1,000 students sing with Cape Breton's 'Barra MacNeils' for Music Monday

Cape Breton’s unofficial anthem — “We Are An Island” — held extra meaning Monday, when it was sung by "The Barra MacNeils", who were accompanied by more than 1,000 students as part of Music Monday festivities.

"The kids were fabulous,” said Stewart MacNeil, of "The Barra MacNeils". “It's all about promoting music in school systems and the importance of it."

Music Monday celebrations made their in-person return at Sydney's Open Hearth Park, where students, from elementary to high school, gathered from schools throughout the Cape Breton-Victoria Regional Centre for Education.

The theme for this year's event: “Music is Medicine.”

"I don't know. It's just really important to me,” said high school student Maggie Baldwin, who sang the event’s theme song. “I've just always been able to connect with people over music when I couldn't connect through anything else."

The “Music is Medicine” message particularly struck a chord with Jeff Wadden.

His daughter, Molly Wadden, headed up the Molly's Mission movement before she passed away from cancer in July 2022.

She was a budding musician.

"We raised about $35,000 in two weeks through her singing,” Wadden said. "[Music] made her physically forget all her woes for just that brief period of time, which is amazing.”

Another of the day's highlights came when Grade 7 student Ella Kennedy sang another of the island's unofficial anthems, “We Rise Again.”

And yes, she hit the song’s high note — made famous by the late Raylene Rankin of "The Rankin Family."

"Practice. Practice makes perfect,” Kennedy said.

In the end, the day was about coming together through tunes, and the impact music can have on a person's life, at any age.

"All the way through my life, there's been great examples and great teachers”, said Boyd MacNeil, of "The Barra MacNeils". “So hopefully we can participate in a way that now maybe we're a teacher or an example to someone else who is younger."