Sir Ernest MacMillan: The Importance of Being Canadian - Hardcover

Schabas, Ezra

9780802028495: Sir Ernest MacMillan: The Importance of Being Canadian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802028497 ISBN 13: 9780802028495

Publisher: University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division, 1994

As a conductor, organist, pianist, composer, educator, writer, administrator, and musical statesman, Sir Ernest MacMillan stands as a towering figure in Canada's musical history. His role in the development of music in Canada from the beginning of this century to 1970 was pivotal. He conducted the Toronto Symphony Orchestra for twenty-five years, and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir for fifteen . He was principal of the Toronto (now Royal) Conservatory of Music and dean of the University of Toronto's Faculty of Music. He founded the Canadian Music Council, and the Canadian Music Centre, and was a founding member of the Canada Council. He was also the first president of the Composers, Authors, and Publishers Association of Canada (CAPAC).

Ezra Schabas provides not only the first detailed biography of MacMillan, but also a frank, richly detailed and handsomely illustrated account of the Canadian music scene. He tells of MacMillan's rise in Canada, from his early years as a church organist to his international successes as a guest conductor; from his internment in a German prison camp to the knighthood conferred on him by King George V. As Robertson Davies said of MacMillan, 'It is on the achievements of such men that the culture of a country rests. Their work is not education, but revelation, and there is always about it something of prophetic splendour.'

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From the Inside Flap:

'Last month saw the publication of a long awaited book, with the dandy title Sir Ernest MacMillan: The Importance of Being Canadian. It's a 374-page biography of the major musical figure in 20th-century Canada. The thoroughly qualified author is Ezra Schabas, a music professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, and a former principal of the Royal Conservatory. This panoramic survey of MacMillan's life and times, has been released simultaneously in Canada, Britain and the United States by University of Toronto Press...Ezra Schabas' biography is both scholarly and lively; it brims with snappy anecdotes. And, glory be, there's a 16-page index; you can browse to your heart's content before starting in at the beginning...The book is visually enhanced by 53 well-chosen, well-captioned photos.'

About the Author:

Ezra Schabas has been active as a performer, teacher, and musical administrator in Canada for over forty years. He is Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto, and former principal of the Royal Conservatory of Music.

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