Harry Somers at 100

Reflections on His Life and Legacy

Harry Somers at 100: Reflections on His Life and Legacy
A Centenary Symposium at the University of Toronto Faculty of Music

For further reading:

(click here to download a pdf version)

  • Beckwith, John. 2002. “Canadians as Chopped Liver [review of Somers recordings].” Musicworks 82, 55–58.
  • ———. 2022. “Naughty Harry [review of Scoular 2009].” Music Annals: Research and Critical Writings by a Canadian Composer, 1973–2014. Toronto: Institute for Music in Canada.
  • Beckwith, John and Brian Cherney, eds. 2011. Weinzweig: Essays on His Life and Music. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
  • Braz, Albert. 2020. “Singing Louis Riel: The Centennial Quest for Representative Canadian Heros.” Canadian Review of Comparative Literature 47/1, 107–122.
  • Buckler, Lillian. 1984. The Use of Folk Music in Harry Somers’ Opera Louis Riel. MA thesis, University of Alberta.
  • Cherney, Brian. 1975. Harry Somers. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
  • ———, ed. 2024. Between Composers: The Letters of Norma Beecroft and Harry Somers. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
  • Clark, Caryl et al. 2018. “Editors’ Introduction: Hearing Riel.” University of Toronto Quarterly 87/4, 1–9.
  • Cooper, Jennifer Brimson. 2012. The Weinzweig School: The Flute Works of Harry Freedman, Harry Somers, R. Murray Schafer, Srul Irving Glick and Robert Aitken. University of Cincinnati DMA thesis.
  • Cornfield, Eitan. 2006. Harry Somers [audio documentary]. Toronto: Centrediscs 50963–50966.
  • Danckert, Paula. 2018. “Louis Riel: History, Theatre, and a National Narrative—An Evolving … Story.” University of Toronto Quarterly 87/4, 39–50.
  • Eldon, Benjamin Robert. 2014. Harry Somers’ String Quartet No. 2: An Analytical Study of the Idea of Unification. University of Alberta MA thesis.
  • Elliott, Robin. 2013. “Neglected Canadian Orchestral Music.” Intersections: Canadian Journal of Music 33/2, 127–139.
  • ———. 2017. “Brian Cherney as Scholar and Creative Artist.” Intersections: Canadian Journal of Music 37/1, 39–52.
  • ———. 2018. “The Genesis and First Production of Louis Riel.” University of Toronto Quarterly 87/4, 10–21.
  • Giroux, Monique. 2018. “The Goddamn [Opera] Is Dead! How the Canadian Opera Company’s Re-staging of Louis Riel Continued a Legacy of Marginalization and Forgetting.” Canadian Notes & Queries web exclusive, January. Online at https://www.notesandqueries.ca/essays/the-goddamn-opera-is-dead/
  • Hinton, Peter. 2018. “Director’s Notes [on Louis Riel].” University of Toronto Quarterly 87/4, 37–38.
  • Karantonis, Pamela and Dylan Robinson, eds. 2011. Opera Indigene: Re/presenting First Nations and Indigenous Cultures. London and New York: Routledge.
  • Koval, Sarah and Taryn Dubois. “Can Opera Listen? Canada’s (Sesqui) Centennial Opera, Louis Riel.” University of Toronto Quarterly 87/4, 59–72.
  • Lee, Sherry D. 2018. “Radical Modernism, Operatic Failure, and Louis Riel’s Challenge to Reconciliation.” University of Toronto Quarterly 87/4, 22–28.
  • Olnick, Harvey. 1959. “Harry Somers.” The Canadian Journal of Music 3/4, 3–23.
  • Renihan, Colleen. 2011a. Sounding the Past: Canadian Opera as Historical Narrative. University of Toronto PhD thesis.
  • ———. 2011b. “The Politics of Genre: Exposing Historical Tensions in Harry Somers’s Louis Riel.” In Karantonis and Robinson, Opera Indigene, 259–276.
  • ———. 2018. “Haunting Riel.” University of Toronto Quarterly 87/4, 51–58.
  • Robinson, Dylan, producer. 2025. Amuksism (documentary film).
  • Schafer, R. Murray. 1972. The Public of the Music Theatre—Louis Riel: A Case Study. Vienna: Universal Edition.
  • [Scoular, William, ed.] 2009. Secret Agent: The Selected Journals and Letters of Harry Somers. Toronto: privately published.
  • Simonot-Maiello, Colette. 2018. “‘Decolonizing’ Riel.” University of Toronto Quarterly 87/4, 73–82.
  • Stonyk, Nicole. 2023. The Embodiment and ‘Refusal’ of the White Possessive in Opera: A Comparative Analysis of Louis Riel and Li Keur. MA thesis, University of Manitoba.
  • Teillet, Jean. 2018. “The Sermon from the Mount: The Messages in the Canadian Opera Company’s Remount of the Riel Opera.” University of Toronto Quarterly 87/4, 29–36.
  • Zapf, Donna. 2004. Singing History, Performing Race: An Analysis of Three Canadian Operas—Beatrice Chancy, Elsewhereless, and Louis Riel. University of Victoria PhD thesis.
  • Zinck, Andrew Michael. 1990. Theatrical Communication in Harry Somers’ Opera Louis Riel. University of Alberta MMus thesis.
  • ———. 1996a. Music and Dramatic Structure in the Operas of Harry Somers. University of Toronto PhD thesis.
  • ———. 1996b. “An Interview with Harry Somers.” Windsor Review 29/2, 56–72.

