Institute for Canadian Music

Institute for Canadian Music. Founded at the University of Toronto in 1984 to encourage research into Canadian music and facilitate the exchange of information between scholars working in this and related areas. The institute also aimed to enlarge the university's holdings of musical Canadiana and to initiate or assist in publishing or recording projects. Funding for the creation of the institute and the Jean A. Chalmers Chair in Canadian Music was provided by Floyd S. Chalmers. In June 1984 John Beckwith was named the first director of the institute and Jean A. Chalmers Professor of Canadian Music, but Timothy McGee was acting director 1984-5 while Beckwith was on sabbatical leave. Beckwith took up his duties in 1985 and remained as Chalmers Professor until 1990 and as director until 1991 (Patricia Shand was acting director for seven months in 1987); Harry Freedman was Chalmers Professor 1990-1. Carl Morey became the director of the institute and Chalmers Professor in 1991; upon his retirement in 2000, both positions remained vacant until 2002, when Morey was succeeded by Robin Elliott. The institute has hosted or taken part in many conferences, both alone and in association with ARMuQ, Association of American University Composers, CMHS, CLComp, Canadian Music Centre, International Year of Canadian Music, OMEA, Sonneck Society, the TS, and various universities. The series of CanMus Documents 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 and Handbooks 1, 2, and 4 resulted from conferences or symposia which the institute either organized or in which it participated. Under Elliott's direction, the institute has invited guest speakers, supported publication projects, and on 10 March 2007 hosted Four Perspectives on John Beckwith, a symposium in honour of Beckwith's 80th birthday. The proceedings were published in the Institute for Canadian Music Newsletter, vol. 5, no. 3 (September 2007).

This organization has no connection with the earlier Canadian Institute of Music founded in Montreal in 1929 by Rodolphe Mathieu

Publications
CanMus Documents Series:

1 Beckwith, John, ed. Sing Out The Glad News: Hymn Tunes in Canada (Toronto 1987)

2 Beckwith, John and Cooper, Dorith R. eds. Hello Out There! Canada's New Music in the World, 1950-85 (Toronto 1988)

3 "Composer and Orchestra: Some Canadian Works of the 1980s" (unpublished)

4 Three Studies (Toronto 1989)

5 Witmer, Robert, ed. Ethnomusicology in Canada (Toronto 1990)

6 Beckwith, John and Hatch, Peter, eds. The Fifth Stream (Toronto 1991)

CanMus Handbooks series

1 Canadian Artists and Canadian Repertoire on Tour outside Canada, 1950-85, compiled by Dorith R. Cooper (Toronto 1986)

2 Cavanagh, Beverley, ed. Canadian Music in the 1930s and 1940s [Kingston, Ont, 1987]

3 "Canadiana Sheet-music Holdings in the Edward Johnson Music Library," unpublished

4 Rice, Timothy and Shand, Patricia, eds. Multicultural Music Education: The "Music Means Harmony" Workshop (Toronto 1989)

5 Faculty of Music University of Toronto Alumni Directory, with historical introduction by Ronald Chandler (Toronto 1990)

6 "Checklist and Index of Canadian College Songbooks," unpublished

Newsletter

The Institute for Canadian Music Newsletter, between 12 and 32 pages in length, was published from January 2003 (vol. 1, no. 1) until January 2008 (vol. 6, no. 1). It appeared in print and is also available online through the institute's website.

Author Robin Elliott

Bibliography

Jones, Gaynor. "A protagonist for Canadian music," University of Toronto Columns, Spring 1986

Beckwith, John. "Réalisations et projets de l'Institut de musique canadienne," Cahiers de L'ARMuQ, 10, Jun 1988

Beckwith, John. "The University of Toronto's Institute for Canadian Music," ACS Newsletter / Bulletin de l'AEC, vol. 12, no. 3 (Fall 1990): 20-21

Links to Other Sites
The Virtual Gramophone
An extensive multimedia database that covers the history of recorded music in Canada. Search the site for musician biographies and notes about the early years of sound recording, online audio clips of recordings, podcasts on specific themes, videos, and more. From Library and Archives Canada.

The Institute for Canadian Music
Features full text articles about music education and noteworthy people and events in Canadian music. Also offers an extensive collection of music links. From the University of Toronto.