John Beckwith (composer)

In 1945, after several years of studying piano at the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM), Beckwith received a Royal Conservatory scholarship, which allowed him to study piano with Alberto Guerrero at the University of Toronto. His other professors included Leo Smith and John Weinzweig and it was here that he obtained his B.Mus. In 1950 he was awarded a second scholarship, this time from the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association. This scholarship allowed him to travel to Paris, where he studied composition under Nadia Boulanger.

He has received five honorary doctorates from Canadian universities; McGill University (Quebec), Mount Allison University (New Brunswick), Queen's University (Ontario), University of Victoria (British Columbia) and the University of Guelph (Ontario).

After studying in Paris, Beckwith returned to Toronto to pursue further studies and became active as a performing musician, actor, critic, radio commentator, writer, lecturer and broadcaster. In 1952, he returned to the University of Toronto, but this time as a part-time lecturer at the Faculty of Music. He was then appointed full-time lecturer in 1955. He remained in this position for several years, and even served a term as the dean of the faculty from 1970 to 1977. Beckwith was appointed the first Jean A. Chalmers Professor of Canadian Music and the first director of the Institute for Canadian Music at the University of Toronto. He retired in 1990 with plans to devote more time to composing. Some of his notable pupils include Brian Cherney, Gustav Ciamaga, Omar Daniel, John Fodi, Clifford Ford, Ben McPeek, James Rolfe, Clark Ross, Matthew Davidson, and Timothy Sullivan.

While teaching, Beckwith remained active in several areas of the musical community. He wrote for the Toronto Star from 1959 to 1965 as an arts critic and columnist and planned a number of documentaries and music series for CBC radio. Beginning in 1981, he worked as a director for the Canadian Musical Heritage Society, which he had co-founded that same year. He prepared two of the society's 25-volume series of pre-1950 Canadian-composed music. In 1986, the Anthology of Canadian music included a five-record set of his music. A collection of 25 of his music articles and talks was published by Golden Dog Press in 1997 under the title Music Papers. The Canadian Conference of the Arts awarded Beckwith with its Diplôme d'honneur in 1996 and he was made an honorary member of the Canadian University Music Society in 1999.

Beckwith has composed over 130 large works. While the majority of his works are settings of Canadian texts for voice, he also has many compositions for orchestral and chamber groups, as well as solo instrumental pieces and choral music.

While some of his music explores 20th Century techniques, most of his compositions have themes that connect in some way to historical or regional Canada. He spent much of his time creating arrangements of Canadian folk songs, and has set around 200 of these songs, including Four Love Songs (1969) and Five Songs (1969–70). Most of these were set between the years 1981 and 1991 during his involvement with Music at Sharon (a summer concert series in Ontario). Beckwith collaborated with many Canadian writers when setting tect for voice, including James Reaney, Jay Macpherson, Margaret Atwood, and Dennis Lee. The longest of these collaborations was with James Reaney.

As recorded in the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada at

• Beckwith, John (1997). Music Papers: Articles and Talks by a Canadian Composer. Ottawa, Ontario: The Golden Dog Press.
• Proctor, George A. (1951). Canadian Music of the Twentieth Century. Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press.
• Steenhuisen, Paul. "Interview with John Beckwith". In Sonic Mosaics: Conversations with Composers. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-88864-474-9
• Encyclopedia of Music in Canada
• Canadian Shakespeare
• Canadian Music Centre

• "John Beckwith". Archived from the original on November 12, 2005. Retrieved December 7, 2005.

Archives at
Location University of Toronto Music Library  Identifiers CA OTUFM 10 Source John Beckwith fonds
How to use archival material

• John Beckwith at The Canadian Encyclopedia
• Beckwith, John (2012). Unheard Of: Memoirs of a Canadian Composer. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. ISBN 1554583985.
• Archival papers and manuscripts at University of Toronto Music Library