John Searchfield

Searchfield, John

John (Welbank) Searchfield. Organist, choirmaster, teacher, critic, conductor, writer, b Chester, England, 3 Mar 1930; BA (Oxford) 1951, ARCM 1952, LRAM 1953, MA (Oxford) 1966. His teachers included Douglas Hawkridge and C.H. Trevor (organ), Max Pirani (piano), and Maurice Miles and Sir Adrian Boult (conducting). After emigrating to Canada in 1955 Searchfield worked as an organist-choirmaster in Brantford, Ont, until 1958, when he took a similar position in Calgary. There he began to conduct the Calgary Festival Chorus in 1959 and the CBC Calgary String Orchestra in 1968. In addition to his other activities he was a producer at CBC Calgary 1964-7, began teaching organ, theory, and harpsichord at the University of Calgary in 1967, and became the harpsichordist with the Calgary Baroque Ensemble in 1968. He became organist-choirmaster at Christ Church in 1969 and various musical events at the church have been broadcast on the CBC. Searchfield has concertized extensively in Germany, Sweden, Spain, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. He has written on music for the Calgary Albertan, and he contributed reports on Alberta 1970-4 to the CMB.