Beckwith, John

Beckwith, John, Canadian composer, teacher, writer on music, and pianist; b. Victoria, British Columbia, March 9, 1927. He studied piano and harmony with Gwendoline Harper. After taking classes at Victoria Coll. (1944–45), he settled in Toronto and studied at the Univ. (M.B., 1947; M.M., 1961). He also pursued piano training with Alberto Guerrero (1945–50). In 1950 he made his debut in a lecture-recital in Toronto. A scholarship award allowed him to study composition with Boulanger in Paris (1950–51). In 1952 he joined the music faculty of the Univ. of Toronto, while also teaching theory at the Royal Cons, of Music of Toronto from 1952 to 1966. He served as dean of the faculty (1970–77), and in 1984 was named the Jean A. Chalmers prof. of Canadian Music at the Univ. of Toronto, the first position of its kind in a Canadian Univ. In 1990 he retired as prof. emeritus. Active as a reviewer, program annotator, and editor, he made a specialty of the Canadian musical repertoire past and present. He restored Joseph Quesnel’s early 19 th century musical comedy Lucas et Cécile (1992). He ed. Vols 5 and 18 of The Canadian Musical Heritage anthology series (1986, 1995), and publ. Music Papers: Articles and Talks by a Canadian Composer, 1961–1994 (1997). In 1987 he was made a Member of the Order of Canada. Beckwith’s music is marked by pragmatic modernism, in which techniques of serialism, both chromatic and non-chromatic, and structural collage often recur. Many of his works reveal a North American, or specifically Ontarian, origin by their choice of topics, motives, coloration, or sometimes by quotation.