Frank Welsman

Frank Squire Welsman (born December 20, 1873 in Toronto , † July 2, 1952 in Muskoka ) was a Canadian conductor, music teacher and pianist.

Welsman studied violin and piano at Toronto College of Music and from 1894 to 1897 piano with Martin Krause and music theory with Gustav Schreck and Richard Hofmann at the Leipzig Conservatory . Later he took piano lessons from Arnold Mendelssohn .

After returning to Canada, he began a career as a pianist and taught at Toronto College of Music . From 1906 he was a teacher at the Toronto Conservatory of Music (TCM). In the following year he gave up his career as a pianist, but continued to work as a chamber musician. He was co-founder and conductor of the Toronto Conservatory Symphony Orchestra , from which in 1908 the Toronto Symphony Orchestra ("Welsman TSO") emerged. He directed this until 1918. In the summers of 1923 and 1924 he also conducted the Anglo-Canadian Leather Company Band in Huntsville, Ontario. In 1914 he founded the Welsman Studio Club , in which piano programs were presented by students and teachers of TCM every two weeks.

From 1918 Welsman moved to the Canadian Academy of Music , whose musical director he became in 1922. After the Canadian Academy of Music merged with TCM, he continued teaching at the latter until 1951. His students included Roy Angus , George Douglas Atkinson , Margaret Miller Brown , Percy Faith , HK Jordan and Kate Bryce Marquis Nelson .

As a composer, Welsman emerged with a few songs and instrumentals. Two of his grandchildren also embarked on a musical career: John Welsman as a film music composer and Carol Welsman as a jazz singer and pianist.

source

• Frank Welsman ( English, French ) In: Encyclopedia of Music in Canada . published by The Canadian Encyclopedia .