Two years ago, Mark Haney put out a record called Aim for the Roses about the forgotten Canadian daredevil Ken Carter.
Many listeners assumed Carter was Haney's childhood hero, "which he wasn't. I had only heard about him a few years before," the Vancouver composer and double bassist said.
The topic led Haney to question who he admired when he was growing up in northern Ontario. Back then, he was obsessed with Star Wars "but in real life, it was Terry Fox. I was five when he ran across the country and his story left a huge mark."
The Port Coquitlam hometown hero featured prominently throughout his early years as most of his extended family lived in Thunder Bay, the city where Fox called off his cross-country Marathon of Hope in 1980 after his cancer returned.
Every year, Haney and his parents would travel the same last stretch of road Fox finished his journey on - now named the Terry Fox Courage Highway - to visit his relatives and they would stop at the Fox memorial statue to pay tribute.
More recently, when Haney founded the MARS Quartet, with Mark McGregor on flute, Marcus Takizawa on viola and Martin Fisk on percussion, he and McGregor agreed their first show would feature a composition based on the 10 stages of a hero's journey. The idea of weaving in Fox's epic adventure came one day as Haney was listening to a CBC Radio interview with singer Lhasa de Sela.
"She was talking about how she doesn't really connect with a lot of contemporary music because our culture these days is to celebrate failures. We don't celebrate heroes anymore," Haney recalled. "Instantly, I said, 'Oh, wait a second: Hero's journey. Terry Fox. This will totally line up.'"
Haney delved into reporter Leslie Scrivener's book, Terry Fox: His Story, "and there were all these elements about his life that I didn't know," he said, adding, "One of the stages of the hero's journey is when he meets the supernatural helper that will aid them in their quest, and Bill Vigars of the Ontario cancer agency was that person because he kept driving out to New Brunswick and Quebec and telling them to get to Ontario and that great things would happen."
In Haney's composition, aptly titled 3339 and lasting 33 minutes and 39 seconds - representing the number of miles Fox ran on one leg - he includes narration about the Marathon of Hope; for the premiere, which will happen on Friday at The Cultch in Vancouver, the narrator is Adrienne Wong of Neworld Theatre.
Among 3339's "resonant melodies, pulsing ostinati, numerically driven structures and materials, looping figures and motifs, and enveloping soundscapes," there are also field recordings, namely, waves from the Newfoundland harbour where Fox started on a cold, wet, grey day in April 32 years ago.
Haney rose at 4:30 a.m. to make the recording, and he traced Fox's steps to the city hall and beyond.
"Up until then," Haney said, "I never in my mind thought of Terry Fox as someone who was tough. But he was. He was tough as nails. Because, to do that alone, especially in the freezing weather and in an unforgiving landscape, was hard.
"In my research, I found out that he was even more than I ever knew."
Tickets at $20/$10 for Meridians, featuring the inaugural performance of the MARS Quartet and Mark Haney's 3339 composition, are available at The Cultch (1895 Venables St., Vancouver) by calling 604-251-1363 or visiting tickets.thecultch.com.
For more information, go to www.redshiftmusic.org.
