Music Makers: The Lives of Harry Freedman and Mary Morrison

Ann Turner, formerly the financial and budget manager of the University
of British Columbia Library, is a freelance writer.

This double biography celebrates the lives of two of Canada’s finest
musicians, who managed to combine marriage and family responsibilities
with successful musical careers in Canada. Both were committed to
remaining in Canada, though more lucrative opportunities were available
elsewhere. Both were committed to promoting new music, particularly
music that expressed the uniquely Canadian experience. When they
celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in 2001, they looked back on
more than 60 years of active music making and involvement in the
Canadian musical scene.

They studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music (Toronto)—Freedman
after RCAF service as a band performer and composer/arranger during
World War II, Morrison after establishing herself as a soprano soloist
in Winnipeg and on the CBC. Freedman went on to play in the woodwind
section of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra for 25 years while pursuing
his career as a composer. Many of his 200 compositions are now
repertoire standards, performed worldwide. He was named Canada’s
Composer of the Year in 1979. Morrison was a popular soloist, choral
ensemble performer, and opera diva with the Canadian Opera Company
before moving on to a second career teaching and mentoring a new
generation of opera stars in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of
Music. Their story reveals much about the ups and downs of the music
business and the lives of professional musicians in Canada during the
last six decades. Sources are not cited within the text, but the author
interviewed the couple’s colleagues and family, drew on their personal
papers at the National Library of Canada, and consulted the CBC archives
and the Centrediscs collection at the Canadian Music Centre in addition
to the secondary sources listed in the bibliography.