Music in Cananda

Extract

It seems to come as a complete surprise to many people, especially in the United Kingdom, that Canada has a vital musical life of its own, both as regards performance and creative activity. That this should be so is due chiefly to Canadians themselves, who are the most backward of all people in spreading abroad the facts of their cultural life. Apart from this, they are ill-served by their own musicians, who arrive in large numbers in the United Kingdom telling everybody that they have come because there is nothing for them to do in Canada. I myself was also a victim of this widespread impression until I had the good fortune to take the Boyd Neel Orchestra on tour in the Dominion in 1952. Imagine my astonishment when I found enormous audiences of an extremely enlightened nature and a musical life boiling with activity and lacking only one thing—sufficient players to meet the demand. I then realised the ludicrous situation that obtained with so many Canadians pouring into the already overcrowded musical world of the United Kingdom, while their confrères, who remained at home, were all working twenty-four hours a day to try to keep the pot boiling. I found the same conditions when I visited Australia and New Zealand some eight years ago. The cry was always ‘Why can't we get anything going here?’ The answer was obvious—that as long as all the best musical talent went immediately to England, nothing would ever get started in the Dominions.