Discography: Major Recording Releases

Harry Somers Anthology of Canadian Music: Radio Canada International ACM–7, recorded from 1947 to 1973 and released as a 10–LP box set in 1980. Includes Scherzo for Strings (1947); Rhapsody for violin and piano (1948); North Country (1948); Suite for Harp and Chamber Orchestra (1949); String Quartet No. 2 (1950); The Fool (1953); Violin Sonata No. 1 (1953); Passacaglia and Fugue for orchestra (1954); Violin Sonata No. 2 (1955); Where Do We Stand, O Lord? (1955); Two Songs for the Coming of Spring (1955); Five Songs for Dark Voice (1956); Fantasia for Orchestra (1958); String Quartet No. 3 (1959); Symphony for Woodwinds, Brass, and Percussion (1961); Gloria (1962); Twelve Miniatures (1963); The Wonder Song (1964); Evocations (1966); Five Songs of the Newfoundland Outports (1969); Voiceplay (1971); Music for Solo Violin (1973).

Sacred and Profane Somers, Centrediscs CMCCD 5495, 1995; includes Five Songs of the Newfoundland Outports (1969); Kyrie (1972); Three Limericks (1980).

The Spring of Somers, CBC SMCD5162, 1996; includes North Country (1948); Suite for Harp and Chamber Orchestra (1949); Symphony No. 1 (1951).

Harry Somers Celebration, CBC SMCD 5199, 2000; includes Five Songs for Dark Voice (1956); Elegy, Transformation, Jubilation (1981); Third Piano Concerto (1996).

Canadian Composers Portraits: Harry Somers, Centrediscs CMCCD 11306 (4 CDs), 2006; includes audio documentary by Eitan Cornfield plus North Country (1948); Suite for harp and chamber orchestra (1949); Symphony No. 1 (1951); Five Songs for Dark Voice (1956); Lyric for orchestra (1960); Picasso Suite (1964); Elegy, Transformation, Jubilation (1981); Concertante for violin, percussion and string orchestra (1982); Of Memory and Desire (1993); Third Piano Concerto (1996).

A Window on Somers series: all from the Centrediscs label

  1. Singing Somers Theatre CMCCD 6901 (2001)
  2. Songs from the Heart of Somers CMCCD 7001 (2001)
  3. The Glorious Sounds of Somers CMCCD 7101 (2001)
  4. Somers Strings CMCCD 7401 (2001)
  5. Somers String Quartets CMCCD 7501 (2001)
  6. Serinette CMCCD 76/7701 (2001)
  7. A Midwinter Night’s Dream CMCCD 12306 (2006)
  8. The Fool / The Death of Enkidu CMCCD 14209 (2009)
  9. Piano Works CMCCD 14509 (2009)
  10. Chura-Churum / The Merman of Orford CMCCD 15309 (2009)
  11. Live from Toronto: Harry Somers CMCCD 15911 (2011)
  12. Louis Riel CMCDVD 16711 (2011)