Our Foundations and Founder
Canta Cathenesia has been founded in 2007 by Tony Hagon, who moved to Caithness from England in 2005. With no professional qualifications in music whatsoever, Tony's reasons for leading Canta Cathenesia are a deep love and passion for music and a desire to put something back into the community that has done so much to welcome him and Angela to the county. In 2006, Tony approached a group of churchgoers at Bower to get together to sing for Christmas and, supported by the Minister, Rev. Alastair Gray, the choir met regularly and performed for the first time publicly at the Christmas carol service. The choir then met to rehearse for Easter, its ranks swelled to twelve members.
Tony himself plays the piano and organ to grade 1 (he says, the same level as when he was seven years of age!) but has sung in choirs since he was nine. With a bass baritone voice bordering on the raucous, he has sung with a number of choral societies, with repertoire ranging from Verdi's Aida, Faure's Requiem, Vaughan Williams' Serenade to Music to an evening of Beatles and other sixties' songs!
However, Tony has an obsession with quality of tone, of the ability of a singing group to blend together and a firm belief that anyone who can speak can sing. The Bower singers will tell you that he works them hard with pre-singing warm up exercises, and never lets them sing publicly with sheet music in front of them!