In a large glass cubicle, children with their chins nestled on a viola warm up before a master class given by a professional violist. Outside, while the stained glass windows reflect a beautiful sunny light at the end of the day, the solidarity market is in full swing with people from the neighborhood coming to buy fruit and vegetables.
It’s lively for a Monday evening in the old Anglican church of Pointe-Saint-Charles, where the Share the Hope organization, founded in 1989, has been rooted since 2004.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Share the Hope occupies a space at the corner of Fortune and Wellington streets, in the former Anglican Grace Church built in 1890.
“Our two main focuses are food security and education,” underlines the general director of the organization, Stéphanie Taillon, who can count on 40 employees and around fifty volunteers.
“Demand has tripled for the food bank compared to before the pandemic. We help around 2,700 people per month,” adds the woman who would not want to have to create a waiting list like other organizations have to do and who co-signed an open letter recently to sound the alarm on the increase in needs..
Read the open letter
The solidarity market operates according to the “pay what you can” model. “. There are three prices: “ a suggested price, a cost price and a mutual aid price “, explains the manager Riley Kan.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
The solidarity market is open on Mondays from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
For the young
Since 2010, Share the Warmth has offered a tutoring program in collaboration with three elementary schools. The organization is also renowned for its music program inspired by that of El Sistema, created in Venezuela and according to which music is a right, not a privilege. It is from this program that none other than Rafael Payare, conductor of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra (OSM), comes.
The price to pay is based on family income (starting at just $30 for registration fees). Thanks to a partnership with the Agora Orchestra – whose founding conductor is Nicolas Ellis – young people can attend concerts and have master classes. “It’s the community approach to making music accessible to everyone. There are no private lessons: everything is done in groups,” explains Stéphanie Taillon.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Times are tough for community organizations, emphasizes Stéphanie Taillon. The executive director of Share the Warmth and her colleagues have all agreed to forgo three hours of pay per week until further notice.
“We don’t just teach music. It’s more global: it’s learning to be in a community, to listen to each other, to wait, to help each other,” adds Camille Mireault-Lancette, viola teacher.
On the Monday evening of our visit, Camille’s students were not divided into small groups as usual, but all seated together to attend a master class given by violist Amina Myriam Tébini.
She and Camille Mireault-Lancette, both freelancers, have already played together with the Orchester Métropolitain. “I give back what I received at their age at the Pierre-Laporte school,” says Camille Mireault-Lancette. “I come from the public system, so as soon as I have the opportunity to give back, I do it,” adds Amina Myriam Tébini, who only started private lessons at the age of 15, and who did her first musical classes at Le Plateau and Joseph-François-Perrault schools.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
“The orchestra is like a mini-society. It’s about learning to live in a community,” says Camille Mireault-Lalancette.
Amina hasn’t bragged about it, but she has a master’s degree from the Yale School of Music. She played at the Royal Albert Hall in London, at Carnegie Hall, but also with… Celine Dion!
Building trust
It was touching and inspiring to see her with the children: telling them to keep their little finger nice and round on the bow (“the work of a lifetime”). To look in the mirror to improve wrist posture. To have more confidence. To reassure a student whose viola is out of tune. To play in a more dramatic way because “Bach didn’t have it easy”.
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PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Amina Myriam Tébini at work with the children. Absent during our visit, the musical director of Share the Hope Sandrine Zuyderhoff.
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PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
In 2020, Share the Warmth received a will gift of $1.2 million which enabled the construction of the Lorraine-Boychuk glass room.
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PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Jeannette, 10 years old, carries around her instrument.
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At the end, Amina Myriam Tébini and the young people congratulated themselves on being the “underdogs » who chose the viola. “It’s more original than the violin,” emphasized Emilia.
Henri used the image of “a child walking in the rain” to describe an articulation – the way one strikes the string with one’s bow – during Bartók’s popular Romanian dances.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Antoine, Laurier and Renaud are all attentive.
It was beautiful to see the personalities, strengths and insecurities of the children who took turns playing duets. Amina Myriam Tébini told them that she was recovering from a long audition process with the OSM. At 37, she is still part of the next generation, she joked. ” Its not always easy. »
But there’s nothing like playing in an orchestra and savoring the power of numbers. “I love being part of a group so much and not hearing my own sound anymore,” she told the children.
Visit the Share the Hope website