Louis Applebaum (April 3, 1918April 19, 2000) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

film score composer A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film. The score comprises a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film in order to e ...

, administrator, and conductor.

Early life

He was born in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

, and studied at the

Toronto Conservatory of Music The Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM), branded as The Royal Conservatory, is a non-profit music education institution and performance venue headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded in 1886 by Edward Fisher as The Toronto Con ...

with Leo Smith and the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

with

Boris Berlin Boris Berlin (27 May 1907 – 24 March 2001) was a Canadian pianist, music educator, arranger, and composer of Russian birth. He is primarily remembered for his work within the field of piano pedagogy, having published an extensive amount of mate ...

Healey Willan James Healey Willan (12 October 1880 – 16 February 1968) was an Anglo-Canadian organist and composer. He composed more than 800 works including operas, symphonies, chamber music, a concerto, and pieces for band, orchestra, organ, and ...

and

Ernest MacMillan Sir Ernest Alexander Campbell MacMillan, (August 18, 1893 – May 6, 1973) was a Canadian orchestral conductor, composer, organist, and Canada's only "Musical Knight". He is widely regarded as being Canada's pre-eminent musician, from the ...

. He also studied composition privately in New York.

Film composition

Applebaum composed approximately 250 film scores for the

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...

(NFB) between 1942 and 1960, serving as its music director from 1942 to 1948, then as a consultant from 1949 to 1953. His NFB credits include ''

Royal Journey ''Royal Journey'' is a National Film Board of Canada documentary film chronicling a five-week Royal tours of Canada, Royal visit by Elizabeth II, The Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II) and her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, ...

'' (1951), ''

The Stratford Adventure ''The Stratford Adventure'' is a 1954 National Film Board of Canada documentary film about the founding of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, directed by Morten Parker. It tells the story of what was to become North America's premiere Shakespea ...

'' (1954) and '' Paddle to the Sea'' (1966). He was nominated, along with co-composer

Ann Ronell Ann Ronell (née Rosenblatt; December 25, 1905 — December 25, 1993) was an American composer and lyricist. She was best known for the standards " Willow Weep for Me" (1932) and " Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" (1933). Early life Ronell was b ...

, for an

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

for the score of the 1945 war film, ''

The Story of G.I. Joe ''The Story of G.I. Joe'', also credited in prints as ''Ernie Pyle's Story of G.I. Joe'', is a 1945 American war film directed by William A. Wellman, starring Burgess Meredith and Robert Mitchum. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, i ...

''. He won a 1968

Canadian Film Award The Canadian Film Awards were the leading Canadian cinema awards from 1949 until 1978. These honours were conducted annually, except in 1974 when a number of Quebec directors withdrew their participation and prompted a cancellation. In the 1970s ...

for his non-feature music score of ''Athabasca''. He won a 1989

Gemini Award The Gemini Awards were awards given by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television between 1986–2011 to recognize the achievements of Canada's television industry. The Gemini Awards are analogous to the Emmy Awards given in the United States ...

in the category Best Original Music Score for a Program or Mini-Series for ''

Glory Enough for All ''Glory Enough for All'' is a 1988 Canadian television movie directed by Eric Till and written by Grahame Woods, depicting the discovery and isolation of insulin by Frederick Banting and Charles Herbert Best. It was the winner of nine 1989 Ge ...

''.

Other work

He was the first music director of the

Stratford Festival The Stratford Festival is a theatre festival which runs from April to October in the city of Stratford, Ontario, Canada. Founded by local journalist Tom Patterson in 1952, the festival was formerly known as the Stratford Shakespearean Festival ...

and in 1955 established the Stratford Music Festival as an offshoot of the then two-year-old theatre festival. He resigned from his administrative duties at Stratford in 1960 though he continued until 1999 to provide incidental music for festival productions. He was composer, music director or sound designer for 70 productions over 46 years. His fanfares have been played prior to every performance at Stratford's main stage since 1953. After resigning from Stratford in 1960, he served as president of Group Four Productions, a documentary and television production company, until 1966. He was a music consultant from 1960 to 1963 for

CBC Television CBC Television (also known as CBC TV) is a Canadian English-language broadcast television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster. The network began operations on September 6, 1952. Its French-l ...

