Toronto College of Music

Toronto College of Music

Toronto College of Music. One of three music schools to open in Toronto during the 1880s - the others being the TCM(RCMT) and the Metropolitan School of Music. The college was founded in 1888 by F.H. Torrington and by 1890 had 400 students and a faculty of about 50. That same year it became the first music school to be affiliated with the University of Toronto. It granted certificates, medals, diplomas, and, in conjunction with the university, B MUS and D MUS degrees. In addition to courses it provided practical experience in orchestral playing and organ, and the Pembroke Street building housed a concert hall with a three-manual pipe organ. Among the faculty members, of whom some also taught at other Toronto schools, were G.D. Atkinson, Herbert L. Clarke, A.T. Cringan, Bertha Drechsler Adamson, W.E. Fairclough, H.M. Field, W.O. Forsyth, W. Elliott Haslam, Thomas Charles Jeffers, Leonora James Kennedy, Heinrich Klingenfeld, Clarence Lucas, Arthur E. Semple, and A.S. Vogt. Among musicians who attended the school were Bessie Bonsall, Florence Brimson, Ernest Dainty, A.D. Jordan, and Fannie Sullivan. After Torrington's death the college amalgamated (1918) with the Canadian Academy of Music, which was absorbed in turn (1924) by the TCM. An earlier Toronto College of Music, founded in 1879 by J. Davenport Kerrison, lasted about four years.