Remembering Iconic Canadian Contralto, Maureen Forrester

By Penny Johnson, Contributing Author

The world's music community remembers beloved Canadian contralto, Maureen Forrester, who passed away on June 16, 2010 at the age of seventy-nine.  Known for her interpretations of German lieder, oratorios and most notably the works of Mahler, Forrester sang with nearly every major orchestra in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, under the batons of such distinguished conductors as Eugene Ormandy, Bruno Walter, Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Andrew Davis and Seiji Ozawa. 

At five foot nine inches tall, Forrester (born on July 25, 1930 in Montreal to musical working-class parents of Scottish-Irish descent) had an imposing physical presence that was equaled by her formidable musical prowess.  Together with her sense of humour and down to earth nature, she represented for many Canadians the ideal artist.  Ken Winters of The Globe and Mail writes that: “Her embodiment of earth-mother, reigning queen and good sport made her the shining model of what Canadians want a diva to be.”  Canadian tenor, Richard Margison calls the passing of Forrester “a great loss and really, the end of an era,” adding that we were “lucky as Canadians to have a Canadian artist like that.”

Forrester received the country’s highest honour when in 1967 she was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.  She was also the recipient of twenty-nine honorary university doctorates, and headed the Canada Council following a request in 1984 by then Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau.  An advocate of Canadian music, she premiered major vocal pieces by a wide range of Canadian composers including Harry Somers, and R. Murray Schafer, laureate of The First Glenn Gould Prize.

Born just two years before Glenn Gould, Forrester was a fan of the pianist, writing that she was “in awe of his mind.”  In 1954, two years after Gould formed a collaboration with an old classmate friend, Robert Fulford (then a sports writer for The Globe and Mail) to form a legally registered company whose mission it was to present concerts of twentieth century music – known as New Music Associates – Forrester made her Toronto debut in a concert devoted to the music of Bach.  Forrester sang arias while Gould gave his first live performance of the Goldberg Variations.  In 1955, the two were amongst an impressive list of performers at the Stratford Festival’s inaugural season of music, while a few years later in 1957, the two appeared – this time with Gould conducting – in a performance of the fourth movement (“Urlicht”) from Mahler’s Second Symphony.  The performance was given for the CBC television program, Chrysler Festival.  

In his book, Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould, Kevin Bazzana describes the years following the Second World War as a “coming of age” for music in Canada.  He goes on to say that, “through the post-war period a career in classical music based in Canada became increasingly possible.”  Gould, like Forrester, was a proud Canadian, who once remarked that, “Canada’s been terribly good to me.”  As contemporaries of one another at a time when the young country was beginning to assert it’s voice as a nation – witness the host of cultural events surrounding the centennial celebrations of 1967, not the least of which was Gould’s radio documentary, The Idea of North – Gould and Forrester became permanent fixtures in the artistic mindset of every Canadian, blazing new ground for future generations.

Forrester is survived by her four daughters, Paula Burton, Gina Dineen, Linda Kash and Susan Whaley, and her son Daniel Kash, and their children.