Piano Quartets

Menu

Quartets


First name: Murray
Last name: Adaskin
Dates: 1902-2002
Category: Quartet
Nationality: canadian
Opus name: Piano Quartet (1995)
Publisher:
Peculiarities: See: http://www.musiccentre.ca/apps/index.cfm?fuseaction=score.FA_dsp_details&bibliographyid=26569&dsp_page=1
Information: A brother of Harry and John Adaskin, he studied with Harry and with Luigi von Kunits in Toronto, with Kathleen Parlow in New York, and with Marcel Chailley in Paris. He met and married the soprano Frances James in 1931. For many years he lived as an orchestral and chamber musician, playing 1923-36 with the TSO and 1938-52 with the Royal York Hotel Trio. In 1944, however, he began to study composition with Weinzweig, and soon composition became his prime interest. He studied further with Darius Milhaud at Aspen (summers 1949, 1950, 1953) and 1949-51 with Charles Jones in California. In 1952 he was named head of music at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. During his tenure, 1957-60, as conductor of the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra he insisted that the orchestra commission a Canadian work annually. He also included Canadian works in the program of the Summer Festival of Music which he organized in 1959 and in Six Exhibition Concerts (1967) which combined performances with an exhibition documenting the composers careers. A charter member of the CLComp, he also served 1966-9 on the Canada Council. In 1966 at the University of Saskatchewan he became composer-in-residence, the first such position created by a Canadian university. In 1972 he retired, and in 1973 he moved to Victoria, where he continued to compose and teach. He formed a close association with the Victoria artistic community, especially at the University of Victoria where in the 1990s he taught both violin and composition. Most of his Victoria works were written for that citys performers and ensembles, especially its younger musicians. In 1982 the University of Saskatchewan sponsored An Adaskin Celebration, a concert honouring his 75th birthday, and 12 Feb-26 Mar 1988 he was honoured by the University of Victoria with The Adaskin Years: a Celebration of Canada s Arts, a series of concerts of music by Adaskin and those who had influenced him or been influenced by him, combined with an exhibition of the Adaskins collection of Canadian painting and culminating in a Conference on Canada s Arts, 1930-1970. CBC radio honoured Adaskin in three episodes of Mostly Music 27-29 Nov 1989, profiling his life and music.