Monday was the 100th birthday of the great Canadian soprano, advocate of new music and voice teacher extraordinaire, Mary Morrison. It was also the first day of a week of events celebrating that milestone organised by the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto. I’m not going to write a tribute to Mary because others have done so, and done so better than I likely would. Larry Beckwith and the Confluence crew have a podcast including an interview with Mary plus tributes from several of her best known students. Monday’s UoT event also included a lot of biographical information including a shared taste for good Scotch! Tuesday’s masterclass with Barbara Hannigan is also on line and besides being intrinsically extremely interesting includes lots of material about Mary as a teacher. Both of these events are available on Youtube; Monday’s celebration and Barbara’s masterclass. The remaining events; a Tracy Dahl masterclass and a concert on Thursday afternoon should also be available if you can’t make them live.

There are a million stories about Mary’s commitment to her students so I thought I might share mine. Back in 2019 I attended an early stage workshop of a reimagining of Claude Vivier’s Lonely Child. The project was conceived by Mary’s student Stacie Dunlop and it took place in a grungy industrial space off Sterling Road. I remember finding my way to this improbable and hard to find location on a cold, dark evening. When I did finally make it I walked in to find Mary was one of about five people who had shown up. Of course she was only 93 back then. If you are curious, there’s a video of that evening’s performance.