Surfacing at the top of the pack this year at the East Coast Music Awards for best classical recording is Within Sight of Shore. As the 2012 winning contender, it’s a new composition by Scott Macmillan that recalls an event from the dying days of the Second World War. On April 16, 1945, the HMCS Esquimalt was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat as it skirted Halifax Harbour.
The HMCS Esquimalt’s story is part of Macmillan’s family history. The musician’s father was the captain of the ill-fated ship and one of 27 people, from a crew of 71, who survived to tell the chilling tale. Macmillan says he finds his father’s experiences inspiring on both an artistic and personal level.
“I would say the most revealing aspect of the whole project is how my father was wrongly accused of being negligent when the ship was hit,” explains Macmillan. “It made me realize how much he buried his feelings about the entire incident and how that kind of suppression played such a big part of our family and of my upbringing. It has certainly made me more aware of my own denials, and hopefully gives me more courage to come out and speak my mind when needed.”
During a 30-year career in music, Macmillan has dropped anchor in a myriad of musical genres. He presses avant-garde, rock, Celtic and jazz influences into service to tell the dramatic story of Within Sight of Shore. For instrumentation, Macmillan selects an unusual crew of 15 musicians. Macmillan himself is at the helm of the ensemble and mans one of the electric guitars, where he wails alongside a drum set, banjo, string quartet, woodwinds, brass, piano and percussion. The clarinetist’s duties also include a boatswain call.
Within Sight of Shore’s four movements unfold like programmatic installments in a mini series: The Hit, The Wait, The Rescue and Ashore.
In The Wait, you’ll hear Macmillan play the electric guitar in a line that represents his father as a man with shattered dreams. You’ll recognize the reference to Stephen Foster’s famous song, “Beautiful Dreamer:”
If you listen to the end of that movement you’ll hear the familiar hymn “Rock of Ages.” When Macmillan’s father was plucked from the icy waters and brought ashore, a hymnbook folded open to “Rock of Ages” was found in his breast coat pocket.
Written as a tribute to Macmillan’s father and the crew of the HMCS Esquimalt, Within Sight of Shore not only sailed home with flying colours for best classical recording at the East Coast Music Awards, but the documentary of the same name produced by Macmillan’s son, film director Ian Macmillan, also won DVD of the year.
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