Long-time music teacher revives Dutch heritage through spirit of music

By Melanie Jackson
msjacksonpei@gmail.com

If, as the saying goes, music is the universal language of mankind then Montague resident Con Zaat is fluent in the art of conversation. The 85-year old has spent most of his life writing, playing and teaching music. Even up until just last Sunday, he was the organist at St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Church in Sturgeon. He resigned not because he wasn’t able to carry out his duties any longer, but because he plans to move to Charlottetown this summer and thought the travel would be too much.

In 1969, Mr Zaat was the music teacher at Cardigan Consolidated School. At the time, there was a significant number of children of Dutch descent attending the school - children with family names that are still familiar in the community today, such as Nabuurs and Van den Broek.

That Christmas Mr Zaat was asked to organize the students for a Dutch-themed performance as part of the school’s Christmas concert.

“Because there were so many Dutch students there, and me being Dutch, they approached me,” Mr Zaat said, adding that he gladly accepted the invitation.

The boys and girls sang Dutch carols and performed a traditional clog dance, complete with wooden shoes and costumes.

“Later, the group became the nucleus for a larger group that evolved into an official Dutch-Canadian children’s chorus,” Mr Zaat said. “Their name was ‘De Wielewaal’,” he said, adding that the ‘Wielewaal’ is a songbird native to Holland.

By the early 1970s, the 25-member choir had become quite popular. They performed at many multi-cultural festivals, the Confederation Centre of the Arts, and for the Atlantic Premiers Conference, hosted by premier of the day Alex Campbell. 
In 1975, the chorus even travelled all the way to Ottawa to represent PEI at the National Multicultural Festival.

A few years later, however, Mr Zaat accepted a teaching position in Charlottetown and moved from the area. Choir members, too, had grown up, moved away and started families of their own.

“I would drive back and forth from Charlottetown to try to keep the group going, but the boys and girls were growing up and that’s when the group dissolved,” Mr Zaat said.

Families were smaller and there was no real interest in keeping the choir going.

That is, until recently.

“About a couple of months ago, Martina MacDonald told me there was a big reunion of Dutch people,” Mr Zaat said.

Mrs MacDonald was a member of the De Wielewaal as a child, when she was Martina Van den Broek.

“All the families - the Van den Broeks, the Nabuurs - they’re planning a big reunion in August and there’s people from Holland coming over for that, too. It’s going to be really big,” Mr Zaat said.

Mrs MacDonald approached her former chorus leader with the idea of getting the group back together in time for the reunion.

“Martina said ‘wouldn’t it be nice to get that group together again?’,” Mr Zaat said. “Only this time it would be an adult choir, but we could make it available for a third generation of Dutch people.”

Together, the two approached the choir’s former members in hopes of recruiting them for the revival of their musical heritage.

Their efforts proved successful, and for the past eight weeks or so, the reunited group has been reliving the past and teaching its new, younger members songs derived from their Dutch culture.

Almost all of the original Van den Broek and Nabuurs children have rejoined the chorus, Mr Zaat said.

Now he wants to focus on recruiting new members.

“We need to get young people involved,” Mr Zaat said, adding that the younger generation of Dutch children are at a disadvantage because their heritage is in jeopardy as their parents and grandparents get older.

“In those days, the children had their moms and dads to help them with the meaning of the words and the pronunciation.

But the moms and dads right now don’t know the language like their moms and dads used to.”

Mr Zaat has been making DVDs and typing translated versions of the songs he teaches to help the members regain their familiarity with their native language.

“I’ve been pretty busy,” he said, his eyes twinkling under a hearty tuft of white hair. “I’m in front of my computer all the time.”

Mrs MacDonald said she wants to bring the Dutch culture back to life on the Island as a way of preserving their heritage.

“Anytime you go to the cultural festivals around PEI, there’s so many represented nationalities, like Lebanese dancers, Celtic, Acadian - but never anything Dutch. And we’re such a large population,” she said, adding that’s why she turned to Mr Zaat for his knowledge and expertise.

“Con knows the music, how to play it. And we’re trying to sing it,” she said

Mrs MacDonald, who still speaks Dutch with her mother, is hopeful a younger generation of Dutch Islanders will want to join the chorus and learn more about their culture.

“I’m very proud of my Dutch heritage. We don’t want it to disappear. So we’d love to get more little children involved,” Mrs MacDonald, who has a granddaughter in the choir, said.

Mr Zaat said he feels the same.

“Anything we can do to bring our culture to the children, we should,” he said, adding that he looks forward to his weekly practise with the choir.

The group meets at 7pm Sundays at St. Mary’s on the Wood Islands Hill.

“It just feels good every time we get in here and we get singing,” Mrs MacDonald said.

In addition to the upcoming reunion, the group will perform at the Diversity Multicultural Street Festival in Charlottetown on June 30.

“(The festival) is expanding this year to include Montague and Summerside, too,” Mrs MacDonald said, adding she was unsure of those dates just yet.

In the meantime, Mr Zaat is enjoying spreading his musical wings once again.

“De Wielewaal is singing and flying again, and the group sounds as good as they ever did, way back 44 years ago at Cardigan Consolidated.

If you or someone you know is interested in joining De Wielewaal, please call Mr Zaat at home at 361-2194 or contact

Mrs MacDonald at 838-3637 or martina.macdonald@cbdc.ca

Photos: Con Zaat directs members from his chorus of Dutch singers. The group recently reunited after 44 years. From left are members Anna Peters, Ansy Donahoe and Nancy Nabuurs. Melanie Jackson photo

Martina MacDonald points to lyrics in a book of Dutch songs held by her granddaughter Denishia Lea. Following along is Mrs MacDonald’s niece Rachel Van den Broek.  Melanie Jackson photo 

First appeared in The Eastern Graphic June 5, 2013