John Hodgins

Hodgins, John

John (Marshall) Hodgins. Choir conductor, organist, teacher, b Toronto 4 Jan 1916, d Oshawa, Ont, 23 Apr 1979; ATCM 1935, LTCL 1940. His teachers were Peter C. Kennedy (piano), Charles Peaker and Frederick Silvester (organ), and Healey Willan (theory). He was an organist-choirmaster 1938-64 in Brampton and Toronto. He taught 1941-60 and again 1972-9 at the TCM (RCMT). Under his direction (1949-64) the Bishop Strachan School Chapel Choir became one of Canada's best-known girls' choirs. Hodgins lived 1964-68 in Albany, NY and 1968-72 in Vancouver, then returned to Toronto, where for a short time he served as executive director of the Ontario Choral Federation. Taking up again the direction of the BSS choir, he also formed the Bishop Strachan Alumnae Choir (known subsequently as the John Hodgins Singers), a 25-voice female choir which gave concerts in Toronto (where it premiered Milton Barnes'Madrigals in 1976) and also toured to the Bahamas (1973) and Spokane, Wash (1974). The choir was renamed the Oriana Singers in 1977 when its direction was assumed by John Ford. Hodgins later was conductor of the Brampton Oratorio Society. At the time of his death he was in Oshawa, Ont, to adjudicate at a festival.