Fairlawn is ‘like a family’ for church’s music director

Near the end of Fairlawn Avenue United Church’s 100th anniversary sermon Oct. 25, the congregation was treated to the premiere of a celebratory composition by the church’s reknowned music director, Eleanor Daley.

Based on a hymn written in 1866 by English priest Samuel John Stone, Daley turned “The Church’s One Foundation” into an orchestral anthem led by Fairlawn Avenue United’s 50-person choir, supported by brass, piano, and tympani.

It was the choir’s fourth performance of the morning, and their second of a composition by Daley, whose work is performed around the world.

“Amazingly, after however many decades it’s been, I still look forward to the Sunday morning services,” Daley says. “Sometimes on Thursday nights one might be tired or weary, but the energy that is given from the singers — and likewise I hopefully give it to them — is very rejuvinating.”

Daley’s interest in music stems from her childhood in Parry Sound. Her mother was, and remains, an amateur musician, while her aunt played the organ. Her interest in the instrument, which she studied in university, combined with her lifelong Christian faith made working in the church a natural progression, she says.

Daley joined Fairlawn Avenue United in 1982 after responding to a newspaper ad. Since then, she’s been through more than 14 ministers, two amalgamations, and a career as a composer that began taking off in the late 1980s.

“We would sing little pieces every week and I got so sick of doing the same ones over and over again,” she says. “So I took a crack at it, then I started writing more substantial pieces. My colleagues were very supportive, so I sent some things off to publishers, and it kind of just went from there.”

Daley is being too modest when she describes her music that way, says one of her biggest fans, Fairlawn Avenue congregant and Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne.

“She’s one of the foremost religious music composers in the country, if not in North America,” Wynne says. “She’s extremely important to the church, and we’ve been very lucky that she has stayed, because she could have, would have been welcomed anywhere.”

Gary Schlee, who serves as Fairlawn Avenue unofficial historian, agrees with Wynne’s assessment.

“We can be in another part of the country and go to a United Church service, and if we say ‘we’re from Fairlawn United in Toronto,’ they’ll say, ‘is that Eleanor Daley’s church?’ Because so many people sing her music,” he says.

For her part, Daley seems taken aback by the suggestion that she would consider leaving Fairlawn Avenue United, which has always given her the freedom to set whichever words she likes to music, from psalms to Jane Austen poetry to — very occasionally — lyrics she has written herself.

“I’ve built up a big music program here, thanks to the support of the congregation. And the singers are not just singers, they’re my friends,” she says. “I also have the thrill of seeing young singers who were once in my junior choir in the senior choir, so that’s exciting.

“It’s more than just work here for me, really,” she adds. “It’s like a family.”