Member of World’s Elite Singers Lithuanian-born Lilian Sukis had no reason to believe, after immigrating to Canada with her mother in 1949, that she would become an internationally known soprano voice. First settling in Val d' Or, Quebec, then Hamilton, Ontario, Lilian Sukis, upon earning certificates in piano and voice from the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto, entered the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto, studying voice under Irene Jessner, former prima donna with New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Upon signing a contract as permanent American soloist with the Met, 1966, her North American career was launched by her singing leading roles in Rigoletto, Electra, Aida, Lucia di Lammermoor and Peter Grimes. The Director of the Munich Opera, Günter Rennert, then persuaded Lilian, some two years later, to make her European debut by opening the Munich opera season in the role of Fiordiligi. After her presentation of the role Sim Tjong in Isang Yun’s opera by the same name, written for the Olympic Games in Munich, Lilian became a member of the world’s elite singers. She then had leading roles in Mozart and Strauss, and began singing as a guest soloist performer in the world’s leading opera houses including Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Vienna, Prague, Lausanne, Geneva, Zürich, Paris, London, and Rome. Today, Lilian Sukis is Professor of Music at the Hochschule fur Music, Graz, Germany. In this view, Lilian Sukis stands, right, with choir conductor, Stasys Gaitevicius, centre, and Dalia Viskontas, piano accompanist, at a Lithuanian commemorative service, Toronto, circa 1965. [Photo, courtesy Lithuanian Museum-Archives, Mississauga]

Making Navigation Safer When Joseph Vincent Danys fled Soviet oppression in Lithuania, 1944, little did he realize that Canada would make it possible for him to fulfil his dreams to become a hydrotechnical engineer. A graduate in civil engineering from the University of Vytautas, Kaunas, Lithuania, Joseph Danys settled with his family in Canada, 1949, first working for the C.N.R. and then Power Corporation. By 1955 he was Senior Foundation Engineer for the St. Lawrence River Power Project, one of the major engineering feats of the 20th century. From 1959-1979, he worked for the Ministry of Transport, Ottawa, designing and supervising the construction of a new generation of aids for navigation, the most striking of which, modern lighthouses, was chosen to figure on a series of Canadian postage stamps. Acting as a liason between the Lithuanian-Canadian community and the Canadian federal government, with representatives of the Latvian and Estonian communities, Mr. Danys, between 1973-1988, guided an all-party committee of Senators and M.P.s to organize an annual Baltic Evening in Parliament, a confirmation of Canada's refusal to recognize the Soviet incorporation of the Baltic nations. In this view, Joseph Danys, right, is standing, in 1986, with the Hon. Michael Wilson, Finance Minister, at one of these gala evenings which took place in the West Block on Parliament Hill, Ottawa. [Photo, courtesy Milda Danys]