Phyllis Gummer

Phyllis Gummer was born in Kingston, Ontario, and studied at Queen's University, where her father was assistant professor of mathematics. In 1940 during her studies at Queen's, her "Piano sonata" and the song "Requiescat" received first prize in an annual composition competition for Canadian composers under 22, held by the Canadian Performing Rights Society (now called the Composers, Authors and Publishers Association of Canada).[1] The prize included a scholarship for study at the Toronto Conservatory (now called The Royal Conservatory of Music).

After receiving a Bachelor of Arts from Queen's, she studied composition under Healy Willan and violin under Harold Sumberg at the Toronto Conservatory. During her time at the Toronto Conservatory she was in a circle of composers:

Beside John Weinzweig and Louis Applebaum the circle of communication included Godfrey Ridout, Barbara Pentland, Leonard Basham, Phyllis Gummer, and Eldon Rathburn.[2]

She also performed in local concerts, on violin, piano, viola and organ. In 1942 she won a fellowship in composition at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City.[3]

Gummer's early compositions received attention in the early 1940s. Beside the CPRS prize in 1940, her works were performed at several local concerts. A reviewer in the Canadian Review of Music and Arts wrote about a concert on 28 February 1942 at the Conservatory Hall in Toronto:

I am inclined to think that one work above the others fulfilled more completely every demand that one might make of a composition, and that was the song "The journey". Here Christina Rossetti's words were wedded most exquisitely to a fine melodic line of grace and loveliness in its own right, and these were bound the more indissolubly by the happiest of accompaniments. In all her works Miss Gummer showed herself to be possessed of real musically creative thought, and capable of producing a fine harmonic texture of great delicacy an strength.[4]

In 1944, Phyllis Gummer was a staff member of the National Film Board of Canada and part of a group of composers:

The music and sound team that Louis [Applebaum] led included Maurice Blackburn, Eldon Rathburn, Phyllis Gummer and Robert Fleming - splendid collection of fine composers who were to be his lifetime friends.[5]

There is little known about the activities of Phyllis Gummer after that time, but she remained connected to the classical music scene.[6]

The archive of musical manuscripts by Phyllis Gummer is preserved by Tobias Broeker, a private researcher in Stuttgart (Germany).[7]