On the evening of March 22, 2019, a concert was held at First United Church in Waterloo, Ontario.

The Many Roads to Freedom” concert was a world premiere of Corey Butler’s special arrangement of Oscar Peterson’s Hymn to Freedom. It was performed by a joint choir conducted by Dr. Lee Willingham. The choir consisted of members from the community, the Waterloo Region Mass Choir, founded by Darren Hamilton, and members of the Wilfrid Laurier Singers. Musical accompaniment was by Corey Butler on Piano, T.J Whitelaw on Guitar, Mark Dunn on Bass, Ted Warren on Drums, Soloist, Verese Vassell-Bowen. Other musical items included soloists Aileen Bennett-Heath, Venantius Dorlean and Gerima Harvey on djembe.”

Rev. Peter Kuhnert opened the evening with a Prayer of thanksgiving.

Tribute to Oscar Peterson

Today I want to thank and pay tribute to Oscar Peterson for being the human being he was and is. He wrote innovative, glorious music, none more stirring than Hymn to Freedom which always fills hearts with hope, not just here in Canada but in societies all over our beautiful planet, Earth. A Hope that all humanity can find within each self, the integrity of respect and inclusiveness of being which can free us, humans, from our separations, othering, differentiating, hatreds, selfishness, greed and wars. This was the heart longing of Oscar Peterson and why he created Hymn to Freedom.

It was important for me to try to hear in his own words, why Oscar Peterson wrote Hymn to Freedom. His accolades and accomplishments are legion, but who is the man behind the awards and accolades. I found what I was looking for in a short video clip on the web called “The Story of Hymn to Freedom” posted in January 2017. I could not find a name for who posted the clip but I gratefully give credit to whoever made it available.

“Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty I’m free at last.” On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King’s impassioned words for Civil Rights and human dignity, reverberated across the world’s sound waves and into our hearts and understanding. They resounded in Oscar Peterson’s heart, mind and fingers. He said, “Martin Luther King wasn’t just speaking to America that day. He was speaking to the whole world. And that’s why the whole world listened.”

“Hymn to Freedom was written in the upheaval of the 60s…” says Oscar Peterson, OP to his friends and the “Maharajah of the keyboard.” As Duke Ellington called him. “I wrote it with hope and the lyrics personify exactly what I was thinking. When every man joins hands and forever sings in harmony, that’s when we will be free ‘cause that’s the essence of freedom.”

Because of OP, this Maharajah, 8 time Grammy award winner, we, proud of our Canadian son, can claim to have given the world a voice that will not be silenced, a voice which forever inspires the best of our individuality and humanity to actively join together and with voice and action, strive continually, to seek the time “WHEN” every hand, every heart and every voice joins in harmony and the understanding be clear that this joining and harmonious action is not only essential but IS freedom.

In OP’S words, ”Ironically when you think about it,….musicians have gone on stage and worked with one another…with no problems. So I guess it means we are going to have to turn the world into a world of performance so that they understand what love is all about.” Oscar Peterson understood the human potential for nobility of heart and action, the essence of excellence in all that can be performed in the art and act of living. This essence he tells us, is LOVE. Love in the deepest meaning of this word.

Oscar Peterson personifies for us, in the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Lives of Great men all remind us, we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time.

Oscar Peterson has left us not only footprints on the sands of time, but fingerprints on the keyboards that will inspire generation after generation throughout time. May our yearning for peace which is the only true Freedom for all humanity, continue to be inspired by the life, words, works, actions and soaring, reverberating music of this great Canadian born son of Caribbean parents, citizens of Canada and our very own Canadian Great Man, Oscar Peterson. Thanks Oscar. Respect.

-Lisbeth Haddad
March 24, 2019