BEECROFT, NORMA MARIAN: It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of Norma Marian Beecroft in her 91st year, peacefully on Saturday, October 19, 2024. … A beloved Canadian composer, electronic music pioneer, and trailblazer in the world of modern music. Norma’s legacy will continue to resonate through her groundbreaking compositions, the artists she inspired, and the profound impact she had on Canadian music. Norma had an unwavering commitment to supporting young composers and musicians, many of whom cite her as a mentor and inspiration. A celebration of life will be held on Saturday, November 16, 2024 … In lieu of flowers, donations to the Canadian Music Centre, (CMC) in memory of Norma Beecroft, would be especially appreciated by the family. 

obituaries.thestar.com

‘We can’t think about contemporary music in Canada without thinking of Norma Beecroft. With her passing this week at 90, we’re reminded how, in these moments, an artist becomes the sum of every chapter they’ve written. Norma was a true force in adventurous music …. She knew that detailed, artful compositions – lovingly crafted and meticulously performed – could unlock entirely new worlds for any audience.

Her innovative spirit continues to inspire, most especially in her pioneering work with electronic music, which she began exploring in the 1960s. There are captivating photos of her in her early 30s in the University of Toronto Electronic Music Studio surrounded by the seemingly magical equipment of the time, an exciting maze of buttons, knobs, and tangled wires. In 1967, this was cutting-edge technology—large machines that allowed composers to manipulate sound in ways never heard before, and a stark contrast to the sleek, digital tools we use today. 

Michael Snow, artist-at-large

Sorry, but I’m going to have to skip over much of Toronto-born artist Michael Snow’s vast and diverse body of work, including milestone experimental films, sculptures, paintings, prints, photographs, holographs, slide projections, videos, books and recordings (78, LP, cassette, CD, streaming), among other media. While primarily highlighting his lesser-known career in live music, I’d be remiss if I didn’t first mention a few of his large scale Toronto public artworks.

“We want to connect to the simple idea that music can be powerful. Our goal is to make people gasp at the right moment, and feel sad at that right time. That’s a basic concept, but it keeps us going. We don’t want people to go away  and say ‘They were really in tune.’ That’s the kiss of death. We want people to talk about how the music made them feel.”  - Geoff Nuttall, quoted in The WholeNote, September 2010. 

The Canadian musical community was deeply saddened to learn of the death on October 19 of Geoff Nuttall, co-founder and first violin of the St. Lawrence String Quartet. Music TORONTO’s artistic producer, Jennifer Taylor – whose email and phone have been flooded with audience members mourning him  – responded to The WholeNote’s invitation to expand on the 30-year relationship between the SLSQ and Music TORONTO: 

“I adopted the St. Lawrence Quartet for the 1992 season when they were emerging from student life into a career and before they won Banff,” Taylor wrote. “I made them Music TORONTO’s first ever ensemble-in-residence with a three-concert series in which they could program what they wanted to play, often with senior guests they wanted to play with. From there we settled into what became a 30-year relationship; after our residency ended they returned to our stage annually. We looked forward to their interest in repertoire; we lived with them through their changes of personnel; we watched as the stage door opened to see what Geoff Nuttall had done with his hair that year. The SLSQ shared many new works with us, and their love of Haydn. They were always themselves, a unique, exuberant, technically proficient quartet. We loved them; we enjoyed them.”

“Geoff Nuttall was a great violinist,” she continued. “He chose chamber music and he drew others, musicians and audiences, to him. He couldn’t sit still; some of our audience hated that – but they came, they just looked away. When we did some digital concerts during COVID, I noticed that Geoff kept looking out into the house – the empty house – while playing; he knew we were there. He was always communicating – his joy in the music, his understanding, his sheer delight in sharing what he had discovered. “Geoff’s death at just 56 is a great loss. It is some small consolation that we live in a digital age and we can hear him and see him in a wealth of recorded performances.”

Co-founder and former member of the SLSQ, Barry Shiffman, now associate dean of the Glenn Gould School and director of the Banff Centre, told CBC Music that “Geoff had an ability that is so rare, the ability to make the listener feel what he is feeling. It sounds so simple, yet it is everything. There’s no security blanket, just a brilliant, electric personality that transmits the feelings directly. I remember hearing him when we were both teenagers, and he had that gift then. It was a way of making music I had never known and it changed me. Sitting beside him for thousands of concerts and countless hours of rehearsals has been one of the great gifts of my life.”

Paul Ennis is the managing editor of The WholeNote.

“Murray had the tendencies of a renegade and rascal, but one with a benevolent and honourable artistic purpose in mind,” wrote Esprit Orchestra conductor and music director Alex Pauk, in a September 10, 2021 remembrance for The Globe and Mail. And Pauk should know, having, by his own count, conducted more than 80 performances of R. Murray Schafer’s music over the years, with Esprit and other orchestras. 

“He was a consummate artist – a no-holds-barred kind of guy who’d never take on a project or cause without his total commitment” Pauk went on later to tell me. “He’d always be straight and never let you down once he agreed to work with you. ” 

Esprit was not the start of their relationship though. They had already met, a decade before Esprit was founded – a meeting that Pauk, in his Globe remembrance, credits with setting Pauk on his long-term musical path. “[It was] 1973, when I moved to Vancouver and made an appointment to see if he’d hire me for his World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser University,” Pauk writes. 

And Schafer’s response as Pauk remembers it? “Alex, don’t get involved in academia – just go on being a conductor and composer – a much better thing for you to do!”

“I’ve been walking around in a fog this week, trying to process Jeanne Lamon’s passing. Such a vital force in my life and the lives of so many others. I hope you’ve managed to celebrate her in this edition?” Larry Beckwith

Very few of our readers who became faithful followers of Tafelmusik during almost four decades under Jeanne Lamon’s musical direction, will be hearing about her all-too-sudden death here. The shock waves have spread, and, as Larry Beckwith says in his note, you are likely, like us, in a bit of a fog, trying to process her passing.

As for celebrating her in this edition, it all feels a bit too soon and sudden and sad and raw for that – a bit presumptuous even – at a time when those whose musical lives were most closely intertwined with hers, need most to speak, and are doing so.

We took this cover photo (hard hats all round!) for a September 2013 story in which Larry Beckwith, himself a long-time member of the Tafelmusik Choir, chatted with Jeanne about what lay ahead. What jumps out at me is how she is setting the tempo for what she sees ahead, looking with clear eyes not just to life for Jeanne after Tafelmusik, but life for Tafelmusik after Lamon. You can find it in our archive at kiosk.thewholenote.com (Vol. 19).

And tafelmusik.org/watch/video/allegro-concerto-2-violins-d-minor-bwv-1043 takes you to a moment of music from House of Dreams – music it took her particular kind of leadership to elicit from her brave and merry little band.

For now we mourn. Let the moments of celebratory remembering begin, so tears of joy can follow.