Heritage Singers Canada archival collection now accessible
Published:Saturday | October 25, 2025 | 12:09 AMNeil Armstrong/Gleaner Writer
Grace Lyons, the founder and music director of Heritage Singers Canada, is overjoyed that the Heritage Singers Canada archival donation is now housed in the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections at the Scott Library, York University, and available online.
The 30-member group was formed in 1977 when their first performance was at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto. It evolved from a habit of singing songs with friends at the home of Lyons, a Jamaican-Canadian, who kept her family tradition of singing Christmas songs and folk songs to get rid of the wintry blues.
The Heritage Singers Canada now have their work fully accessioned. The second-floor atrium of the library was decorated with mannequins displaying some of their costumes, cabinets showcasing their mementos, and a video of their performances — part of an exhibit titled ‘Heritage Singers Canada: A Legacy of Caribbean Folk Music, Culture, and Community’, which ran from September 15 to October 16.
Speaking at a celebration inside the library on October 16, the same day she graduated from the university, was Dr Debbie Ebanks, whose doctoral research involved the Heritage Singers’ ethnomusicology cultural context over the years. It was her initial inquiry and eventual liaising with the York University Libraries that led to accomplishing this goal.
“She worked tirelessly with Norda Bell, who was instrumental in organising this event. Along with research assistant Dina Blano Pena, this small group created a wonderful exhibit in the library which many students and faculty saw, and have now surprised Heritage Singers with an online exhibit that will live on forever,” said Lyons, whose folk musical experience began with the Jamaican Folk Singers.
Lyons congratulated the Heritage Singers and band, which included a keyboard, banjo, guitar, drummers, and rhumba box, for their continued loyalty to the existence of the group and their culture.
Anchor point for doctoral research
Ebanks recalled first seeing the Heritage Singers as a child when she watched them on stage at Seneca College, with a live cameo of Miss Lou.
“This was an introduction into the rich culture of music and storytelling familiar to my parents, grandparents and forbears but less known to me as a second-generation Jamaican in Canada,” she said.
Ebanks attended their 40th anniversary performance at the North York Performing Arts Centre and witnessed the entire audience joining in a chorus of Jamaican folk songs for which she did not know the lyrics.
“Because of this gap in my knowledge, the work of the Heritage Singers became an anchor point for my doctoral research on Jamaican Diasporic Archives.
“The folk song originals are interpreted through Grace Lyons’ arrangements, choreographies, and scripted plays. Those songs, Grace has taught me, were the newspapers of the day. They document the person-to-person communications of what was happening in everyday life. In my research, based on interviews with some of the members, I argue that the songs as well as the choreographies of everyday gestures and more formal dance movements are embodied records – as important and resilient as paper documents. These moving documents have persisted since the days of enslavement and indentureship, and even from our African ancestors.”
Readily accessible to all
Ebanks said the website is accessible to anyone online and represents a small sample of the collection of photographs and programmes, newspaper articles and media at York.
Libraries, Associate Dean, Teaching and Learning, Dr Sheril Hook said a primary goal of York libraries and archives is to pursue, preserve, and disseminate knowledge, and they celebrate the donation of the Heritage Singers Canada collection to the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections.
“When Debbie began her journey toward a PhD in Cinema and Media Arts here at York, her research included exploring Jamaican diasporic archives. To help support her research, she reached out to the Clara Thomas Archives about the Heritage Singers Canada collection and the possibility of its donation,” said Hook, noting that Ebanks’ dissertation was titled ‘Jamaican Diasporic Counter-Archives: Performative Archival Imaginings in Ontario, Canada’.
She said the donation and the online exhibit will ensure “that the history of the Heritage Singers, their contribution to folk music and theatrical performance
and their role as ‘ambassadors of Canada’ during their international tours, will be accessible and preserved for the Caribbean community and future researchers in such areas as ethnomusicology, performing arts; black studies; cultural studies; linguistics and Caribbean studies.”
Lasting impact
Dr Pamela Appelt noted that, 48 years later, the Heritage Singers are still making a difference in Canada and beyond.
She thanked York for preserving their legacy for the benefit of the younger generation, noting that “records are crucial to understanding our past and reflecting the society in which we live”.
“Grace is a full-time ambassador of our culture with the Heritage Singers, and today history is being made,” she said.
As the group performed a resounding set of songs, poet and storyteller Joan Andrea Hutchinson, who has always been present at their productions from the 1990s, explained the history of the songs presented.
Over their 48-year history, the Heritage Singers have developed a rich and varied repertoire, including songs ranging in languages from Standard English, Jamaican (Patois) to Creole with an English lexical base to French Patois and even bastardised Spanish. They have performed at international folk festivals in Holland, Germany, Taiwan, Mexico and Venezuela.
Lyons noted that Louise Bennett-Coverley played an integral part in many of the songs in the group’s repertoire. The Heritage Singers performed with Miss Lou on many occasions when she resided in Toronto. She was their patron for a pantomime that was presented in December 1997, 1998, and 2000.
Also speaking at the event were former politician and educator Dr Jean Augustine and Kurt Davis, Jamaica’s consul-general at Toronto. The event closed with Hear de Queen a Kumina song performed with dancers Gailene and Byron.