Catherine Allison

Allison, Catherine

(Alice) Catherine Allison. Educator, b Vankleek Hill, east of Ottawa, 1 Apr 1902? (family sources suggest 1898), d Ottawa 3 Apr 1986; honorary MA (St Francis Xavier) 1957, honorary LL D (Dalhousie) 1971. She earned a teacher's certificate ca 1921 from the College of Education, University of Toronto, and later obtained an Ontario supervisor's certificate in school music. She moved to Nova Scotia and made a significant contribution to school music in that province, teaching in Yarmouth schools during the late 1930s and later organizing the school music program in Sydney. Allison also helped revise the provincial music curriculum and organized - and for some 20 years directed - a course for classroom teachers and music specialists at the Nova Scotia Summer School. She inaugurated the first course in school music at the Nova Scotia Teachers' College in Truro in 1957 and taught there until her retirement in 1966. Her pupils included Robert Angel, J. Chalmers Doane, and Frances Tyrrell. After retiring to Ottawa, she remained active in competition festival associations. Allison was a founder of the CMEA and a founder and first president of the NSMEA; the CMEA established the Catherine Allison Award in her memory in 1987. She was a contributor to EMC.

See also School music.