Healey Willan Organist and choral genius
On my walk through Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, as we enter the Easter weekend, I discovered the grave of “the Dean of Canadian composers,” Healey Willan.
Healey Willan’s legacy is vast, with over 800 compositions spanning operas, symphonies, chamber music, and organ works, but he is most celebrated for his sacred church music.
Born in England in 1880, Willan began his musical training at the tender age of eight. By fifteen, he was already serving as organist and choirmaster at several churches around London—a remarkable feat for such a young musician.
Opportunity came knocking in 1913 when, at age 33, Willan emigrated to Canada and took the prestigious role of organist-choirmaster at St. Paul’s, Bloor Street, Toronto’s largest church. Interestingly, the same Gothic church was designed by famed architect E.J. Lennox, who is buried just down the street at St. James’ Cemetery.
Willan went on to teach under the tutelage of Sir Ernest MacMillan
at the Toronto Conservatory of Music (now the Royal Conservatory of Music) and served as music director at the Hart House Theatre at the University of Toronto, composing and conducting music for 14 plays.
In 1921, as a birthday gift to himself, he began a lifelong association with the little-known St. Mary Magdalene Anglican Church in Toronto’s Palmerston-Annex-Little Italy neighbourhood. For over forty years, Healey composed and performed sacred music there, profoundly shaping the church’s musical identity.
His influence extended far beyond Canada’s borders, with his works still performed in churches and concert halls worldwide.
One of his crowning achievements came in 1953, when Willan was honoured to compose music for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II—the only composer invited from outside England for this historic occasion.
A recipient of the Order of Canada, this internationally acclaimed composer and church organist passed away in Toronto on February 16, 1968, at the age of 86.
Canada’s great writer Robertson Davies famously said, “There were only two things worth doing in Toronto: seeing the Chinese Collection at the Royal Ontario Museum and listening to St. Mary Magdalene’s choirs.”
1880-1968
See my related visit to Glenn Gould’s grave.
