Creativity Quote by Maureen Forrester

There’s a sly modesty in the phrase “another turn,” as if Maureen Forrester’s life simply kept swiveling of its own accord, and taking on the Canada Council was just the next gentle bend. The subtext is tougher: she’s naming a deliberate pivot from being the instrument to helping tune the whole orchestra.

Forrester was already a formidable public voice as a contralto with an international career. When a performer says they “took on” a cultural institution, it’s not the language of a ceremonial appointment; it’s the language of work, friction, maybe even a bit of confrontation. “Took on” implies both responsibility and resistance: you don’t “take on” a body like the Canada Council unless you expect bureaucracy, politics, funding fights, and the exhausting business of turning taste into policy.

Context matters because arts councils sit at the junction of national identity and public money. In Canada, that means carrying the quiet burden of a country that often measures itself through culture while debating whether culture is a luxury. Forrester’s line signals she understood that being a famous singer wasn’t the only way to shape the arts. It hints at a mature kind of ambition: not more applause, but more infrastructure.

What makes the quote work is how casually it frames that shift. No grand speech about service, no martyr pose. Just a clean admission that power can be exercised offstage, and that sometimes the most consequential performance is institutional.