Paul McIntyre

Paul (Poirier) McIntyre. Composer, pianist, conductor, administrator, b Peterborough, Ont, 1 Oct 1931; ARCT 1950, B MUS (Toronto) 1951, Artist Diploma (Toronto) 1952, D MUS (Toronto) 1958. He studied with Eileen McManamy (piano) and Eric Rollinson (theory) in Hamilton and with Oskar Morawetz and Arnold Walter (composition) and Bela Böszörmenyi-Nagy and Alexander Uninsky (piano) at the RCMT. He also studied piano with Claudio Arrau at Stratford (summer 1955). On a Canadian Amateur Hockey Association scholarship, 1953-4, he attended the Paris Cons, where his teachers were Tony Aubin and Olivier Messiaen (composition), and the Salzburg Mozarteum, where he studied conducting with Igor Markevitch, Sixten Ehrling, and Wolfgang Sawallisch. In 1960 and 1961 (summers) he studied conducting with Pierre Monteux.

McIntyre was assistant conductor of the Opera Festival of Toronto in 1954 and of the Opera Summer School at the University of British Columbia in 1955. He was conductor of the Regina Symphony Orchestra 1959-60. During the 1950s he was heard as a solo recitalist and accompanist on CBC radio and was accompanist to Jan Rubes 1955-7 for Community Concerts. While head of the music department at the University of Alaska 1961-4 and a Carnegie visiting associate professor, he conducted the Fairbanks SO. In 1963 he was awarded premiere mention in the Prince Rainier of Monaco International Competition for his Jean de Brébeuf symphony, and the same year he received a resident fellowship from the Huntington Hartford Foundation, Los Angeles. He taught at the University of Minnesota 1964-7, and was chairman of the music department of the College of St Catherine, St Paul, Minn, 1967-70, prior to a term 1970-7 as head of the music department at the University of Windsor. He then served 1977-80 as director of the School of Music at that university and continued to teach there after that. He has been active on the executive of the CLComp and was the host of its 30th anniversary conference at the University of Windsor in 1981. In 1986 he conducted a concert performance of Lavallée's The Widow with his own orchestration. He also organized the 'Largely Canadian' series of chamber concerts presented 1984-7 in Windsor.

McIntyre has employed various styles and techniques in his compositions. Beginning in the mid-1960s he has used 12-tone serialism as the sole basis for determining pitch. His cantata Judith, which won the $1000 prize in the 1958 Vancouver International Festival Competition, had its premiere at that festival with Lois Marshall as soloist and William Steinberg conducting. The Little Red Hen, a 'cantata buffa' that includes parts for speaking animals, was performed by the NACO under Mario Bernardi in 1977. McIntyre conducted the premiere of his Seven Serial Psalms, for soloists, chorus, and instrumental ensemble, as part of the 'Largely Canadian' series in 1987. His short symphony Matins for the Vigil of Assumption, written in reaction to the accidental killing of an innocent man by police in the Windsor area, was performed by the Windsor SO under Dwight Bennett in 1990. His studies of the music of black communities resulted in Black Pentecostal Music in Windsor (Canadian Centre for Folkculture Studies Paper no. 15, Ottawa 1976). He is an associate of the Canadian Music Centre, a member of the CLComp, and a contributor to EMC. His earlier manuscripts are deposited at the National Library of Canada.

He is married to the pianist and organist Phyllis McIntyre (b Runge). Two of their daughters are accomplished violinists, and their son Stephen (b 1961) is an actor and singer who has appeared on Broadway and elsewhere.

Selected Compositions

Stage, TV
The Death of the Hired Man, chamber opera for TV (Frost). 1961. Ms

This Is Not True, comic opera (J. Schevill). 1966. Ms

Voices and Orchestra

Judith, melodrama-cantata (Bible, Douay Bible, anonymous). 1957 (rev 1958). Sop, narrator, orch. Ms

Symphonia sacra (R. Crashaw). 1958. Alto, tenor, bass, SATB, orch. Ms

Jean de Brébeuf, dramatic symphony (Brébeuf). 1961. Bass, orch. Ms

The Little Red Hen, cantata (traditional). 1976. Vs, chamber orch. Ms

Seven Serial Psalms. 1986. Sop, mezzo, tenor, bass, SATB, orch. Ms

Lamentations Jeremiae Prophetae. 1987. Chor, string orch (organ). Ms

Orchestra

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. 1952. Ms

Song of Autumn. 1955. Str orch. Ms

Commedia. 1978. Ms

Matins for the Vigil of Assumption. 1989. Ms

Arrangements of Lavallée's The Widow for theatre orch (1986), an overture and several numbers from the opera for full orch (1989); also Charles Voyer de Poligny D'Argenson's Royal Fusiliers' Arrival at Quebec for full orch (1988). All manuscript

Chamber

Fantasy on an Eskimo Song. 1962. Ww quintet. Ms

Abstract. 1963. Fl. Ms

Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking (Whitman). 1966. V, fl, viola, violoncello, harpsichord. Ms

Permutations on a Paganini Caprice. 1966. Str quartet. Ms

Encounters. 1971. Vn, piano. Ms

Sandwich Music 'Motet Bagatelle for String Trio.' 1977. Ms Remembering Vince. 1988. Tpt. Ms

Two Pieces for Oboe and Tuba. 1988. Ms

Euphonisms. 1991. Euphonium quartet. Ms

Other chamber works, including Trio Serenade in E (1949) and String Quartet in A Minor (1951). Both manuscript

Keyboard

Fantasy for Organ. 1977. Ms

Three Preludes to Hymn Tunes of Ralph Vaughan Williams. 1979. Org. Ms

Praeludium, Blues and Toccata. 1980. Pf. Ms

Prelude & Fugue. 1985. Pf. Ms

A Suite of Sweets. 1989. Pf. Ms

Five works for piano (1950-63). All manuscript

Also a few works for choir; several works for voice, including arr of European folksongs and Four Poems of Walter de la Mare (1950, recorded on RCI 74 by Francis James)