About the Show

Cape Breton Fyre is a folk opera — 38 original songs, music, lyrics and book all written by Paul D. Gatchell. It tells the complete story of Cape Breton Island from deep time to the living present: the Mi'kmaw first peoples, the French shore and Louisbourg, the Scottish Clearances and the crossing, the coal mines, the leaving and the returning, and the island as it is today.

This July 19th concert is the show's first workshop presentation — a gathering of Cape Breton's finest voices performing 17 of the 38 songs, just over an hour of music, in a church built from the stones of Louisbourg itself.

Listen for the Echoes

The Spirit of Cape Breton opens the show. The same melody returns at the very end as The Echoes. By then you will have travelled through thousands of years of this island's story — and the words carry an entirely different weight.

The echo is everywhere. The island's names echoing through centuries. The Scottish communities named after places the Clearances took away — Inverness, Mabou, Judique — echoes of grief planted in new soil. The stones of this church echoing the walls of Louisbourg. The music echoing across oceans and still sounding like home.

The Venue · St. George's Anglican Church

Built in 1785, St. George's is one of the oldest churches in Cape Breton. Its stones were once part of the Fortress of Louisbourg — the French built Louisbourg to last forever, the British demolished it in 1760, and the stones were carried to Sydney and built into the fabric of the city. Tonight, Cape Breton Fyre tells that story from inside those very walls.