4 Island youth to have their poetry turned into music

When Nicolas Dickieson's teacher proposed he write a poem with the potential to beturned into a piece of music, he saw his chance.

An avid reader, writer and musician, he pennedMy Canada,a poem that deals with current events and Canada's role in the world. And he won.

• Musical celebration of Canada includes student poetry contest

Now his poem, along with three other piecesby Island students Madelyn Iwankow, Chloe Dockendorff and Madison Lockman, will be turned into a cantata, a musical piece accompanied bya choir or soloist and the entire P.E.I. Symphony Orchestra.

The final piece will be played at a concert in November.

"I play instruments, I play the guitar," Dickieson told Mainstreet P.E.I. on Tuesday.

"And so it's super cool that my poem, which I spent a lot of time working on, is going to be turned into something that I love: music."

Contest celebrates Canada's 150th

The P.E.I. Symphony started looking for poems from Island students in October 2016.

The contest was sponsored by Heritage Canada as part of events marking the 150th anniversary of Confederation.Students in grades seven to 12 were invitedto participate.

Each student was asked to submit a poem that celebrates national pride with reference to Canada's past, present and future.

The winners were chosen based on the poem's artistic merit, its contribution to the cantata as a whole, and the potential of the student poet, said Marlee Saulnier, an administrator with the orchestra.

"Their poems will each be a movement of a four-movement piece," she said, adding that the entire cantata will be 30 to 40 minutes long.

"So we've paired up the students with a composer and also a poet mentor as well."

Contest finalist Chloe Dockendorff said she usually writes short stories and poems that are funny, so the guidelines were more challenging for her. Her poem, Haven on the Waves,talks about diversity.

She added that she had written and composed music before, so "it will be interesting to work with a professional composer and see what their creative process is like," she said.

"And just to be able to bring life into the poem which I've written."

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