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Create AccountAlfred Bryan. Songwriter, lyricist, b Brantford, Ont, 15 Sep 1871, d Gladstone, NJ, 1 Apr 1958. Raised in Brantford and from 1886 in London, Ont, Alfred Bryan attended the Collegiate Institute before moving to Chicago, working as a newspaper reporter.
George Maxwell Bell, "Max," newspaper publisher, industrialist, sportsman (b at Regina 13 Oct 1912; d at Montréal 19 July 1972).
No one loves TELEVISION more than Moses ZNAIMER - and few can claim to have done more to influence its direction. Znaimer, who never gives his age, foresaw the rise of specialty TV and created techniques now copied worldwide to break down traditional walls between performers and their audience.
Marie Arzélie Éva Circé-Côté, journalist, writer and librarian (born 31 January 1871 in Montréal, QC; died 4 May 1949 in Montréal, QC). A poet and playwright, Éva Circé-Côté was the city of Montréal’s first librarian as well as the curator of the prestigious Philéas Gagnon collection. Throughout her career as a journalist, she wrote over 1,800 pieces for about a dozen newspapers under several pseudonyms. A progressive, secular free thinker, she fought for compulsory education and the status of women.
Wendy Jane Crewson, actor (born 9 May 1956 in Hamilton, ON). One of Canadian television’s best-known and most honoured actors, Wendy Crewson has won multiple Gemini Awards for her work in Canadian TV series and TV movies. She has also enjoyed a prolific film career and has acted opposite such Hollywood stars as Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren, Robert Redford, Michelle Pfeiffer, Rachel McAdams, Elliot Page and Arnold Schwarzenegger. An outspoken advocate for Canadian film and television, she has been inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame and received the Gemini Humanitarian Award, ACTRA’s Award of Excellence, and the Earle Grey Award for lifetime achievement in Canadian television.
Nicholas (Weldon) Kilburn. Bassoonist, teacher, b Toronto 21 Jun 1932, d Cobourg, Ont 31 Jul 2007. Nicholas Kilburn first studied piano, and later began bassoon lessons at Lawrence Park Collegiate. He was mentored by G. Roy Fenwick.
Edmund "Ted" (James) Hockridge. Baritone, born Vancouver 9 Aug 1919; died Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England 15 Mar 2009. Ted Hockridge studied piano and voice in Vancouver and was encouraged by the visiting Metropolitan Opera baritone John Charles Thomas, who heard him sing a solo in church.
William Lawrence “Willie” Dunn (a.k.a. Roha’tiio, meaning “his voice is beautiful”) musician, filmmaker (born 14 August 1941 in Montreal, QC; died 5 August 2013 in Ottawa, ON). Willie Dunn was a folk musician of Mi’kmaq-Scottish origin. He was also a leading member of the Indian Film Crew, an all-Indigenous film production unit established by the National Film Board in 1968.
Salome Bey, singer, actress, songwriter (born 10 October 1933 in Newark, New Jersey; died 8 August 2020 in Toronto, ON). Salome Bey was an award-winning jazz, blues and R&B singer. Known as “Canada’s First Lady of the Blues,” wrote and starred in Indigo, a Dora Award-winning history of the blues, and was part of the all-star lineup of Canadian singers who produced the charity single “Tears Are not Enough.” Bey received a Toronto Arts Award and the Martin Luther King Jr. Award for lifetime achievement from the Black Theatre Workshop of Montreal. She was made an honorary member of the Order of Canada in 2005 and was inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2021.
Active from 1953 to the 2000s, folk music group The Travellers were icons of Canada’s folk music revival. The first folk group signed by Columbia Records of Canada, The Travellers were best known for the patriotic enthusiasm of their Canadian lyrics for Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.” The group influenced many in the folk music movement of the 1960s and 1970s and helped spread the messages of left-leaning social movements such as the labour rights movement. They made many popular recordings and often appeared on television and in concert, across Canada and internationally.
Janina Fialkowska. Pianist, b Montreal 7 May 1951; B MUS (Montreal) 1968, M MUS (Montreal) 1968. Born of a Polish father and a Canadian mother, she began studying the piano at five with the latter.
Peter (Haig) Oundjian. Conductor, violinist, teacher, b Toronto 21 Dec 1955 to an Armenian-British father and a British mother; B MUS (Juilliard), M MUS (Juilliard) 1981, honorary doctorate (San Francisco Conservatory) 2009.
Ronald Turini. Pianist, teacher, b Montreal 30 Sep 1934; premier prix (CMM) 1950. Born of a US-Italian father and a Canadian mother of Danish origin, he had piano lessons as a very young child from his mother and from Frank Hanson at the McGill Cons.
He was unwilling to settle long in any one company and instead began to develop his own choreographic ideas, which found full expression in the creation of the DESROSIERS DANCE THEATRE in 1980.
Callum Keith Rennie, actor (born at Sunderland, England 14 Sept 1960). Callum Keith Rennie, one of Canada's most compelling actors, moved to Edmonton at the age of four.
Kevin Fitz-Gerald. Pianist, teacher, b Kelowna, BC, 16 Sep 1960; Artist's Diploma (RCM) 1989.
Kevin Tierney, film producer, writer (born 27 August 1950 in Montreal, QC; died 12 May 2018 in Montreal).
One of her first roles was Nina in The Notebook of Trigorin, an adaptation of Chekhov's The Seagull by Tennessee Williams. She received critical acclaim when she starred as a female wrestler in Trafford Tanzi (National Arts Centre, 1983).
Stephen Fentok. Guitarist, teacher (born 6 November 1930 in Montréal, QC; died 25 February 2016 in Montréal, QC). Of Ukrainian origin, he began studying electric guitar at 14 at the Montreal YMCA. He eventually joined an amateur group where he developed an interest for jazz improvisation, a discipline he studied with Jimmy D'Abate in 1946.
