“It has always been music for me,” says Isaac Hunter Page (BMus ’18). “I’ve known that since I was really young.”

Page’s music background is eclectic: he grew up with musical parents, double-majored in Composition and Theory at Laurier (focusing on a classical repertoire), and holds a Master of Music in Conducting from Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He also loves playing indie/folk/pop music, and recently released a song in tribute to his days at Laurier called “Going to Kitchener-Waterloo" under the name Isaac Hunter.

Although he played guitar in high school, the shift to songwriting after receiving a graduate Conducting degree wasn’t planned. In fact, Page had several classical and conducting projects lined up for himself after graduation, and was looking forward to a classical career. Then came COVID-19.

“I graduated just at the beginning of the pandemic. There were no orchestras to conduct!”

“Craving,” as he puts it, the opportunity to make music, he picked up his guitar again. “Going to Kitchener-Waterloo” was written during that transitional time as he was finishing his MA thesis in a basement apartment in Ohio, getting ready to move back to Canada, unsure even of what would happen when he tried to cross the border.

“Everything felt up in the air,” says Page.

It was at this point that he heard through the grapevine that Chainsaw (formerly the Silver Spur) – a local Waterloo bar beloved by generations of students for its karaoke, vintage 80s country-western vibe and cheap beer – was closing. Somehow for Page, the closing of a small bar in a mid-sized Ontario town felt like a meaningful symbol of the end of an era.

“After Chainsaw closed, it was like that whole chapter was done. I had this plan to spend the weekend in Waterloo, spend time with friends at Chainsaw like we used to, and I realized that’s not going to happen anymore, at least not how I envisioned it.”

Some of Page’s biggest life experiences “so far” happened in Waterloo, he explains.

“I was thinking about being in Waterloo, about my four years at Laurier, how that was when I started to really find myself, develop myself fully and vocally.”

“Having graduated from Laurier music and talking about my time there as a Composition student with anyone in the Canadian music community, they all know it’s special.” Page appreciates how faculty members both pushed him and supported him, and how community-focused the program was. He has a special affection for former Dean of Music Glen Carruthers. “I really looked up to him,” Page says. “He was one of the reasons why I am so interested in and devoted to Canadian music. I remember in my second year we had a meeting in his office related to an administrative question, and he had set aside half an hour for a thirty-second conversation. We ended up spending thirty minutes talking about Canadian music.”

From this nostalgic mindset Page crafted “Going to Kitchener-Waterloo,” a fun song with a sad side about looking back, about how things change and end.

“I don’t think I could have written that song a year earlier, or now – it was very much of that time, thinking about where I was in my life then and my life at Laurier,” he says. But nostalgia for the special times at Laurier is only part of Page’s experience as a recent grad. He’s also moving forward albeit in a world that he wasn’t expecting when he graduated.

Before returning to Canada, Page spent a couple weeks at his parents’ home, songwriting with them (Page’s father is Canadian musician legend Steven Page) and recording an EP which included “Going to Kitchener-Waterloo.” Next it was back to Toronto, where Page continued writing as a way to cope with the pandemic and unemployment. He’s recently found work – long days in a support role in the entertainment industry – but still finds time to write and record, and is planning an exciting new project: an EP that is a reimagining of a short opera he wrote at the end of his first year at Laurier. A fusing of his classical and pop side, if you will – finding his own voice as a Canadian musician.

Page grew up in the diverse musical community of Toronto with a father who helped define the Canadian pop/folk sound. He got first-hand experience of international music through his family’s friends and colleagues. In finding his voice, he has a truly unique and complex musical background on which to draw.

“I’m utterly obsessed with Canadian music and identity, how to express that in abstract ways,” says Page, who did his MA research on the orchestral music of the Canadian centennial. “There is no consensus and there shouldn’t be on what Canadian music is … yet it’s undeniable to me that there is a Canadian sound.”

“In literary theory, poetry, visual arts, drama, film and even pop music there are certain indicators of what a Canadian sound could be. I tried to find that in classical music. Now, with the pandemic, another path has opened – songwriting,” he says. “Well, not another path – but more like, I was driving along the highway with two right lanes closed and suddenly they’ve opened up.”

Sounds like another great Canadian driving song, just waiting to be written.