CD preserves traditional music

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In 1997, Flora Wallace traveled to Banff to join other women in a program called Aboriginal Women's Voices. There she shared a traditional Lil'wat song with the other women gathered. Now, three years later, Flora has joined with members of her family to share more of those traditional songs with a larger audience.

Flora and five of her children have formed Tzo'kam, a musical group that performs traditional songs, as well as contemporary songs using traditional language and style.

The name Tzo'kam is from the Stlalimx language, and means "chickadee" and "visitors are coming."

Joining Flora in the music making are her son Russell Wallace and daughters Joyce Fossella, Irma Rabang, Freda Wallace and Judy Wallace-Lemke. The members of the group make up only a portion of Flora's family. Flora and her husband Ray raised 11 children. She also has 16 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.

Of the group members, only Flora and Russell make music their full-time vocation. Russell works in music production and creation, and has created music for documentaries, plays and television.

Joyce Fossella is a co-ordinator of youth programs with the Native education centre in Vancouver, while Irma Rabang works in a Native school in Puyallup, a community near Seattle, Wash. Although Irma participated in production of the CD and performs with the group, her distance from Tzo'kam's home-base in Vancouver means she can only join the group for performances on weekends.

Freda Wallace recently completed her Bachelor of Education at the University of British Columbia and is now working at a First Nations school on Squamish territory. Judy Wallace-Lemke is an employment counsellor for an urban organization based in Vancouver and serving the lower mainland.

Tzo'kam launched their first CD this spring. It'em (pronounced eetlum), which means "to sing," is a collection of 14 songs, half traditional songs, and half written by Tzo'kam members. The traditional songs are those Flora learned throughout her life. Some come from Lillooet, where Flora was born, and some from Mount Currie, where she moved after her marriage.

"The Gathering Song" is one that is really interesting to Joyce because it's one that her mother learned in residential school.

"I guess they would be off in the field, away from the nuns and away from the authorities, and these girls would gather and they would sing these songs, and she learned this from someone who was from Bridge River, which is close to Lillooet. And she learned that song, and we sing it. It's quite a lively song."

The Wallace children come by their musical talents naturally. Flora has been singing all her life, starting on the Fountain reserve, when, as a young girl, she would go from house to house singing songs she'd learned from old phonograph records.

Flora's husband Ray was also a musician - he played the trumpet - and the CD artwork features photos of the woven cedar basket his mother made for him to carry his music sheets.

This is not the family's first experience performing as a group. In the 50s and 60s, Flora and her daughters used to perform at different churches in Washington state. When the family moved to Vancouver in the 1970s, Flora continued to sing, performing traditional songs at weddings, funerals and other gatherings.

Flora said she decided to form Tzo'kam with her family to help preserve the traditional songs she'd learned throughout her life.

"I didn't want the songs to be lost, because there are hardly any Elders left," Flora said. "This was my dream all of the time, too, that we would perform together and travel as a group, so my dream did come true."

For more information, or to order a copy of the CD, write to Red Planet Records, P.O. Box 4633, Stn. Terminal, Vancouver, B.C. V6B 4A1, or call 1 (604) 444-0011.