Young baritone Edmund Milly is a professional chorister in Montreal. He’s also studying English literature at McGill University, and plans to build his career somewhere in that intersection where words and music meet. But Milly has another passion that’s about to take centre stage, at least for the next few months. He’s decided to go for a bit of a run – from Montreal to Vancouver. CBC Music caught up with Milly to talk about music, running and the challenging road before him.
Q. When did you decide to run to Vancouver?
A. The idea had been germinating in my head for quite a while. When the idea first occurred to me, it was one of those things that you say as sort of a joke, but once it's been said, you can't get it out of your head. I think distance running is a potent method of reprogramming the mind's conditioned responses to difficult situations, and the more I thought about how intensively I could work out my own issues in a solo trans-Canada run, the more it seemed like a gift of time that I needed to give myself.
Q. I read that your plan for the Rockies is “up one side and down the other.” Is that really all there is to it?
A. Whenever I find the work of running difficult, I like to tell myself that it’s just putting one foot in front of the other. What could be easier than that, right?
Q. What's that tattoo on your right forearm?
A. It’s Johann Sebastian Bach's personal seal. Bach's music has always been a source of inspiration and solace to me; it’s like the silver lining of being alive. People who don't know it’s Bach's seal just think it's a badass looking design.
Q. Music and running are obviously both passions for you. Do you see a relation between the two?
A. There's certainly a similarity in the way I focus during long runs and the way I focus in singing a long concert, and perhaps those are the two things I most love to do.
Q. Do you listen to music while you run?
A. I'm trying to get away from it more and more because of the feeling that it's rather like gilding the lily. All the same, music can be a huge morale boost when it's snowing, windy and -30, I'll suit up and go for a run with my iPod blasting anything from Zelenka to Mystikal (besides baroque music, I love a lot of rap).
Q. I know you won’t be taking your iPod on the road for safety reasons, but is there any music you’ll be travelling with in spirit?
A. Zelenka's Missa Votiva – an incredible piece of music, powerfully expressive and filled with so much life and energy. Music to move to.
Bach's Art of Fugue – the ultimate display of technical mastery, yet also a piece that has somehow accumulated huge emotional and personal value to me. It just keeps going, and when I'm listening to it, so do I.
Joby Talbot's Path of Miracles – performing this piece [about the famous pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela] last summer probably influenced my desire to do this whole project. Even the movements map onto how I imagine chunks of my run, especially the endless flatness, heat and sunlight of the prairies (Leon) and the exhilaration of coming down out of the mountains for the "final descent" to Vancouver (Santiago).
What music gets you going? Send Edmund Milly some musical encouragement and suggest a piece for his virtual running playlist in the comments below.
Milly begins his run on Tuesday, May 1 and expects to arrive in Vancouver by mid-August, according to the most recent itinerary on his blog Ascending and Descending.
Related links
Yegor Dyachkov performs J.S.Bach's Suite for Solo Cello no. 4 in E-flat major
I Run Boston: My Boston Marathon playlist, from Kanye West to Paul Simon
The Nature of Things with David Suzuki: The Perfect Runner