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Caleb Warnar
Kari K Veblen
Music 1800
November 8, 2015

Brisson, J. (2015). Exoticism in multicultural choral repertoire: A comparison of Lydia Adams
Mikmaq Honour Song and Stephen Hatfields Nukapianguaq Canadian Music Educator /
Musicien Educateur Au Canada, 56(4): 30-34.

In this article, Brisson describes the importance of educating students in authentic and
accurate multicultural music. By comparing works such as Lydia Adams Mikmaq Honour
Song and Stephen Hatfields Nukapianguaq, Brisson argues that multicultural works founded
on accurate cultural context and history are more effective and significant than works that lack
authenticity.
I found the concept of anti-racism pedagogy interesting, since Brisson states that It is
not enough for music teachers to uncritically select and teach students multicultural repertoire.
In this way, multicultural music must be accurately and appropriately taught in order for
students to fully grasp the context behind certain works. As Brisson later compares the works of
Adams and Hatfield, it is clear that music with context and accurate source material is much
more insightful than music with little historical accuracy.
It was surprising to learn about embodied learning in this article, because this method
of learning has a more hands on and expressive approach in education. The objective of
embodied learning is to be immersed in the physical aspect of art, such as tribal dancing.

Although, after Mackinlay had some Aboriginal women teach tribal dance to a group of
students, some students noted how they felt awkward and uncomfortable in the process. They
felt physically exposed by the clothing that they were expected to wear as part of the act of
performance. Despite this, Mackinlay believed that embodied learning is crucial in learning
about multicultural music education. As a result, my question is that despite the desire to learn
and be completely immersed in anothers culture in order to respect and properly understand it,
when does it become culturally and ethnically offensive to people of Western culture when we
are completely engaged in other cultures?
It was frustrating for me at first to understand why Brisson placed so much emphasis on
the authenticity of multicultural music, and how the music must be historically accurate. I
thought, how should the lack of context affect the piece itself, if at all? Why should I have to
grasp the history behind every multicultural song? However, as Brisson describes, Stephen
Hatfields Nukapianguaq is authentic and true to traditional Inuit chants and as a result
Hatfields work is identified as a multicultural piece. So in this way, it is the identity of
multicultural music which is critical, rather than just the music itself.
As a comment to Brisson, I thoroughly enjoyed his argument of what truly is
multicultural music, although I would have loved for him to expand on how and why this type of
music should be taught largely in the education system. Perhaps he could list some performance
opportunities for this kind of music or delve more into multicultural music as a historical form
of music education.