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Norman Reintamm witnessed the real-world power of music when he left Canada to work in the National Opera House in Estonia, just before the fall of the Soviet Union.

During the late 1980s, the declining empire was still throwing its weight around and the Estonians, who wanted to become free of Moscow, did not want to “raise arms against the Soviet military machine,” recalls Reintamm, who now conducts the Cathedral Bluffs Symphony Orchestra in Scarborough.

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“But, how do you present a political statement to the world without raising arms?” Reintamm continued. “We kept on hearing reports from the government, ‘Whatever you do, don’t get into a fight. If you are confronted by the Soviet military, walk away or start singing.’ And that’s what happened.

“I remember being in the main square in front of the Communist party headquarters in Tallinn (the Estonian capital) and thousands of people were taking down a statue of Lenin. That’s when the tanks came around the sides of the building and I thought to myself, ‘Oh my God, this is it.’ But the people just banded together and started singing and the tanks could not do anything.