Mennonite Music Education in Southern Manitoba: a Descriptive Study of Mennonite Collegiate Institute and Steinbach Christian High School Troy Landon Toavs
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University of North Dakota UND Scholarly Commons Theses and Dissertations Theses, Dissertations, and Senior Projects January 2013 Mennonite Music Education In Southern Manitoba: A Descriptive Study Of Mennonite Collegiate Institute And Steinbach Christian High School Troy Landon Toavs Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.und.edu/theses Recommended Citation Toavs, Troy Landon, "Mennonite Music Education In Southern Manitoba: A Descriptive Study Of Mennonite Collegiate Institute And Steinbach Christian High School" (2013). Theses and Dissertations. 1601. https://commons.und.edu/theses/1601 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, and Senior Projects at UND Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of UND Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MENNONITE MUSIC EDUCATION IN SOUTHERN MANITOBA: A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY OF MENNONITE COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE AND STEINBACH CHRISTIAN HIGH SCHOOL by Troy Landon Toavs Bachelor of Arts, Concordia College 1999 Master of Music, University of North Dakota 2002 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Grand Forks, North Dakota December 2013 Copyright 2013 Troy Toavs ii Title Mennonite Music Education in Southern Manitoba: A Descriptive Study of Mennonite Collegiate Institute and Steinbach Christian High School Department Music Degree Doctor of Philosophy In presenting this dissertation in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a graduate degree from the University of North Dakota, I agree that the library of this University shall make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for extensive copying for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor who supervised my dissertation work or, in her absence, by the Chairperson of the department or the dean of the Graduate School. It is understood that any copying or publication or other use of this dissertation or part thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to the University of North Dakota in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in my Dissertation. Troy Toavs 12-3-13 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ………………………………………………………………..... vii LIST OF TABLES …………………………………………………………………... viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ……………………………………………………………. ix ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………………………….. x CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………... 1 II. MUSIC EDUCATION IN MANITOBA ……………………………... 35 III. MENNONITE COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE ……………………….... 68 IV. STEINBACH CHRISTIAN HIGH SCHOOL ………………………...138 V. SUMMARY …………………………………………………………...201 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………213 APPENDICES………………………………………………………………………… 234 Appendix A: Henry Engbrecht Interview.......………………………………… 235 Appendix B: Marilyn Houser Hamm Interview………………………………..291 Appendix C: Rick Heppner Mueller Interview 1 ……………………………...313 Appendix D: Rick Heppner Mueller Interview 2 ……………………………...336 Appendix E: Rudy Krahn Interview……………………………………………358 Appendix F: Darryl Loewen Interview………………………………………... 403 Appendix G: George Wiebe Interview………………………………………... 425 v Appendix H: Timothy Wiebe Interview………………………………………. 461 Appendix I: James Fast and Johanna Hildebrand Interview………………….. 480 Appendix J: Elroy Friesen Interview………………………………………….. 509 Appendix K: Henry Hiebert Interview ……………………………………….. 547 Appendix L: Kristel Peters Interview…………………………………………. 586 Appendix M: Emery Plett Interview…………………………………………... 614 Appendix N: Harvey Plett Interview ………………………………………..... 625 Appendix O: Roland Sawatzky Interview ……………………………………. 653 Appendix P: Rudy Schellenberg Interview …………………………………... 665 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Mennonite settlements in Manitoba (1874-1876) ……………………………….. 7 2. Mennonite Collegiate Institute in 2008 ………………………………………….. 69 3. Mennonite Collegiate Institute Building with 1912 Addition ………………….... 73 4. Steinbach Christian High School in 2008 ………………………………………...139 vii LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. 2013-2014 MCI Fee Schedule …………………………………………………... 