The Organization of Canadian Symphony Musicians
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This summer will be fifty years since the first OCSM Conference, and the formation of its first Executive Board. That day-long event was held at the Hotel Triumph in Toronto on August 15, 1976. I can’t find much online about this hotel, which no longer exists, except that it had a disco attached to it called the “Canary Cottage” (I’m sure there’s a story to be told there).
OCSM was the third of the AFM Player Conferences to be established. The first was the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians (ICSOM), in 1962. Then the Recording Musicians Association followed, in 1969. By then, the Toronto Symphony were ICSOM members (hence ICSOM’s “International” name), but OCSM founders Ruth Budd and Sam Levine both felt that our unique orchestral scene in Canada needed a Canadian group. The beginnings of OCSM were day-long symposia held as part of the Canadian Conference of the AFM – the annual meeting of Local Officers from all the Canadian AFM Locals (which we now sometimes refer to as the CFM). Although these were successful, it was felt that a musician-driven meeting, held at a time when most of the orchestras were on summer hiatus, would be the way to go.
Many of you reading this weren’t born in 1976. I was ten years old, and it was around then that I had “first contact” with the professional orchestra nearest me, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. Communications in 1976 were either on paper that had to be mailed, or telephone calls (conference calls did exist, but they were exceptionally rare and expensive, as was regular long-distance calling). It’s hard to imagine this world now, even though widespread use of the Internet only really goes back 30 years or less.
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This summer’s OCSM Conference meets August 9-12 at the Hyatt Regency in downtown
Toronto.
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From Una Voce, June 2025, Issues in Focus: Audience Engagement; Social media in Vancouver and a podcast in Calgary.
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From Una Voce, June 2025, Issues in Focus: Audience Engagement; Social media in Vancouver and a podcast in Calgary.
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President Robert Fraser welcomes new OCSM members.
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OCSM President Emerita Francine Schutzman looks back at past Unity Conferences and ahead to this summer’s in Toronto.
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Douglas “Pace” Sturdevant (1948–2025) performed with the National Arts Centre Orchestra as Principal Trumpet for 23 years. He died on January 14, 2025 at age 76. NACO violinist Winston Webber submitted this remembrance of his colleague and friend.
“It’ll never last!” That’s what they said when Pace Sturdevant and Nancy Denner got married, still at university, the same year the Beatles released Abbey Road. Famous last words. I’ve never seen anyone love someone like Nancy loved Pace and she still loved Pace heart and soul fifty-six years later when he died in her arms. Cancer, heart – “he had a whole phonebook of things” one of his doctors said – but until the end you wouldn’t know.
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Let’s be clear: OCSM Conferences are fun! Here are some photos from our 2024 Conference, paired with other fun activities.
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By Matthew Heller, Una Voce editor
Few saw it coming, and those who did saw no way around it: as of 2024, the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony (KWS) would cease to exist. Founded in 1945, the KWS had been a pillar of the arts community in a thriving region known as a tech hub with two prestigious universities.
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Adapted from an article by Michelle Flowers; Excerpts reprinted with permission from the International Trombone Association Journal
The International Trombone Association Journal recently profiled the Saskatoon Symphony’s low brass section for their “Perspectives on Longevity” column. The full article is available to ITA members; here are some highlights:
- Conductor Evaluations: Your Opinion Matters!
- Orchestral freelancers need a Bill of Rights. Australia might show us a way.
- Orchestra Librarians | Les musicothécaires d'orchestre
- From the President: Remembering Alan Willaert
- Conducting change: Women in Musical Leadership
- Update from Kitchener: April 2024
- Disruption by Candlelight
- From the President
- The Role of Occupational Therapy in Musicians’ Mental Health
- Eight Key Mental Skills for Performing Artists