Frederick Calnan
1876 – 1943
Frederick Calnan was a trombonist and longtime officer of Local 180, serving for many years as its President.
Calnan was born in London, England, and served in the Boer War. He was discharged from the Royal Garrison Artillery Regiment in 1910 at age 34. An obituary article for Calnan indicates that he had been a bandsman for the regiment.
Calnan emigrated to Canada from England in 1912 and played in the Governor General’s Foot Guards Band. He also played in orchestras for the Dominion, Loew’s and Keith’s theatres, which presented vaudeville shows and silent movies. At Keith’s Theatre, he would have played with lead violinist Lionel Mortimer.
In a 1914 newspaper report of a Local 180 meeting, Calnan is listed as an affiliate member of Local 180, Ottawa Musicians’ Protective Association. In 1916, he was part of Local 180’s 12-member committee to determine new scale wages and bylaws. He was elected as an officer in 1920 and as Vice-President in 1921.
In April 1920, Calnan is listed as playing in a special concert given by members of Local 180 at the Russell Theatre. It featured vocalists and recitalists in the first half of the program and orchestral music in the second half. Conductor and violinist Donald Heins led the orchestra of more than 50 players in classical selections, and violinist Rudolph Pelisek conducted the orchestra in lighter fare.
The concert was attended by General Sir Arthur Currie, who would retire from his renowned military career in the next month to become Principal and Vice-Chancellor of McGill University. The Ottawa Citizen reported that Currie spoke to the audience, expressing “his great pleasure in giving support to the Ottawa Musicians’ Protective Association because he believed in the ‘sustaining, uplifting and high moral power of good music.’ He had found in his service that music was a great help to the soldier, and cited cases of tired and battered regiments being heartened into new life by old familiar airs.” The news story added that General Currie “would like to hear that the professional musicians were to give concerts every Sunday in every park in the city.”
The orchestra’s program that night included:
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Overture to Fingal’s Cave by Mendelssohn
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Dance Macabre by Saint-Saëns
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Americana Suite: “Tiger’s Tail,” “When Malindy Sings” and “The Water-Melon Patch” by British ragtime composer T. W. Thurban
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Slavonic Rhapsody by Carl Friedmann
The Ottawa Citizen reviewed this concert and had an interesting observation about the orchestra’s performance of the Overture to Fingal’s Cave under Heins: “At times there was a lack of response to the conductor, an apparent over-eagerness of the performers which was perhaps to be expected in a gathering of musicians, so many of whom are leaders in their own theaters and not habituated to subordinate their own views to those of a conductor.” The review concluded by commenting, “the concert was a delightful one in every way, and hopes were expressed that it will be the first of a perpetual series.”
Calnan played for some community concerts that hired freelance orchestras and that give an idea of some of the musical activity in the city at that time.
In May 1921, Calnan was part of a 30-member hired orchestra to accompany the La Salle Cadet Choir, conducted by Louis A. Fontaine.
In the late 1920s, he played as a union extra player for the Ottawa Judaean Orchestra conducted by Jack Sniderman, who was also a drummer with the Keith’s Theatre orchestra.
In May 1929, he played in the orchestra for the 200-voice Centenary Choir’s concert under Cyril J.L. Rickwood. This choir was formed in the centenary year of Ottawa’s founding. It performed Bach’s Peasant Cantata and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.
Calnan also played with the amateur Little Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jack Cavill. Calnan was one of the professional players who augmented the orchestra for some of its concerts. He played with it from at least 1929 to the early 1930s. For its concert in November 1933, the ensemble called itself the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, and Calnan played alongside trombonist Harry Gossage.
In addition to his musical career, Calnan was on staff of the House of Commons for 13 years, retiring shortly before his death in 1943.
Frederick Calnan died at home at age 67. Among those who attended his funeral were representatives of Local 180, Ottawa Moving Picture Operators Local 257, and the Royal Canadian Air Force. Calnan was interred at Beechwood Cemetery.
Kevin James