Community music programs at Anglican parishes across Canada are responding to local needs and attracting growing numbers of outsiders with no previous connection to the church in what Michelle Hauser—development and communications officer for the Anglican Foundation of Canada (AFC) and coordinator of one such music program—calls an emerging trend.
Hauser is program coordinator of the Harmony Lounge and Music Club at St. Mary Magdalene Anglican Church in Napanee, Ont. The program offers free music lessons for children and youth, provides rehearsal space and a venue for live performances and runs a studio where young musicians can record and release original material.
The Harmony Lounge and Music Club has received funding from the AFC, which Hauser says has seen an uptick in grant applications for community music programs in recent years. Where before the AFC might have seen applications for one or two music programs over several years, she says, now it is consistently seeing several such applications each year.
“This is the role of the church,” she adds. “We can’t necessarily influence this, but churches are responding to needs they see in their communities.”
Those needs can vary depending on the demographics. For children and young people, community music programs at churches address desires to learn music and play instruments without financial barriers, or to teach others and forge a career in music. For seniors, hearing and singing music can help stave off the effects of dementia.
These programs also help people of all ages build connections with others and provide them with a “third place”—a social environment separate from home and the workplace touted by some sociologists as beneficial both to individuals and society.
Hauser began the Harmony Lounge and Music Club in 2022 with funding from the Anglican diocese of Ontario, partly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We know kids are suffering,” she recalls thinking at the time. “We know that there’s loneliness and isolation. We know our community doesn’t offer a ton of opportunities—some sports stuff, but there’s not a lot of art.”
Kristy Fletcher, president of Canadian music education charity MusiCounts, in a 2023 Calgary Herald op-ed described “the critical and sustained underfunding of music education countrywide” in schools, while noting that paying for private music lessons is often prohibitively expensive.
In Napanee, many parents are reluctant to pay for music lessons for their children, Hauser says. “It’s just not something that they value or that they think is worth the investment. But [then] you see the impact it has on their kids, when they find something that they’re good at, or they connect with a peer group, or they come in here and just socialize with folks.” Approximately 60 to 65 children and youth take music lessons there, she says.
Canon Jeffrey Metcalfe, canon theologian for the Anglican diocese of Quebec, saw a similar impact when he launched Les Anges Cordistes in Quebec City. There are currently seven children and two adults in the program, which offers free music lessons—primarily in cello—and is supported by the AFC’s Say Yes! To Kids grant.
Metcalfe, an amateur cellist, says many face financial barriers to playing a very expensive instrument like the cello. “Our idea was, if we provide the instruments and we provide the lessons at no cost, it would just take down a bunch of barriers for people to get their toes wet and to be able to give it a try,” he says.
He and other organizers initially weren’t sure how well it would work, Metcalfe adds—but were amazed by the response. The program began with just a few students and an introductory concert, but word spread and classes are currently at capacity. Professional cellist Tomohisa Toriumi teaches cello in English and French on a volunteer basis.
In Napanee, Harmony Music Lounge has been able to provide paid employment for young musicians as teachers. Two current music teachers are Brock Pettifer, 21, who also teaches drums at a music store in Belleville, Ont.; and Isaac Harvey, 18, primarily a pianist, who is taking a gap year and planning to study music at Toronto’s Harris Institute. Both also help produce recordings.
Pettifer says the program has essentially given him a career. “Up until I came here, I was an unemployed musician who was just looking for something to do in life,” he says.
“It has granted me job opportunities, opportunities to play live and get experience and exposure. The same thing goes for a lot of these younger kids, getting their foot in the door of music and doing something they’re passionate about… I’ve made a lot of friends and I’ve made a lot of connections here.”
Harvey says he’s grateful for the opportunity Harmony has given him to get experience working with different artists. Neither he nor Pettifer had any previous connection to the church.
Harmony Lounge and Music Club has also spread to St. Thomas’ Anglican Church in Belleville, Ont., which set up its own program after children, family and youth coordinator Shwetha Jayathirtha spoke to Hauser. St. Thomas had previously had a choral academy, but its music directors had left and the church was looking to revive its music program.
St. Thomas began its Harmony Lounge and Music Club with a week-long music camp in March 2024, during which volunteer instructors from the church and community taught ukelele, piano, and singing to children between the ages of six and 14. They continued with a 10-week summer program, then a regular program starting in September.
Currently there are 12 children, including eight regulars, who take piano and voice lessons at St. Thomas through the Harmony Lounge and Music Club, Jayathirtha says. She points out that local schools do not offer music programs.
“For a lot of parents, spending $50 for a [music] lesson, that was not affordable” Jayathirtha says. “So for them, it was a way of coming and learning… We were able to fill in that gap within the church life itself.”
At St. George’s Anglican Church in Edmonton, an older demographic experiences similar benefits through Music Mends Minds, a program supported by Rotary International with chapters across the United States. The program uses music to support people with cognitive impairments, encouraging participants to play and sing along.
Anne Fanning, a physician and retired University of Alberta professor, started Music Mends Minds in Edmonton, which received funding from the AFC’s Community Ministries grant. She cites research showing that music can be retained longer than more recent memories and can slow cognitive decline in older people.
Having no previous connection to the church, Fanning approached St. George’s incumbent Madeline Urion (currently on leave), who Fanning says was enthusiastic about hosting Music Mends Minds.
“One of the other regulars said to me, ‘We’re not just a singing group; we’re a community,’ and it’s true,” Fanning says.
For Metcalfe, the church’s growing role in the community music movement hearkens back to its own musical traditions.
“The church historically has been a patron of the arts,” he says. “And we still can be, maybe not in the same way we used to… What we can do is things like basic instrument teaching and that can make a big difference in a kid’s life.
“If we can hold onto that part of our Anglican heritage by reproducing it in a new way, I think that’s really special.”
This article has been updated from an earlier version to include details about the Harmony Lounge and Music Club at St. Thomas’ Anglican Church in Belleville.
