Earle Moss

Earle (Roderick) Moss. Teacher, pianist, b Toronto 11 Apr 1921, d 19 Mar 2003; LTCM 1944. He studied piano at the TCM with his father, Cyril, and (after a brief career as a bank manager) with Ernest Seitz and Bela Böszörmenyi-Nagy, and theory with Healey Willan and Charles Peaker. He also studied piano with Soulima Stravinsky at the Music Academy of the West (Santa Barbara, 1951) and with Gerald Moore (summers 1958, 1959). A proponent of the principles of Leschetizky (which he learned from G.D. Atkinson and Ernest Seitz), he began teaching at the TCM in 1946 and included among his pupils Walter Buczynski, Arthur Crighton, Barry Gosse, Douglas Haas, Angela Hewitt, Daryl Irvine, Bruce Mather, and Brock McElheran. In 1950 he became the co-ordinator of the RCMT graded piano books. He also wrote Handbook for Technique (Oakville 1966). With Weldon Kilburn and Boris Roubakine he advised on the selection and grading of material for 14 Piano Pieces by Canadian Composers (Harris 1955). He became music director at Forest Hill United Church in 1957. Moss was the founder (1958), benefactor, and first Canadian adjudicator for the Bahamas Music Festival, adjudicating himself for four years and appointing Canadian adjudicators thereafter. Active 1948-65 as an accompanist, he played for the singers Maureen Forrester, Frances James, and Jon Vickers, the string players Eugene Kash, Mischa Mischakoff, and Elie Spivak, and other performers.

Career 1975 to 2003

Moss was the Canadian delegate to the American [Tobias] Matthay Association 1975-90, playing recitals and conducting master classes at universities in Dayton (Ohio), Maryland, Pittsburgh, and San Jose, and he was the first Canadian pianist to be sent to Hong Kong, Kowloon, and Shatin by the RCMT to give recitals, master classes, and lectures 1985-7. In 1989 his personal statement on pedagogy, More Than Teaching, was published by Thompson. Moss rose to be titular head of the department of piano pedagogy; he lectured on that subject, was a senior examiner for the RCMT, and taught privately into the late 1990s. He gave Canadian premieres of works by Samuel Barber (Piano Sonata), Bartók (Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, with pianist Gerald Rutledge and percussionists Harry Nicholson and Thomas J. Burry; Improvisations, Opus 14), Dutilleux (Sonata for piano), Ravel (Collage), and others. He was the dedicatee of Godfrey Ridout's Three Preludes on Scottish Themes for organ and of Eugene Hill's anthem 'O God of Earth.'

See Discography for Frances James.