Alan Gillmor

Musicologist, teacher, b Fort Frances, Ont, 10 Oct 1938; B MUS (Michigan) 1963, MA (Michigan) 1964, PH D (Toronto) 1972. Alan Gillmor studied piano 1946-58 and clarinet 1951-8. He taught 1967-9 at the University of Houston and 1970-1 at McGill University, and in 1971 joined the faculty at Carleton University, Ottawa. His PhD thesis was on "Erik Satie and the concept of the avant-garde." He was head of the music department at Carleton 1976-80 and 1988-9, and acting director of the School for Studies in Art and Culture 2001-02. In 1988 his widely praised book, Erik Satie (Boston, London 1988), was published. He wrote about other 20th-century composers, including John Cage and R. Murray Schafer, and edited the correspondence of Istvan Anhalt and George Rochberg (Eagle Minds, Waterloo, Ont, 2007). He wrote music criticism for the Michigan Daily 1961-3 and the Ottawa Citizen 1971-9 and contributed articles to the Encyclopedia International (New York 1975), Contact, the Canadian Composer, Musical Quarterly, Queen's Quarterly, Canadian University Music Review, The Canadian Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada. He was editor 1978-85 of Canadian University Music Review.

Alan Gillmor was a commentator-writer for CBC radio, wrote book reviews and program notes, and guest lectured on pedagogy, opera and culture. From 1992-95 he was a member of the Council of the American Musicological Society. He served on juries for the Juno Awards and for the Canada Council. His dedication to teaching was recognized with the 1992 University Teaching Achievement Award, and a 1995 3M Teaching Fellowship. He retired from Carleton University in 2003.

Writings

"Contemporary music in Canada," Contact: Today's Music, No. 11, Summer 1975; No. 12, Autumn 1975

"Hugh Le Caine: A pioneer in electronic sound generation," Canadian Composer, No. 108, Feb 1976

"Interview with John Cage," Contact: Today's Music, No. 14, Autumn 1976

"Satie, Cage, and the new asceticism," CAUSM/ACEUM Journal, Autumn 1975, revised in Contact: A Journal of Contemporary Music, No. 25, Autumn 1982

"Erik Satie: A conversation" (with John Cage and Roger Shattuck), Contact: A Journal of Contemporary Music, No. 25, Autumn 1982

"Erik Satie and the concept of the avant-garde," Musical Quarterly, Winter 1983

"Trends in experimental music," Queen's Quarterly, Winter 1983

"Musico-poetic form in Satie's Humoristic Piano Suites (1913-14)," Canadian University Music Review, No. 8, 1987

"Interview with John Cage," "Erik Satie: A conversation" (with Roger Shattuck), Conversing with Cage, ed. Richard Kostelanetz (New York, Toronto, 1988)

Erik Satie (Boston, London 1988; rev ed New York 1992)

"Echoes of time and the river," Taking a Stand: Essays in Honour of John Beckwith, ed. Timothy McGee (Toronto 1995)

ed. Eagle Minds: Selected Correspondence of Istvan Anhalt and George Rochberg (1961-2005) (Waterloo, Ont 2007)

"The Apostasy of George Rochberg," Intersections: Canadian Journal of Music, No. 29:1, 2009 and Wright, James K. eds. Schoenberg's Chamber Music, Schoenberg's World (Hillsdale, N.Y. 2009)

"In His Own Words," Weinzweig: Essays on His Life and Music, ed. John Beckwith and Brian Cherney (Waterloo, Ont 2011)

"Listening to Inner Voices: Istvan Anhalt's Sonance-Resonance (Welche Töne?)," Centre and Periphery, Roots and Exile: Interpreting the Music of István Anhalt, György Kurtág, and Sándor Veress, ed. Friedemann Sallis, Robin Elliott and Kenneth DeLong (Waterloo, Ont 2011)