Newfoundland Rhapsody by Colton Glenn David;

Author:Colton, Glenn David;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 3332690
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press

Figure 8.1

Sir Ernest MacMillan and Frederick Emerson during meetings of the first Canada Council, Ottawa, c. 1957

One of the most significant achievements of the first Canada Council, the Canadian Music Centre was established through a grant to the Canadian Music Council for the establishment of a library and information centre for music by Canadian composers. Two of the nation’s leading composers, John Weinzweig and John Beckwith, presented a brief to the Council in support of the initiative. The Canadian Music Council/ Conseil canadien de la musique had been founded in 1944 as a “music committee” assembled in response to the House of Commons’ Committee on Post-War Reconstruction. Adopting its name in 1945 and inspired by like-minded institutions elsewhere (notably the British Music Society), the Council’s advocacy on behalf of music in Canada was both timely and influential. MacMillan was elected chair in 1947 (a position he held for twenty years), and by 1953 the organization had attracted forty individual members (by invitation) and three institutional members: the Composers, Authors and Publishers Association of Canada (CAPAC), the Canadian Federation of Music Teachers’ Associations (CFMTA), and the Canadian College of Organists (CCO); later known as the Royal Canadian College of Organists (RCCO). The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation joined later. Among the Canadian Music Council’s publishing projects was a 1955 volume edited by MacMillan entitled Music in Canada. Until 1965, it administered the affairs of the Canadian Music Centre.13

Only a few years removed from his determined efforts to develop a music reference collection at Memorial University College, Emerson was well equipped to champion the cause of a national music centre. The pressing need for such a centre was underscored in the Canada Council’s first annual report:

To make new works of music, particularly by Canadian composers, better known and more readily accessible, a music centre which would assemble and maintain a library of scores and recordings and provide an information service about Canadian music for performance abroad as well as in Canada would be most useful. Various agencies including the CBC with its large library of Canadian compositions have offered co-operation. A study is being made to find out if the use made of such a centre would justify the expense. The making of a study of this kind in the interest of Canadian music shows that the Council recognizes the importance of contemporary music as well as that of the great masters of the past. Indeed in all the arts the Council’s assistance has been given to stimulate enjoyment of both contemporary and traditional works.14

With support from the Canada Council and additional funding from CAPAC, the Canadian Music Centre was founded on 1 January 1959 and, following the opening of its flagship office in Toronto, soon expanded nationwide. The Toronto office became the national headquarters, while regional centres were later established in Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, and Sackville, New Brunswick. From 1964 to 1977, MacMillan’s son Keith MacMillan ( 1920–1991) assumed the role of general manager of the national headquarters. More than half a century

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