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Sir Ernest Alexander Campbell MacMillan, was a Canadian orchestral conductor, composer, organist, and Canada's only "Musical Knight". He is widely regarded as being Canada's pre-eminent musician, from the 1920s through the 1950s. His contributions to the development of music in Canada were sustained and varied, as conductor, performer, composer, administrator, lecturer, adjudicator, writer, humourist, and statesman.
Joseph Louis Wilfrid Pelletier, was a Canadian conductor, pianist, composer, and arts administrator. He was instrumental in establishing the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, serving as the orchestra's first artistic director and conductor from 1935–1941. He had a long and fruitful partnership with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City that began with his appointment as a rehearsal accompanist in 1917; ultimately working there as one of the company's conductors in mainly the French opera repertoire from 1929-1950. From 1951–1966 he was the principal conductor of the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec. He was also a featured conductor for a number of RCA Victor recordings, including an acclaimed reading of Gabriel Fauré's Requiem featuring baritone Mack Harrell and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and chorus.
Walter Johannes Damrosch was a German-born American conductor and composer. He is best remembered today as long-time director of the New York Symphony Orchestra and for conducting the world premiere performances of George Gershwin's Piano Concerto in F (1925) and An American in Paris (1928). Damrosch was also instrumental in the founding of Carnegie Hall. He also conducted the first performance of Rachmaninoff's third piano concerto with Rachmaninoff himself as a soloist.
Claude Champagne was a Canadian composer, teacher, pianist, and violinist.
Bill Douglas is a Canadian musician, composer, pianist, and bassoonist whose works received influence from classical music, jazz, African, Brazilian and Indian music, 1970s funk and many other genres.
Joseph Masella was a Canadian french hornist and music educator.
Joseph Pierre Alexis Contant was a Canadian composer, organist, pianist, and music educator. Trained as a pianist, he became one of the first Canadians to compose large-scale choral and orchestral works, in spite of the difficulty of finding suitable teachers of musical composition. His younger years were spent mostly in teaching, family, and work as a church organist, and many of his compositions were written later in life.
Jean-Josaphat Gagnier was a Canadian conductor, composer, clarinetist, bassoonist, pianist, arts administrator, and music educator. His compositional output mainly consists of works for orchestra and band, although he did write some choral pieces, songs, works for solo piano and organ, some incidental music for the theatre, and a work for solo harp. His compositions are written in a wide variety of styles from romanticism to impressionism to 20th century idioms.
Gérald Gagnier was a Canadian bandmaster, composer, and trumpeter. His compositional output includes the symphonic poem Polyphème, a Prélude for piano, a Suite romantique for strings, and Rolandineries for piano.
René Gagnier was a Canadian conductor, composer, euphonium player, violinist, and music educator. His compositional output includes several marches, waltzes, works for solo violin, and some chamber and symphonic music, all of which remains unpublished.
Albert Chamberland was a Canadian violinist, composer, conductor, music producer, and music educator. As a violinist he performed as a chamber musician with a number of ensembles, including the Beethoven Trio with whom he made some early recordings for His Master's Voice during the first decade of the 20th century. For HMV he made a few solo recordings and was a concert soloist as well. He performed with a variety of orchestras, serving as the Montreal Symphony Orchestra's first concertmaster. Chamberland also created several compositions for band and orchestra.
Alfred De Sève was a Canadian violinist, composer, and music educator. His compositional output includes works for violin and piano, solo piano, and orchestra; many of which were published by Arthur P. Schmidt and Charles H. Ditson.
Romain-Octave Pelletier I was a Canadian organist, pianist, composer, writer on music, and music educator.
Frédéric Pelletier was a Canadian choir conductor, music educator, composer, music critic, journalist, civil servant, military officer, and physician. He was one of the principal music critics in Montreal during the first half of the 20th century, having worked in that capacity for every major publication in Montreal at one time or another. He was also a professor of music history at several institutions and worked as a choirmaster in several Montreal churches. His compositional output was mainly dedicated to sacred choral works, including several motets and carols, 2 oratorios, a Requiem Mass, and a Stabat Mater. He also wrote some works for solo organ, some songs, and a number of harmonizations of Canadian folk tunes.
Jean-Marie Beaudet was a Canadian conductor, organist, pianist, radio producer, and music educator. He had a long career with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, serving variously as a music producer, programing director, conductor, and administrator. With the CBC Symphony Orchestra he conducted the premiere recordings of works by many Canadian composers, including pieces by Maurice Blackburn, Claude Champagne, J.-J. Gagnier, Clermont Pépin, and Healey Willan.
The Canadian Grenadier Guards Band was a Canadian military band that was active for more than 60 years during the 20th century. In addition to performing for military events, the band had an active concert schedule which brought them to performance venues throughout North America. The group also made several recordings on a variety labels and appeared on numerous radio broadcasts in both Canada and the United States.
Maurice Bernier was a Canadian journalist, cellist, and music critic. He wrote music criticism for the Quebec City newspaper L'Événement from 1922 to 1932. He then worked as a reporter stationed at the National Assembly of Quebec for the next four decades.
Ezra Schabas, was a Canadian musician, educator and author. He was active in Canada's musical life beginning in 1952, when he emigrated from Cleveland with his family. During his time in Canada, he was a leading musical educator, clarinetist, and administrator in Toronto's musical institutions. He wrote several books on Canadian and American musical history, and he was appointed to the Order of Ontario and made a Member of the Order of Canada.
The Montreal Orchestra (MO) was a professional Canadian symphony orchestra based in Montreal, Quebec that was active from 1930–1941. While not Montreal's first orchestra, the MO is considered by music historians to be the first professional symphony orchestra in Montreal. Previous orchestras in that city were much smaller in size and, unlike the MO, utilized amateur musicians. The MO was the first ensemble in Montreal that employed only professional musicians, and the orchestra introduced Montreal's audiences to full symphonic programs for the first time. The ensemble gave the Montreal premieres of numerous works from the standard orchestral repertoire, including pieces by Beethoven, Berlioz, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninoff, and Sibelius among others.
Al-Hajj Sayyd Abdul Al-Khabyyr, was an African-American/Canadian saxophonist, clarinetist, flautist and composer. He toured internationally with Dizzy Gillespie from 1983 to 1987, appearing alongside Gillespie in the feature films A Night in Havana and A Night in Chicago. He is the only person to perform all saxophone parts consecutively in the Duke Ellington Orchestra.
