Showing 1 results

Archival description
John A. Downes fonds Audio
Print preview View:

1 results with digital objects Show results with digital objects

St. Albert Place Theme song

Downes was contracted to compose the opening theme song that was sung by school children at the opening ceremonies for St. Albert Place on June 2, 1984. Carol Watamaniuk from the City of St. Albert Cultural Services department phoned Downes and asked if he would be interested in the opening theme project. Downes started working on it immediately and it was finished in less than an hour.

Downes recorded a demo of the song soon after it was written and gained approval from the St. Albert Cultural Services staff to write out the score for distribution to school choirs. A recording was made with the help of Marcel Hamel at Grant MacEwan college studio and a radio jingle version was also recorded for promotional ads. Downes also wrote out the score to be distributed to schools. The song was performed by a children's' choir on opening day.

The song was recorded with vocals by John Downes and orchestration provided by Marcel Hamel. Hamel did the background tracks entirely on synthesizer and drum machine at the GMCC studio.