Hallmark Recordings Ltd.

One of the earliest companies to concentrate on the recording of Canadian concert artists. It was established in 1952 in Toronto by Keith MacMillan, Bill Woods, John Gallagher, D'Alton Jolly, and John Mitchell to develop an experimental recording method devised by Woods. Presidents were MacMillan 1952-4, Woods 1954-6, and Douglas Sanderson 1956-ca 1968. During seven years of record production, 1952-9, Hallmark released the first LPs by the Festival Singers and Glenn Gould, and others by Greta Kraus, Charles Jordan and Joyce Sullivan, Lois Marshall (her first solo record), John Newmark, Albert Pratz (accompanied by Gould), Pierre Souvairan, The Travellers, Mike White's Imperial Jazz Band, the Bishop Strachan School Chapel Choir, Musica Antica e Nuova, and the TSO. Two secondary labels, Spiral and Songs of My People, released some 78s of popular and ethnic music respectively. In 1958, a year before the Hallmark label was discontinued, the company founded a subsidiary, Hallmark Studios. Considered the finest of its kind in Canada, it was a leading recording studio in Toronto until about 1968.