A Calgary music school helped give the city its symphony. The Canadian Encyclopedia entry on the Calgary Symphony Orchestra backs that up, saying the fourth orchestra to carry that name began in 1949 when the Mount Royal College orchestra received the charter and assets of a previous group.
Where Mount Royal Conservatory comes in
It’s all over the story. Mount Royal University says its conservatory has taught music and speech arts in Calgary since 1911, and the Canadian Encyclopedia lays out the milestones. The conservatory affiliated with the University of Alberta in 1931, and in 1937 a symphony orchestra was organized by Jascha Galperin. A speech arts department followed in 1945.
The University of Calgary archives fill in the person. Galperin lived in Calgary from 1925 to 1945, taught at Mount Royal College and became head of the Conservatory of Music. The archive says his best-known contribution was founding the Calgary Youth Symphony, which it says evolved into the present Calgary Symphony Orchestra.
His son Peter donated 95 photographs and about 2 cm of textual records in 1996. They cover Calgary’s musical community from 1935 to 1945, a rare look at the youth orchestras of the decade before the college orchestra took the charter. If you like the people behind the institutions, it’s worth an afternoon.
How the college orchestra became a city symphony
The encyclopedia says the Calgary Symphony Orchestra of 1928 to 1939 disbanded because of the war. In 1949 the college orchestra took over its charter and assets, and Clayton Hare conducted. In 1955 that orchestra amalgamated with the Alberta Philharmonic to form the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra.
The line from Galperin’s students to today’s Phil isn’t perfectly straight, because the sources describe several organizations with similar names. The record does show a college orchestra receiving the charter and assets in 1949 and carrying them until the 1955 amalgamation. That’s a pretty great role for a school.
What the conservatory added after that
The encyclopedia lists the Calgary Youth Orchestra in 1968, the Leacock Music Theatre on campus in 1972, an Academy of Music program for gifted students in 1980 and a two-year post-secondary performance program in 1981.
It reports growth from fewer than 100 students and five faculty in the early days to about 5,000 students and 290 instructors by 2005.
The history of the city’s classical music runs through a college corridor as much as a concert hall. To see where Calgary’s orchestras came from, start at the Galperin fonds.
For a different angle, read Fred Bagley Taught Calgary How to March in Time. The Hip Farewell Came to Studio Bell is good too. Or try W.O. Mitchell made High River a literary address for a change of pace.
If this one hooked you, we think Before He Was Premier, Aberhart Broadcast From the Palace and Four Halls of Fame Share One Calgary Address are a good next read.
Quick answers
The Canadian Encyclopedia says the fourth orchestra to carry the Calgary Symphony Orchestra name began in 1949, when the Mount Royal College orchestra received the charter and assets of a previous group. Clayton Hare conducted it. In 1955 it amalgamated with the Alberta Philharmonic to form the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra.
Mount Royal University says its conservatory has taught music and speech arts in Calgary since 1911. It affiliated with the University of Alberta in 1931, a symphony orchestra was organized there in 1937 by Jascha Galperin, and a speech arts department followed in 1945.
Jascha Galperin lived in Calgary from 1925 to 1945, taught at Mount Royal College and became head of the Conservatory of Music. The University of Calgary archives say his best known contribution was founding the Calgary Youth Symphony. The archive holds photographs and records of Calgary’s musical community from 1935 to 1945.
