Horace Lapp

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Horace Gladstone Lapp (born March 3, 1904 in Uxbridge / Ontario , † January 28, 1986 in Uxbridge / Ontario) was a Canadian pianist, organist, conductor and composer.

Lapp was church organist in Beaverton from 1917 to 1920 and in Port Hope from 1920 to 1922. From 1922 to 1924 he studied piano with Alberto Guerrero and organ with Healey Willan at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto . He also played the piano in Luigi Romanello's orchestra and was a piano accompanist on a tour of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir in 1923.

From 1924 to 1935 he was a member of Jack Arthur's theater orchestras, composing and conducting music for shows at Shea's Hippodrome and the Imperial Theater . He also worked as a silent film pianist. Between 1934 and 1944 he directed dance orchestras at the Royal Muskoka Hotel (1934–36) and the Royal York Theater (1936–44). With the latter he appeared in 1939 on the CBC radio and a short film ( Music from the Stars (with William Morton , Madeline Pedler and others).

He participated in the Kate Aitkens radio programs from 1935 to 1954 as an organist, and he also played the organ at sporting events in Maple Leaf Gardens . He was from 1952 to 1959 pianist, arranger and occasional conductor at the CBC productions Opportunity Knocks , from 1962 to 1965 conductor of the Eaton Operatic Society and from 1964 to 1956 music producer at the Canadian National Exhibitions . He completed a concerto for piano and voices in 1958.

As one of the last living silent film pianists, he played the piano from 1968 for the adaptation of historical silent films for the Ontario Film Institute . In 1969, he played the music for 37 films with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy for CBC television . In 1978 he played the original music by Ernest Dainty for the Canadian film Carry On Sergeant . From 1962 to 1973 he wrote the monthly column for the Arts and Letters Club . An autobiography of Lapp remained unpublished and is in the possession of the National Library of Canada .

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