Stephen Willis

Willis, Stephen

Stephen (Charles) Willis. Archivist, musicologist, b Collingwood, Ont, 17 Dec 1946, d Ottawa 11 Sep 1994; AWCM piano 1965, BA (Western) 1969, MA (Columbia) 1971, M PHIL (Columbia) 1974, PH D (Columbia) 1975. He studied piano with Howard Munn in London, Ont, 1958-67 and music history with Gordon Greene and Alfred Rosé at the University of Western Ontario and with Paul Henry Lang, Edward Lippman, and Christoph Wolff at Columbia University, receiving various awards and fellowships. Willis was a teaching fellow 1971-2 at Columbia University and taught part-time 1979-85 at the University of Ottawa. He became head of the manuscript collection, Music Division, National Library of Canada 1977-1994 and organized major exhibitions and several catalogues. He served on the boards of various musical organizations and was the archivist for CAML and the Ottawa branch of the RCCO. Willis contributed reviews and articles to periodicals including the National Library News, and to EMC and the New Grove Dictionary of Opera. He frequently spoke at conferences and universities on his special interests, the organization of music archives, French opera of the 19th century, and Cherubini. Willis also sang with the Opera Lyra Ottawa Chorus and was tenor soloist at Knox Presbyterian Church in Ottawa. His Cherubini collection was donated to the University of Western Ontario library.

Writings

'Opéra comique in eighteenth-century France and Pierre Gaveaux,' MA thesis, Columbia University 1971

'Luigi Cherubini: a study of his life and music 1795-1815,' PH D thesis, Columbia University 1975

- and Toomey, Kathleen, eds. Musicians in Canada: A Bio-bibliographical Finding List (Ottawa 1981)

Alexis Contant Catalogue (Ottawa 1982)

'Notes sur l'établissement d'une collection de manuscrits concernant la musique au Canada,' Les Cahiers de l'ARMuQ, no. 1, Apr 1983

'Cherubini: from opera seria to opéra comique,' Studies in Music from the University of Western Ontario, vol 7, no. 2, 1982

'Le fonds Edgard Varèse à la Bibliothèque nationale du Canada,' Les Cahiers de l'ARMuQ, no. 6, Sep 1985

- and Ruth Pincoe. Descriptive Catalogue of the Glenn Gould Papers (Ottawa 1992)

"Cherubini, (Maria) Luigi," New Grove Dictionary of Opera (London 1992)