{"id":748,"date":"2014-07-28T17:11:14","date_gmt":"2014-07-28T21:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/music-flipside\/?p=748"},"modified":"2025-10-15T14:56:38","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T18:56:38","slug":"paul-helmers-growing-with-canada-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/music-flipside\/paul-helmers-growing-with-canada-collection\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Helmer\u2019s Growing with Canada Collection"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Helmer\u2019s Growing with Canada <\/em>Collection is now preserved in the Marvin Duchow Music Library\u2019s special collections room and is available for consultation. For detailed information about the Collection, please refer to the finding aid<\/a>\u00a0on the McGill Music Library website.\u00a0Certain restrictions apply.<\/p>\n

Paul Helmer\u2019s\u00a0Growing with Canada\u00a0<\/em>Collection consists of material gathered by former Schulich School of Music Associate Professor of Musicology, Dr. Paul Helmer for his book, Growing with Canada: The \u00c9migr\u00e9 Tradition in Canadian music<\/em>, published by McGill-Queen\u2019s University Press in 2009. The Collection contains original documentary evidence including interview transcripts and recordings, as well as Dr. Helmer\u2019s notes and drafts for Growing with Canada<\/em> and copies of primary and secondary sources.<\/p>\n

\"Helmer<\/a>

Growing with Canada, jacket cover.<\/p><\/div>\n

Growing with Canada<\/em> is an account of the lives and legacy of 121 musicians who emigrated from Europe to Canada between 1933 and 1948.[1] Fleeing racial and political persecution in their home countries, these individuals made a lasting contribution to Canadian music. Paul Helmer\u2019s Growing with Canada <\/em>Collection, then, constitutes an important resource for research in Canadian music culture of the twentieth century. Of particular interest are the interview transcripts described by Robin Elliott, Jean A. Chalmers Chair in Canadian Music at the University of Toronto, as \u201can invaluable resource of national importance.\u201d[2] The Collection also contains Helmer’s edited transcripts (originally intended to be published in a second volume), audio recordings, and biographical information for each \u201c\u00e9migr\u00e9\u201d musician discussed.<\/p>\n

Dr. Helmer\u2019s research files contain many gems for the scholar or the performer interested in Canadian music of the post-war period. As a performing musician, for example, I find Paul Helmer\u2019s diary of notes from his studies with B\u00e9la B\u00f6sz\u00f6rmenyi-Nagy at the Banff School of Fine Arts in the summer of 1952 particularly fascinating.<\/p>\n

\"Hans<\/a>

Hans Kaufman with “Behind Barbed Wire,” 7 March 2001.<\/p><\/div>\n

For those interested in the development of post-secondary music education in Canada, there are extensive files on Helmut Blume and Arnold Walter. These two musicians revitalised the Faculties of Music of McGill University and the University of Toronto, respectively, laying the foundation for growth and prosperity in the following decades.<\/p>\n

Another important subject broached in Growing with Canada<\/em> is the internment of \u201cenemy aliens\u201d by the British and Canadian governments during World War II. An unpublished collection of internment camp chronicles by Hans Kaufman entitled \u201cBehind Barbed Wire\u201d sheds light on the lives of internees.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, however, the Collection contains the voices of European \u00e9migr\u00e9s who fled racial and political persecution and found a new home in Canada.<\/p>\n

The Marvin Duchow Music Library invites those who wish to consult Paul Helmer\u2019s Growing with Canada<\/em> Collection to contact Cynthia Leive<\/a>, Head Music Librarian.<\/p>\n

[1] Helmer uses the word \u201cmusician\u201d here \u201cin its widest sense to include not only vocal and instrumental performers, teachers and educators, conductors, and composers, but also music administrators, musicologists, ethnomusicologists, lexicographers, broadcasters, managers and music patrons.\u201d See Paul Helmer, Growing with Canada: The \u00c9migr\u00e9 Tradition in Canadian Music<\/em> (Montreal-Kingston: McGill-Queen\u2019s University Press), 4.<\/span><\/p>\n

[2] Paul Helmer\u2019s Growing with Canada <\/em>Collection, Box 1, S.1\/F.1, i, Marvin Duchow Music Library, McGill University, Montr\u00e9al, Qu\u00e9bec.<\/span><\/p>\n

Submitted July 28, 2014 by Eric Braley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul Helmer\u2019s Growing with Canada Collection is now preserved in the Marvin Duchow Music Library\u2019s special collections room and is available for consultation. For detailed information about the Collection, please refer to the finding aid\u00a0on the McGill Music Library website.\u00a0Certain … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/music-flipside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/music-flipside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/music-flipside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/music-flipside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/music-flipside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/music-flipside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1963,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/music-flipside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748\/revisions\/1963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/music-flipside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/music-flipside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.library.mcgill.ca\/music-flipside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}