The Canadian Music Centre was founded in 1959 by a group of Canadian composers who saw a need to create a repository for Canadian music. It now holds Canada 's largest collection of Canadian concert music, and works to promote the music of its Associate Composers in Canada and around the world.
19-580: Oliver Whitehead is a guitarist and composer, originally from England, who has worked mostly in Canada. He is an Associate Composer at the Canadian Music Centre . His orchestral works include the oratorio We Shall be Changed (1993), Concerto For Oboe (1996) and Pissarro Landscapes (2000). His jazz album Free For Now was nominated for a Juno Award as Best Jazz Album of 1985. He has composed for, and played with, many individual musicians and groups over
38-533: A Blessing of the Animals ceremony, for child and adult choirs, and instrumentation that included African percussion and Celtic harp. The key players in that work went on to form The Antler River Project, which continues to play original jazz/world music compositions by Whitehead and pianist Steve Holowitz. Whitehead wrote his first classical / art music piece—the oratorio We Shall Be Changed —in 1993, on commission from Pro Musica and Orchestra London Canada . That oratorio
57-417: A catalogue of scores, copying and duplicating the music, and making it available for loan, nationally and internationally. The centre currently has over 18,000 scores and/or works by almost 700 Canadian contemporary composers available through its lending library. It sells more than 900 CD titles featuring the music of its Associate Composers and other Canadian independent recording producers . The centre
76-488: Is digitizing all of its scores and works. It offers an on-demand printing and binding service, music repertoire consultations, and is easily accessible through its five regional centres across Canada, and its website. It has a number of national outreach projects, conducts research, and administers several awards. The Ann Southam Audio Archive, administered by the CMC, is the largest collection of recorded Canadian concert works in
95-500: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about a music organization is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Orchestra London Canada Orchestra London (Canada) was a professional symphony orchestra based in London, Ontario in Canada. There was a group under the name London Symphony Orchestra performing in London, Ontario in the 1890s. In
114-606: Is based on the book Cosmic Consciousness by Richard Maurice Bucke , an early 20th-century psychiatrist and mystic who lived in London, Ontario. Other classical commissions followed, described in the list below. Whitehead has never taught music. After completing a PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto, under Northrop Frye , he began in 1978 to teach English and Comparative Literature and Culture, at Western University in London, Ontario, and continued for
133-525: The University of Toronto . In 1978, Whitehead moved to London , Ontario to take up an academic post at Western University . With the encouragement of some new friends there, he began to play and compose jazz for the first time, and formed the Oliver Whitehead Quintet (1983–1990), fronted by sax player Chris Robinson, to play original compositions by him and pianist Patrick Dubois. Their first LP
152-553: The 1890s a group of about 41 players performed in London, Ontario, Canada, as the London Symphony Orchestra. This group pre-dated the famous orchestra in London, England with the same name, which was founded in 1904. The current orchestra was founded by conductor and violinist Bruce Sharpe in 1937 with the name the London Civic Symphony Orchestra . In 1957, with increased numbers of professional players,
171-602: The 1950s and 60s running a farm that the family bought in the tiny village of Noke , near Oxford. Barbara's first cousin was the operatic tenor Peter Pears , partner of composer Benjamin Britten . Pears and Britten were close with the Whiteheads, often exchanging visits. Oliver grew up in a home where classical music was highly valued—and jazz was little understood and rarely played. His parents tried to give him formal piano lessons. Instead, Oliver taught himself guitar and, by means of
190-444: The freedom to break traditional academic boundaries by incorporating all the art forms, especially music, in his courses. Whitehead has been married since 1984 to Mary Malone, a journalist and communications project manager from Montreal. They have two daughters, Anne and Claire. He is a cryptic crossword addict. Canadian Music Centre Initially the centre focused on collecting and cataloguing serious musical works, developing
209-480: The libretto. Oliver's father Henry Whitehead was a mathematician at Balliol College, Oxford , and a codebreaker at Bletchley Park during World War II. His son knew almost nothing of the latter fact until 1995, three decades after his father's death, when the Official Secrets Act on WWII service expired. His mother Barbara began a career as a concert pianist (under her maiden name Smyth), but spent most of
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#1732876155600228-457: The next 35 years. Although he started as a full-timer, he resigned in 1988, to take up year-to-year, part-time contracts at the university, to devote more time to music. Over the years, his teaching course load focused on Shakespeare, Foundations of Literature (Homer, Virgil the Bible, Renaissance) and Literature and Music; as well as general survey courses. The field of Comparative Literature allowed him
247-527: The orchestra changed its name to the London Symphony Orchestra , but as the orchestra achieved full professional status it adopted the name Orchestra London in 1981 to avoid confusion with the famous London Symphony Orchestra in London, England. After weeks of speculation, the orchestra ceased operations on December 11, 2014 due to massive budget shortfalls. The musicians of the now bankrupt organization formally filed for bankruptcy on behalf of
266-432: The orchestra on May 22, 2015. Despite this, the contracted musicians of the ensemble have continued to put on self-produced concerts within the London community. Initially, former musicians of the ensemble played under the identity, "#WePlayOn". On January 20, 2017, however, the musicians launched their new identity, London Symphonia at a concert at Metropolitan United Church in London, Ontario. The new identity includes
285-769: The radio and his wind-up 78 rpm gramophone, soon discovered all the British chart-toppers of the day, such as Tommy Steele , Lonnie Donegan and Cliff Richard , later finding more advanced models in Andres Segovia and Django Reinhardt . After his father's early death in 1959, when Oliver was 11, his mother increasingly spent time in Donegal, Ireland, where she had holidayed as a child, eventually moving there permanently in 1970. Traditional Irish tunes became another ingredient in Oliver's mental music box. The only guitar lesson Oliver ever took
304-677: The world. It can be accessed through Centrestreams, CMC's free streaming service, via its website. In 1981, the centre established the Centrediscs recording label, the only label devoted to Canadian concert music. It has received numerous awards, including six JUNOs, an East Coast Music Award, six West Coast Music Awards, and two Grande Prix du Disque Canada. Today the CMC has a national office in Toronto, ON, and regional centres in: The CMC's locations are increasingly becoming spaces for performances and workshops. This Toronto -related article
323-564: The years, most recently world music/jazz group The Antler River Project, the singer Linda Hoyle and the music producer and songwriter/composer Mo Foster . The Fetch , an album of original songs by Linda Hoyle, Mo Foster and Whitehead, was released in August 2015. In 2018, Whitehead's first opera, Look! An Opera in 9 Paintings – about a couple on an awkward date at an art gallery – was debuted to sold-out performances at Museum London in London , Ontario , Canada. Whitehead collaborated with Hoyle on
342-531: Was encouragingly nominated for Best Jazz Album in Canada's Juno Award of 1985. The quintet played twice at the Montreal International Jazz Festival , as well as other jazz fests in Detroit, Toronto, Ottawa, Edmonton and Vancouver. By 1997, Whitehead was incorporating more world music elements in his compositions, beginning with The Mass For All Creatures , a full length mass commissioned for
361-585: Was from Julian Bream , who showed him a few blues and jazz licks, during a Christmas party with Britten and Pears in 1962. At school, Oliver and his friends (including blues singer-guitarist Giles Hedley) shared a passionate love of blues and folk, mostly American. He came to the US at age 17, to study literature at Princeton University , where his father had worked for many years at the Institute for Advanced Study . In 1970 he moved to Canada to pursue post-graduate studies at
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