Song of a Nation: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Calixa Lavallee, the Man Who Wrote 'O Canada'

- Blurb -

He was a composer, a performer, an entrepreneur, and an educator; played pop and classical music; and appeared in his quasi-colonial society, tragically, just ahead of his time. C alixa Lavallee, the French C anadian composer of "O C anada," has a compelling, almost unbelievable personal story. He left home at 12 and worked as a blackface minstrel, travelling throughout the United States for more than a decade; he fought and was injured in the American C ivil War in perhaps the most important battle of that war, at Antietam C reek; performed for President Lincoln several times; produced the first opera in Quebec and wrote two of his own; became a leading figure in American music education, representing American music in London; journeyed to Paris to study for two years; tried and failed to create a Quebec national conservatory. And he wrote our national anthem. But Lavallée also represents all the contradictions and confusions of C anadian identity as our country came together in the last half of the nineteenth century. To understand "O C anada," and to understand the man who wrote it, is to return to the C anada of the midnineteenth century, a C anada just forming as a nation, bringing together ancient racial hatreds and novel political possibilities, as culture faced culture, religion faced religion, economy faced economy. C alixa Lavallée is the most famous C anadian you have never heard of, living a life and ultimately composing a song that stands the test of time.