a traditional Mason value and using it for a good cause.
“As far as I know, the Grand Lodge of Alberta has taken a lead on this to get back historically to what the Masons did.”