Sir Ernest MacMillan

Sir Ernest Alexander Campbell MacMillan (Mimico, Ontario, 1893 – Toronto, 1973) was one of the central figures in Canadian musical life during the first half of the twentieth century. The son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister who was also a musician, he showed early talent and was playing organ solos at Toronto's Massey Hall by the age of ten. His training combined study in Toronto and Edinburgh, where he studied organ with Alfred Hollins, with obtaining organ qualifications and an Oxford degree, while also pursuing modern history at the University of Toronto.

His career began with the organ: he was organist of Knox Church in Toronto and, during his student years, of St Paul's Church in Hamilton. After travelling to Paris to study piano, he was caught by the outbreak of the First World War in Bayreuth and ended up interned at the Ruhleben prisoner-of-war camp near Berlin. There he staged entertainments for the prisoners, an experience he himself regarded as the foundation of his work as a conductor. During this period he composed some of his first important works, among them a String Quartet in C minor and the ode England, setting a poem by Swinburne.

Back in Canada, he gave organ recitals and in 1923, together with Healey Willan and Richard Tattersall, promoted the first performances of Bach's St Matthew Passion, which would become an annual fixture. From 1926 to 1942 he directed the Toronto Conservatory of Music, and in 1927 he became dean of the faculty of music at the University of Toronto, a post he held until 1952. From 1931 he led the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, which became fully professional under his direction, and he also conducted the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir between 1942 and 1957.

His legacy is extensive: he was the first president of the Canadian Music Council, a founding member of the Canada Council and editor of Music in Canada (1955), the first comprehensive survey of the country's musical achievements. He preferred to conduct premieres of Canadian composers' works, more than any other musician of his generation. He was knighted in 1935, and his archive passed to the National Library of Canada in 1984. According to his contemporaries, his qualities were great natural talent, remarkable energy and a conservative musical outlook, but one firm in its ideals.