George Douglas Atkinson

Atkinson, George Douglas

George Douglas Atkinson. Educator, organist-choirmaster, b Carp, near Ottawa, 1878, d Toronto 14 Sep 1964. A pupil in Toronto of George Fairclough, W.J. McNally, F.H. Torrington, A.S. Vogt, and Frank Welsman, he also studied briefly in Leipzig, in London with Tobias Matthay, and in New York with Rosina Lhévinne. After being organist-choirmaster in several Toronto churches he moved to Sherbourne St Methodist (later United) in 1911 and remained there until his retirement in 1950. His choirs won many honours. In 1922 he conducted the first Toronto performance of the complete St Matthew Passion at Sherbourne St Methodist Church, and in 1927 he prepared a 450-voice choir for a spring festival concert with Florence Easton and the New SO under Luigi von Kunits. Atkinson taught for a few years at the Toronto College of Music and 1910-56 at the TCM, where his subjects were piano and pedagogy. His pupils included Samuel Dolin, Muriel Gidley, and George Ziegler. His studio club was among the largest and longest-lived in Canada. He also wrote many articles 1918-35 for the Conservatory Quarterly Review, about piano teaching, playing, and examinations, and he was co-author with Cora B. Ahrens of For All Piano Teachers (Oakville 1955). He was music master 1912-50 at the Ontario Ladies' College, Whitby. Atkinson composed the songs A Lullaby (Nordheimer 1902) and A Christmas Nocturne (London YWCA 1903).