96 viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the people I interviewed for graciously spending their time answering my many questions and for their continued correspondence. I felt incredibly honored to have that opportunity. I would also like to thank Barbara Lewis, Elizabeth Rheude, Gary Towne, Royce Blackburn, and Kimberly Porter for all of their time serving on my committee and for their helpful feedback. I am especially grateful to Barbara Lewis for her numerous readings and editing of the many initial drafts that this project entailed. I would also like to thank Theresa Meyers for editing the transcripts to make them more readable. I appreciate Pastor Marvin Penner for reading my paper and calling me whenever he found mistakes. I appreciate George Wiebe’s extensive editing of his transcript so that it more accurately reflected what he wanted to say. Most of the quotations used in the chapters are from my original transcripts and may be slightly different from the transcripts in the Appendices. My friends and family have been an enormous source of encouragement and occasional prodding for which I am very grateful. My parents also assisted by helping provide the financial resources to allow me to conduct the study. Thank you all. ix ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to describe and compare the music programs at Mennonite Collegiate Institute (MCI) founded in 1889 and Steinbach Christian High School (SCHS) which has its origins in Steinbach Bible College founded in 1936. The Kanadier, Mennonites who came to Manitoba in 1874 (e.g., Kleine Gemeinde and Bergthaler), had previously rejected part-singing in Russia. However, they became more open to part-singing after they came to Manitoba. The Bergthaler in Gretna helped establish MCI. The Mennonite Brethren (MB) and Evangelical Mennonite Brethren (EMB) were influential in promoting choral music among the Kleine Gemeinde in Steinbach. Steinbach Bible College became a joint effort of the MB, EMB, and Kleine Gemeinde (now the Evangelical Mennonite Conference or EMC). The Rußländer (or Russlaender) who came to Canada in the 1920s, many of whom were MB, were culturally more progressive than the Kanadier and influenced both MCI and SCHS. The researcher interviewed teachers, administrators, a museum curator, visited archives, and attended a Sängerfest (or Saengerfest) at MCI and a concert at SCHS. Both schools are known for their choral programs and do similar repertoire. Regarding the religious musical heritages of the two schools, MCI is more deliberate at including German hymns and traditional favorites known as Kernlieder in their programming whereas the emphasis at SCHS is sacred music in general. x CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Historical Background The province of Manitoba has one of the densest populations of Mennonites in the world. The Mennonites who settled in Manitoba in the 1870s were primarily Germans from Russia who brought a mixture of musical traditions with them. These Mennonites were mostly of northern European descent and were distinctly different from Swiss and south German Mennonites (Visser, 1994). Because many of them originated from the Netherlands, Kroeker (2005) has suggested the term Dutch-Russian to distinguish them from Swiss-German Mennonites. Mennonites began moving to the Vistula Delta region in Poland near Danzig in the mid-sixteenth century (Berg, 1985). These Polish lands then became part of the Prussian empire in 1772. By the 1780s, the Prussian government had started to put more pressure on the Mennonites to support the Prussian military by taxing them for military schools and restricting their ability to purchase land (Epp, 1974). As a result, a number of the Prussian Mennonites decided to leave for Russia. The Mennonites living in Poland had a German culture. Before the unification of Germany in the nineteenth century, German-speaking people made up a Kulturnation where “nationality was conceived through the lens of a shared culture” (Minor, 2012, p. 47). Hence, these Manitoba Mennonites are identified as Germans from Russia. 1 The Mennonites who remained in the Danish speaking areas continued to be influenced by the unison psalm singing music traditions of the Dutch Reformed Church. In contrast, the Mennonite groups that moved to Prussia beginning in the sixteenth century and later to Russia in the eighteenth century were influenced by the Lutheran choral and Moravian Brethren music traditions. Thus, the choral singing tradition of Manitoba Mennonites is unique to those with a Germans from Russia heritage. Some of the Mennonites who came to Manitoba in the 1870s as well as those who came in the 1920s after the Russian Revolution (1917) also incorporated German translations of American gospel songs into their hymn repertoire while still in Russia. These gospel songs were especially popular among the Mennonite Brethren. A few Mennonite groups that had come to Manitoba in the 1870s remained committed to tradition and resisted musical innovations such as gospel music and choral singing. These traditionalists retained the old way of singing which consisted of singing embellished melodies in unison from hymnbooks without notation. Russian Mennonite Colonies. In 1788, 228 of the most conservative Mennonite