Mary Morrison

Mary Louise Morrison (born November 9, 1926 in Winnipeg ) is a Canadian singer (soprano) and vocal teacher.

Live and act

Morrison studied piano with Mary Bornoff and singing with Doris Lewis and John Goss between 1942 and 1944 . She performed on radio broadcasts as a teenager and won the Tudor Bowl and Rose Bowl at the 1944 Manitoba Music Competition Festival . From 1945 to 1948 she was a student of Myrtle Rose Guerrero (piano), Ernesto Vinci (vocals) and Emmy Heim (song vocals) at the Royal Conservatory of Music , and in 1948 she also took lessons from Greta Kraus and Weldon Kilburn .

After her debut with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 1947, she appeared in the 1950s and 1960s on the radio (especially for the CBC ) and on stage (with the Canadian Opera Company ) as an opera singer. She was also a soloist in numerous performances of symphonic works and oratorios. She formed the Lyric Arts Trio with Robert Aitken and Marion Ross , with whom she toured North America, Scandinavia, Japan, Iceland, France, Poland and England.

She was particularly interested in contemporary Canadian music. In 1953 she sang works by Jean Papineau-Couture and Oskar Morawetz at a concert of the Canadian League of Composers , in 1956 the world premiere of Harry Somers ' The Fool and in 1964 R. Murray Schafer's Geography of Eros . She gave her farewell concert in 1985 at the University of Toronto .

In 1951 Morrison married the composer Harry Freedman and sang in many of his film and ballet music in the following years. In 1976 she was artist in residence at Simon Fraser University . From 1976 to 1984 she taught singing at the University of Western Ontario , and from 1976 to 1979 at McMaster University . From 1979 she taught at the Music Faculty of the University of Toronto and gave courses at the Academy of Singing at the Banff Center for the Arts and between 1987 and 1989 at the Atelier lyrique de l'Opéra de Montréal .

In addition, Morrison has served as a juror in various competitions and on the board of the New Music Concerts , the Sir Ernest MacMillan Memorial Foundation , the Toronto Arts Council and the Toronto Arts Awards . In 1968 she was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada , in 1985 she received the Medal of Merit of the City of Toronto. In recognition of her contributions to new music in Canada, she became an ambassador for the Canada Music Center in 2009 . Her sister Kathleen Morrison Brown also embarked on a career as a singer.

Web links

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