The widow of famous jazz pianist Oscar Peterson states she is heartened by a petition contacting for Montreal to rename a Metro station in his honour.
Kelly Peterson advised The Canadian Push that as trustee of the late musician’s estate, she’s often on the lookout for means to further his legacy and welcomes the energy by a Montreal male to see her late husband identified.
A petition launched previous week by Naveed Hussain contacting on the town to rename Lionel-Groulx Metro station immediately after Peterson, who grew up in the close by Little Burgundy neighbourhood, has been attaining traction, so significantly garnering additional than 16,000 signatures.
“I adore the strategy of Oscar being honoured,” Peterson said Thursday. “It always definitely warms my coronary heart and thrills me to see him currently being remembered.”
“To have so lots of people today in the neighbourhood in which he grew up wanting to honour him and keep in mind him that way is definitely mind-boggling.”
Nonetheless, the City of Montreal and its transit company, the Société de transport de Montréal (STM), have reported that renaming a Metro station is difficult and not possible to occur.
An STM spokesperson claimed stations are typically named right after the streets they exit onto or close by landmarks.The STM has only at any time designed five title alterations considering the fact that the Metro opened in 1966, and it’s had a moratorium on identify modifications given that 2006.
A earlier grassroots endeavor to rename Lionel-Groulx station for Peterson in 2008, shortly right after the musician’s death, did not thrive.
In Montreal, a live performance hall at Concordia College bears Peterson’s name, as does a park not considerably from Lionel-Groulx station. You will find also a mural across from the inexperienced room in Very little Burgundy near the Metro station, inaugurated in 2010.
A metropolis spokesperson indicated this week officers would be open up to finding a unique way of honouring the jazz legend whose profession spanned far more than 60 years.
Just previous 12 months, the town honoured Peterson’s late sister, Daisy Peterson-Sweeney, an achieved songs teacher, by naming a park in the neighbourhood for her.
“I would be delighted and thrilled and honoured if the city desired to do one thing to honour Oscar even additional,” Peterson said.
“It is really not some thing I ever assume from any one — I don’t just suggest Montreal — Oscar was often humbled by every honour he gained, and I come to feel the similar way.”
Kelly Peterson, who lives in southern Ontario, said it’s not for her to get involved in Montreal metropolis politics or modify its policies.
“I don’t live there. I don’t sense I have the correct to get concerned in a thing that has an impression on the inhabitants, and I am not a single of them,” she stated. “But the honour? Certainly, I enjoy it.”
Oscar Peterson does have schools named for him in the Ontario communities of Mississauga and Stouffville, as effectively as a little square in Toronto’s financial district.
Kelly Peterson’s concentration has been on promoting her late husband’s musical legacy — the songs that he recorded and played, but extra lately, those he composed himself, so that persons can see a a lot more comprehensive variation of Oscar Peterson.
“People enjoy Bach. Folks participate in Beethoven. I want folks to play Oscar Peterson,” she stated. “I have always felt that his audio will outlive all of us: folks will be listening to Oscar’s songs 100 years from now, so it would be wonderful if there are other things that characterize him, as very well.”
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