, chairman of the music, opera and ballet advisory committee for the

National Arts Centre The National Arts Centre (NAC) (french: Centre national des Arts) is a Arts centre, performing arts organisation in Ottawa, Ontario, along the Rideau Canal. It is based in the eponymous National Arts Centre (building), National Arts Centre build ...

from 1963 to 1966, and wrote a 1965 government-commissioned report which led to the formation of the

National Arts Centre Orchestra The National Arts Centre Orchestra (NAC Orchestra) is a Canadian orchestra based in Ottawa, Ontario led by music director Alexander Shelley. The NAC Orchestra's primary concert venue is Southam Hall at the National Arts Centre. Since its incepti ...

, as well as a plan for the establishment of a department of music at the

University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa (french: Université d'Ottawa), often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on directly to the northeast of Downtown Ottawa ...

. He served as chairman of a Composers, Authors and Publishers Association of Canada (CAPAC)/

Canadian Association of Broadcasters The Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) is a trade association representing the interests of commercial radio and television broadcasters in Canada. It is co-located with the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council in Ottawa. It was first e ...

committee for the promotion of Canadian music from 1965 to 1970, and was in charge of member relations for CAPAC (1968–1971) and served on its board. He served on an advisory arts panel and was a jury member for the

Canada Council The Canada Council for the Arts (french: Conseil des arts du Canada), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It acts as the federal government's principal i ...

from 1970 to 1971 and was a consultant for the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts from 1968 to 70. He was executive director of the

Ontario Arts Council The Ontario Arts Council (OAC) is a publicly-funded Canadian organization in the province of Ontario whose purpose is to foster the creation and production of art for the benefit of all Ontarians. Based in Toronto, OAC was founded in 1963 by O ...

from 1971 to 1980. Working on behalf of the Government of Canada as chairman of the Federal Cultural Policy Review Committee, he co-authored with Jacques Hébert the influential Applebaum-Hébert Report, the first review of Canadian cultural institutions and federal cultural policy since 1951. He also served as vice-president of the

Canadian League of Composers The Canadian League of Composers is an organization formed in 1951 of Canadian composers primarily interested in raising awareness and acceptance of Canadian music. Its activities are overseen and directed by an executive, and by a National Counci ...

Honours

In 1976 he was made an Officer of the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the ...

. Applebaum was appointed to the

Order of Ontario The Order of Ontario () is the most prestigious official Award, honour in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. Instituted in 1986 by Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, Lieutenant Governor Lincoln Alexander, on the A ...

in 1989. He was appointed to the Companion of the Order of Canada 15 November 1995. In 1997, Applebaum was awarded the inaugural Special Achievement Award at the

SOCAN The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) is a Canadian performance rights organization that represents the performing rights of more than 135,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers. The organization collects ...

Awards in Toronto. In 1998, the

Ontario Arts Foundation The Ontario Arts Foundation is a non-governmental not for profit organization established in 1991 under the Ontario Corporations Act to encourage and facilitate private giving to the arts in Ontario, Canada. The group is distinct from the Ontario ...

established the Louis Applebaum Composers Award. Originally created to honour excellence in music composition for theatre, music theatre, dance or opera, it is presented to recognize "excellence in a body of work by an artist in the field of music composition for film and television."

References

External links

*
Louis Applebaum
at

The Canadian Music Centre The Canadian Music Centre was founded in 1959 by a group of Canadian composers who saw a need to create a repository for Canadian music. It now holds Canada's largest collection of Canadian concert music, and works to promote the music of its As ...

Louis Applebaum
at the