James Creighton

James Creighton

James (Lesley) Creighton. Discographer, recorded-sound archivist, born at Vancouver 24 Aug 1934, died 1 Dec 1998; BA economics (British Columbia) 1956. After violin studies in Vancouver he worked 1961-4 in England as the sound archivist of the BBC Gramophone Library prior to assuming a similar position at the University of Toronto music library that he held for 30 years. In 1970 he received the first Canada Council grant for recorded-sound research, to assist with the preparation of his monumental Discopaedia of the Violin - 1889-1971 (Toronto 1974; awarded the Ysaÿe Medal of Belgium in 1976). He has lectured on discography, and in 1974 he began research on a 'tapeography' of the violin. His company, Discopaedia, had issued nearly 80 historic and contemporary recordings by 1990 on its five labels. These perpetuate performances by violinists such as Auer, Bress, Heifetz, Kreisler, Staryk, Szigeti, Ysaÿe, and Zimbalist, by violist Rivka Golani and cellist Vladimir Orloff on the Masters of the Bow label; by pianists such as Backhaus, Gieseking, Richter, and Michelangeli, and conductors such as Cantelli, Hindemith, Horenstein, and Koussevitsky on the Baton label; performances by Eckhardt-Gramatté of her own compositions on the Tri-Art label; and a variety of Canadian material and performers on the Jubal label. Creighton has contributed articles to The Gramophone, Strad and several trade magazines.