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​Aubrey Drake Graham, rapper, singer, songwriter, actor (born 24 October 1986 in Toronto, ON).

Education and TrainingChampagne began piano and theory at 10 with Orpha-F. Deveaux and continued with Romain-Octave Pelletier. At 14 he studied the violin with Albert Chamberland, and this became his favourite instrument.

Gordon Meredith Lightfoot, CC, O.Ont, singer, songwriter, guitarist (born 17 November 1938 in Orillia, Ontario). Gordon Lightfoot is one of the most acclaimed and respected songwriters of the 20th century, and one of the most significant musicians Canada has produced. The country’s top male recording artist of the 1970s, Lightfoot first drew attention in the early 1960s when songs such as “Early Morning Rain” and “For Lovin’ Me” became hits for artists like Ian and Sylvia and Peter, Paul and Mary. Lightfoot achieved international prominence as a solo artist with a series of pop and country hits, including “If You Could Read My Mind,” “Sundown,” “Carefree Highway,” “Rainy Day People” and “The Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald.” Ian Tyson has said that nobody “before or since has had the impact on Canadian culture, through popular music or folk music, that Gordon Lightfoot has had.” Lightfoot’s gold- and platinum-certified albums have combined to sell more than 10 million copies worldwide. He has won 12 Juno Awards from 27 nominations, including Male Vocalist of the Year four times (1971–73, 1975) and Folksinger of the Year five times (1970, 1975–78). A Member of the Order of Ontario and a Companion of the Order of Canada, he has been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, Canada’s Walk of Fame, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, the US Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame and Canadian Folk Music Walk of Fame, among many other honours.

Filmmaking is a powerful form of cultural and artistic expression, as well as a highly profitable commercial enterprise. From a practical standpoint, filmmaking is a business involving large sums of money and a complex division of labour. This labour is involved, roughly speaking, in three sectors: production, distribution and exhibition. The history of the Canadian film industry has been one of sporadic achievement accomplished in isolation against great odds. Canadian cinema has existed within an environment where access to capital for production, to the marketplace for distribution and to theatres for exhibition has been extremely difficult. The Canadian film industry, particularly in English Canada, has struggled against the Hollywood entertainment monopoly for the attention of an audience that remains largely indifferent toward the domestic industry. The major distribution and exhibition outlets in Canada have been owned and controlled by foreign interests. The lack of domestic production throughout much of the industry’s history can only be understood against this economic backdrop.

This article is one of four that surveys the history of the film industry in Canada. The entire series includes: Canadian Film History: 1896 to 1938; Canadian Film History: 1939 to 1973; Canadian Film History: 1974 to Present; Canadian Film History: Notable Films and Filmmakers 1980 to Present.

Sir Ernest (Alexander Campbell) MacMillan.

Atom Egoyan (born Atom Yeghoyan), CC, FRCA, writer, director, producer, artist (born 19 July 1960 in Cairo, Egypt). Atom Egoyan is one of Canada’s most acclaimed and influential filmmakers. Cerebral and unconventional, his films are often told in a non-linear style. They typically tackle such themes as personal and communal displacement, the alienating effects of media and technology, and the lingering effects of trauma and abuse. Perhaps best known for The Adjuster, Exotica and The Sweet Hereafter, Egoyan is a rare Canadian filmmaker to achieve auteur status on an international scale. His numerous accolades include two Oscar nominations, eight Genie Awards, five major prizes at the Cannes Film Festival and a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement. In addition to cinema, he has also excelled at directing theatre and opera and is an acclaimed installation artist. He is an Companion of the Order of Canada and a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de la France.

Abel Tesfaye, a.k.a. The Weeknd, singer, songwriter (born 16 February 1990 in Scarborough, ON). A global pop superstar, The Weeknd is known for his compelling brand of atmospheric, trip-hop-infused R&B and synth-driven pop music. His debut, House of Balloons (2011), sparked a storm of international attention. His chart-topping sophomore album, Beauty Behind the Madness (2015), solidified his status as a pop phenomenon. In 2015, he became the first artist to simultaneously hold the top three spots on Billboard’s Hot R&B Songs chart. In 2021, his song “Blinding Lights” supplanted Chubby Checker’s 1960 hit “The Twist” as Billboard’s No. 1 Song of All Time. The Weeknd was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2020 and performed solo at the Super Bowl halftime show in 2021. He has won 17 Juno Awards from 35 nominations, four Grammy Awards and 30 SOCAN Awards, among many other honours.

Lucy Maud Montgomery, OBE, writer (born 30 November 1874 in Clifton (now New London), PEI; died 24 April 1942 in Toronto, ON). Lucy Maud Montgomery is arguably Canada’s most widely read author. Her first novel, Anne of Green Gables (1908), became an instant best-seller. It has remained in print for more than a century, making the character of Anne Shirley a mythic icon of Canadian culture. Montgomery produced more than 500 short stories, 21 novels, two poetry collections, and numerous journal and essay anthologies. Her body of work has sold an estimated 50 million copies worldwide. Anne of Green Gables alone has been translated into at least 36 languages as well as braille. It has been adapted dozens of times in various mediums. Montgomery was named an Officer of both the Order of the British Empire and the Literary and Artistic Institute of France. She was the first Canadian woman to be made a member of the British Royal Society of Arts and she was declared a Person of National Historic Significance in Canada.

Suppressing a youthful urge to become a painter, R. Murray Schafer entered the Royal Conservatory of Music and the University of Toronto in 1952 to study with Alberto Guerrero (piano), Greta Kraus (harpsichord), John Weinzweig (composition), and Arnold Walter (musicology).