Canadian composers take note

A violin without a bow or a flute without a breath of air produces nothing but silence. Now imagine a piece of music without a performer to bring the material to life.

Fifty years ago, the Canadian Music Centre (CMC) was founded to find life for hundreds of compositions across the country caught in musical limbo.

The Canadian Music Centre is celebrating 50 years. 

It began as a modest collection of classical music scores composed by Canadians, stacked on shelves in a lending library in Montreal. Musicians could access the material and perform it live, showcasing their own talent but also publicising the songwriter behind the work. Half a century later, the CMC has archived more than 700 composers and 21,000 scores in five lending libraries across the country, and sells an estimated 3,500 scores each year.

It’s more than a publishing house; it’s a home — the country’s single largest promotional engine for indigenous classical music.

It’s more than a publishing house; it’s a home — the country’s single largest promotional engine for indigenous classical music.

“The bottom line is to get stuff off the shelf and performed as often as possible,” says Elisabeth Bihl, executive director of the CMC.

“There used to be publicists in this country for classical contemporary music, but most left the country or went bankrupt, or [became] really small publishers. Because of that, the CMC is sort of filling in the gaps.”

Canadian music by numbers

The CMC introduced a new position this year at its head office in Toronto in order to globalize its promotional reach.

Paul Kehayas is pioneering the title and responsibilities of the CMC’s Music Licensing Manager. Essentially, Kehayas acts as a publisher, trying to market the compositions in the archive for films, video games and commercials. It provides temporary income for composers, but it also means more mainstream exposure.

“Worldwide, the music industry is going into the toilet,” says Kehayas. “The future of getting money for artists and writers is not within selling their physical product. What I think is the future is placement of material.”

While a large part of the music industry has been suffering from the swift development of the Internet, the CMC is actually flourishing in its wake. The archival system of yesteryear consisted of stacking vinyl records on top of one another and cataloguing scorebooks in one of the CMC’s regional centres. But now file sharing and downloading has globalized Canada’s classical discography.

Centrediscs, the CMC record label and largest exclusively Canadian label in the country, has also been adapting to new media since it was launched in 1981. It currently produces eight to 10 new releases a year and distributes more than 1,300 titles from independent Canadian labels.

Although the focus is on classical music, that definition is vast and changing.

“We can cover any kind of music,” says Centrediscs producer Richard Truhlar. “From very conservative neo-classical contemporary music or very experimental electro-acoustic.”

Among the more traditional artists like flutist Robert Cram, who just won the Ontario Arts Council Oskar Morowetz Award for Excellence, Bihl says she is excited about young composers on the scene. Multi-instrumentalist Richard Reed Parry of Arcade Fire just commissioned his symphony for performance by the Kitchener-Waterloo Orchestra, and songwriter Nicole Lizée composes strictly for turntable but also plays in an all-female jazz band.

The CMC has an extensive application process that considers the musical education and field experience of prospective composers, as well as their dedication to the profession.

Many composers apply for grants through the Canada Council for the Arts, but the CMC, a registered charity, introduces artists to publishing opportunities without asking for a return. About 30 per cent of funding for the CMC comes from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN). The rest comes from private donors and supporters.

 Canadian singers perform vocal chamber music in Ottawa. 

50 years and counting 

On Nov. 9, the CMC is celebrating its 50th anniversary at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa with a gala that will recognize 50 of its associate composers and showcase a smaller selection of performances.

Elaine Keillor, a classical pianist in Ottawa, is a CMC ambassador. She will be recognized at the celebration for almost 40 years of promoting Canadian music. Keillor began writing excerpts for the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada after initially being attracted to Canadian music through stories of her mother’s world-renowned piano teacher, W.O. Forsythe.

Keillor’s long career as a Canadian musician has been dotted with contributions to the CMC. She is currently recording a compilation of 200 classical piano compositions — many which are being performed for the first time by Keillor — from Canadians such as Calixa Lavalée, the composer of “O Canada!”

“I don’t think Canadians generally have any idea of how much Canadian music is appreciated internationally,” says Keillor.

“I don’t think Canadians generally have any idea of how much Canadian music is appreciated internationally.” — Elaine Keillor 

Keillor says it would have been a much more difficult task if the music hadn't been waiting for her in the CMC`s libraries.

“The only way for musicians to really get a hold of Canadian music scores and perform them is having the CMC,” says Keillor. “Canadian music is being performed around the world as a result.”

Keys to life