MacMillan, the celebrated conductor of the internation-ally recognized Toronto Symphony Orchestra and leader of the no-less-acclaimed Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, was Canada’s most influential musical figure in his time. Composer, organist, musical statesman and administrator, he was Principal of the Toronto Conservatory of Music in Toronto and Dean of Music at the University of Toronto. Knighted in 1935, Sir Ernest won many other honours such as the Order of Canada in 1969. But his honours were the result of hard productive work that elevated and enhanced the very world of music in Canada.
 

Sir Ernest MacMillan was the most versatile musical genius in Canadian history. He did his best to educate orchestra and audience in both the classics and twentieth century music, defending “modernism” in music much in the same way Eric Brown, Director of the National Gallery of Canada, defended the avant-garde Group of Seven in the 1920s. [Photo, courtesy Toronto Symphony Orchestra Association]

The son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister, Ernest MacMillan was born in 1893 at Mimico, then a small town just west of Toronto. He was a musical prodigy, writing songs and performing publicly on the organ at age 10; by age 15, in 1908, he was already a professional church organist. His studies in Toronto and Scotland were followed by advanced work in France. Caught in Germany at the outbreak of World War I, he was interned as an enemy alien. Nevertheless, he went on composing and performing concerts and theatricals in a civilian prison camp and, on the basis of his work composed while still in prison, he earned an Oxford doctorate in music. Back in Toronto in 1919, he soon became a church organist, choirmaster, and music teacher. In 1923 he directed the first complete performance in Canada of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and continued to give annual performances of it for over 30 years. From 1927 to 1931 he was also involved in Canadian Pacific Railway folk festivals while producing songbooks and essays on music, and touring Canada as a festival judge.

Then in 1931 came his appointment to conduct the Toronto Symphony. MacMillan raised its expertise to new heights, introduced contemporary Canadian music, and took the orchestra to the United States between 1952-1956. He, himself, served as a guest conductor with other orchestras in the U.S.A., Australia, and Brazil, but chiefly he made “the TSO” warmly popular at home where it performed regularly at downtown Massey Hall. He also conducted the Promenade Symphony Orchestra at summer “Promenade Concerts” on the University of Toronto campus in what in winter was the university’s hockey arena. In 1942 Sir Ernest took charge of the Mendelssohn Choir, founded in 1895, already an august institution and heard not only with the TSO but with other symphonies like the Chicago and Philadelphia. Under MacMillan the choir certainly performed Bach or Beethoven but also present day British composers such as William Walton and Ralph Vaughan Williams. When MacMillan retired from both the TSO in 1956 and the Mendelssohn Choir a year later, he had given each of these organizations fresh scope, appeal, and international stature.
 

The young Ernest MacMillan gave organ recitals at Toronto’s Massey Hall when he was a 10-year-old child prodigy. [Photo, courtesy Keith MacMillan Fonds]

His contributions had by no means ended. He continued to be heavily involved in conducting on the CBC, founding the Canadian Music Centre, and acting as president of the Canadian Music Council and CAPAC (Composers, Authors and Publishers Association of Canada). Music came of age in Canada thanks to Sir Ernest MacMillan. 
J.M.S. Careless