Coffee With: Byron Hanson

The Coffee With series introduces the various lay leaders at the Cathedral. It offers an opportunity to get to know these parishioners a little better. 

Byron Hanson has been a member of the Cathedral Choir since approximately 2005. When he’s not singing or spreading joy at the Cathedral, he does accounting at a law firm. This year he is overseeing the programming of the Cathedral's Summer Festival of Sacred Music.

What is your favourite way to start Sundays?
“Singing! Because I’m singing on Sundays, it’s not too different from other days. I get up, get coffee, and scramble to get to the Cathedral in time to rehearse with the choir. If I’m not singing I prefer to have a leisurely morning. When there’s a guest choir I enjoy the opportunity for a more leisurely start while still getting to enjoy the service and the music.” 

When life gets hectic or demanding, how do you stay grounded? 
Finding balance between work, relationships, music and other interests becomes very important when things get busy. I try to make sure I’m not focusing too much on one of those things more than any other. 

Taking refuge in my friendships and music is big for me, whether I’m performing or going to performances. I have several crafts I like to do. I do modular origami and other papercrafts, sewing and costuming. I like to throw “Qrafting with Queers” parties where we eat charcuterie, drink bubbly and do crafts, often themed, like “Faber-gay eggs” at Easter time. I’ve really gotten into jewelry making, especially earrings with Bruce Hoffman. It’s really about enjoying companionship with a creative task to get into. It doesn’t matter if you are actively productive, or spend 2 hours debating which beads to use. It’s time spent in fabulous company.

If you could hold a dinner party and invite anyone, living or dead, who would be at that party? 
I would want to have two dinner parties. 
At one dinner party I’d have Ray Kurzweil, Alan Turing, Immanuel Velikovsky and Douglas Hofstadter. Who are these people? Ray Kerzweil is a futurist, he’s most famous for giving us the term “singularity” to refer to the point where humanity and technology become one - we’re getting to that point fast. Alan Turning was a British mathematician and basically the father of computer science and artificial intelligence. He was also a code breaker during WWII. Immanuel Velikovsky was a scientist famous for writing books interpreting ancient history. He’s most famous for the book “Worlds in Collision” where he posits the earth has had near collisions with other celestial bodies within recorded human history. Douglas Hofstadter is a scholar of cognitive science, physics and comparative literature. He is most known for the book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. And because of that, I’d love to have Bach at this dinner party as well. 

The second dinner party would be composers from different time periods in history: HIldegard of Bingen, Johannes Okhegem, Arnold Schoenberg,  Ēriks Ešenvalds all from different times and have them talking about music. Maybe I’d throw in William Byrd as well. 

This kind of encapsulates two big parts of my personality: the scientific interest and the musical mind. In school I studied both mathematics and music. Music is, at its core about numbers, and physics. And then it has the element of emotion and storytelling, examining deeper truths and things we can’t quantify. 

Some day, far in the future, how would you like people to remember your time at the Cathedral? 
I want to be remembered for my contributions to the musical legacy and to the cathedral’s commitment to Open Doors, especially to the LGBTQ2IA+ community. 

Also, I want to be remembered as the Elf who used to “spread joy like a virus” At one point in my life I was a bike courier and on my last day of work before Christmas I used to dress up as an Elf and decorate my bike as a reindeer. Then I’d have to rush here for rehearsal for Christmas Eve. There are photos of me in rehearsal with the choir dressed as an elf. I remember being asked by Alisdair how I was doing, what I was doing, and my answer was “I’m spreading joy like a virus!” 

What books are on your nighstand right now? 
I love fantasy books. I’m reading R.A. Salvatore’s Paths of Darkness series. I also really love the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan (and Brandon Sanderson). I’m definitely into high fanatasy, sci-fi and astrophysics. I also like books that offer different interpretations on biblical texts, and of course books on music, specifically music theory, early music and performance practice. 

What’s your favourite podcast ?
I love the “I’m 40% Podcast” with Jinkx Monsoon and Nick Sahoya. It’s a recap podcast on Futurama. But, there is a new season of Futurama coming out! I love the music and sound design on Futurama, and the writing is so good. The writers of Futurama have, among them, three Ph.D’s, seven Masters and were Harvard educated. 

What is your favourite way to end Sunday?
For awhile I was playing softball. But I got injured and I’m debating whether or not to go back….maybe with more protective gear. I strive to do some food prep on Sunday….strive. And often my Sunday ends singing at Compline. 

You did much of the programming for this year’s Summer Festival of Sacred Music at the Cathedral. What are the highlights for you? 

I’m excited for Pride Sunday. I’m bringing in fellow queer performers and allies. The music features mostly historic [Queer] composers. I was one of the first singers in Cor Flammae, and that group did a lot of work to “re-claim” queer composers and feature contemporary ones as well, and this is a passion of mine. So often in music history, composers and performers get “straightwashed”. Someone might have been a “bachelor” their whole life, shared a bed with another person of the same sex to whom they wrote passionate love letters, but there’s “no way” they could have been gay!. I think it’s important to explore that. We have always existed. Music so often expresses or offers a glimpse of the divine, and expresses our innermost turmoil and feelings. The idea that a gay composer’s music wouldn’t be influenced by their feelings for the person they love, or what is happening in that relationship at a certain time, is absurd. So I’m very excited to be offering this selection on Pride Sunday. 

I’m looking forward to hear the music presented on August 13th by Jake and Lucy and friends as they perform an early Bach cantata (possibly his first) paired with a mass setting by 17th century Benedictine nun Chiara Margarita Cozzolani. 

August 20 we’re focusing on my favourite school of music, the Franco-Flemish school throughout the Renaissance. We are going to do a pastiche Mass setting with composers from all five generations of the Franco-Flemish school to show the progression of the style and the influence the Franco-Flemish school had on Western European music. 

Then we end August with some very special music brought to us by UBC Germanic Studies PhD candidate Patricia Milewski, whose research is shedding light on the works of 17th century poet Gertrud Möller, and her collaboration with composer Johann Sebastiani.

I’ve programmed specific Sundays during past editions of the Summer Festival of Sacred Music but this is the first time I’ve been asked to program so much of it. It means I don’t have to pick one thing! I can have a few cakes! 

How did you develop this love of music? 
I’m a cellist. Growing up in Lethbridge, Alberta my family was musical. My mom taught music, we all sang. When we had parties - especially at Christmas - inevitably at some point we all ended up around the piano with someone playing and everyone singing. My mom would pull out lyric sheets for all the Christmas carols. Then at a certain point the school started offering string classes. I fell in love with the string bass, seeing it played at church on Sunday mornings. I decided right away that’s what I wanted to learn how to play. Except, I was in grade four and I was told “you’re too small, they don’t make string basses that small”. So I was encouraged to do cello because once I was big enough for string bass it would be an easy transition. By the time I was big enough to switch to string bass I started, but I was in love with the cello and for a time played both. Eventually I learned how to play the electric bass. That whole experience fostered a love for instruments which has translated into me putting together a large collection of instruments at home. Among other things I have a melodion, accordion, recorder, harmonica, lap steel guitar, autoharp and toy piano - aside from the cello, of course.