Norman Wilks

Norman Wilks (born June 9, 1885 in Birchington , † November 20, 1944 in Toronto ) was a Canadian pianist and music teacher of English origin.

Wilks sang in the Duke of Newcastle Choir as a child . He studied piano with Michael Hambourg and Frederic Lamond and composition with Ebenezer Prout and Joseph Holbrooke . He later studied at the Brussels Conservatory and was a student of Artur Schnabel in Germany . 1913-1914 he went on a North American tour, where he appeared several times with the Boston Symphony Orchestra . As a soldier in World War I, he was awarded the Military Cross .

After the war he appeared as a soloist in England, Holland, Belgium, Germany, the Caribbean and Australia. From 1928 he lived in Canada, where he primarily devoted himself to music education. He taught at the Toronto Conservatory of Music , whose director he succeeded Ernest MacMillan in 1942, was co-author of the textbook The Boris Berlin Musical Kindergarten Piano Method: Guide for Teachers (1940) and was editor of The Conservatory Sonatina Album (1945), the was reissued in 1983. His students included Robert Fleming , Patricia Blomfield Holt , Weldon Kilburn , Margaret Parsons, and Malcolm Troup .

source

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