(Canadian Scene) -- In April, Ennio Paola who teaches music in two Toronto high schools, conducted his fourth annual concert at Toronto's Metro Hall. It featured not only his own students but young men and women from four other schools in Ontario, representing the growth of an idea that Paola began to develop in 1995 to promote interracial, intercultural understanding between young people through the performing arts.

Paola's enterprise, Significant Music, gives performances of musical works, dramatic readings and recitals of poetry and has grown to include almost a hundred students from six schools; they're from backgrounds reflecting the multicultural nature of their communities. Performances are given on request and in this way, Paola hopes to recruit more schools to his cause as well as police departments like Toronto's which has supported him from the beginning.

For his initiative, Paola has won the Roy C. Hill Award given by the Canadian Teachers' Federation for innovative teaching programs.

In addition, the group has launched its own internet website, One Community Under the Same Sky, which reflects the ideals of Paola and his young performers and their determination to work toward a greater understanding and appreciation of Canada's diversity. The address of the website is<http://members.xoom.com/undersamesky/main.htm>.

Paola, himself a composer, contributes much of the music but also encourages this kind of creativity on the part of the student performers. Last year Danny Devlin of Cardinal Newman Catholic High School wrote the poem One and recited it at the recent Metro Hall concert. This year, the poem was sung by the young performer; it had been set to music composed by the same Danny Devlin.

The project is co-sponsored by the City of Toronto (Access and Equity Centre), B'nai B'rith , Eli Lilly Canada Ltd. and both the Hate Crime Unit and the Community Policing Support Unit of the Toronto Police.