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Robert or Bob (Wesley) McMullin. Composer, arranger, conductor, brass and winds player, b Lewiston, Utah, 29 Apr 1921, naturalized Canadian 1946, d Regina 3 Jan 1995. Robert McMullin was taken at age four to Raymond, near Lethbridge, Alta, where he had a year of piano lessons in 1935. He had no other formal music education. He played drums in local dance bands, and after leading an RCAF dance band in Europe during World War II as a saxophonist, he settled in Edmonton. His first major work, Sketches from the Rocky Mountains, was completed in 1948 and premiered that year by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under Sir Ernest MacMillan. It was performed later by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and, with the composer conducting, by the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. The Toronto Symphony Orchestra recorded McMullin's second 'sketch', 'Pass River,' in 1950 (RCI 19). In 1952 McMullin wrote Essay for Orchestra on commission for the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.
Robert McMullin played clarinet and trumpet in CBC Edmonton radio orchestras and served in the early 1950s as music director for 'Linger Awhile,' 'The Bob McMullin Show,' and other network programs. He moved to Winnipeg in 1955, again working as music director, arranger, or player for many CBC programs including the TV series 'Music Hop.' He was music director for productions by Rainbow Stage (for 40 years) and the University of Manitoba Glee Club, and conducted Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra pop concerts and stage shows by Canadian and US pop singers. For a time, he led his own quartet, which performed with guitarist Lenny Breau. After 1970 he divided his time between Winnipeg and Toronto, writing or conducting music for CBC radio, documentary films, and CBC TV series and dramas, including 'House of Pride,' 'The Collaborators,' 'Sidestreet,' and 'King of Kensington,' and for the feature films On the Edge of the Ice Pack (USA 1972), Race Home to Die (1973), and The Shadow of the Hawk (1976). In addition to hosting a nightly classical music radio program in 1974, McMullin was music director 1977-84 for the CBC telecast of the du Maurier Search for Stars.
Additional Arrangements and Compositions
Robert McMullin arranged music for LPs by the US singer Enzo Stuarti, the country singers Ray St Germain and Laurie Thain, the Winnipeg baritones Yaroslav Shur and Terry Smith, the Metro-Gnomes, Paul Grosney's Kansas City Local, and the St Michael's Cathedral Choir School, and for his own LP, Bob McMullin and his Music (1966, CTL CTLS-5078). His arrangements of songs by Winnipeg's Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings (Guess Who? Medley, 1982) and by The Stampeders (Stampeders Medley) are held in the Imperial Oil McPeek Pops Collection. McMullin wrote That's Jazz, a dixieland medley performed by the National Press Club and Allied Workers Jazz Band with the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, and arranged Roumenya and Kolomeynka, premiered in 1990 by the Winnipeg klezmer band Finjan with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. Among McMullin's other concert works are Prairie Sketches (1958, Waterloo 1960; commissioned for school orchestras by the Ontario Music Educators' Association and premiered in April 1959 by the CBC Symphony Orchestra); Concerto for Orchestra (1974); Concerto for trumpet and orchestra (1979, commissioned by the US trumpeter Doc Severinsen); Colony Trek (1988, an historical narrative, for the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra); and Fanfare (1988, for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra). In 1991, with lyricist Ernie Mutimer, he completed the operetta Cannington Manners. McMullin continued as music director and conductor with Winnipeg's Rainbow Stage in the 1990s, working on such shows as Brigadoon (1994).
Author
Bernard Deaville, Betty Nygaard King
Bibliography
O'Neill, Dennis H. 'Versatility in Winnipeg,' Canadian Composer, 4, Dec 1965 Topalovich, Maria. 'Bob McMullin keeps composer's role low-key in film work,' Music Scene, 289, May-Jun 1976 'Rainbow Stage longtime director dies on vacation,' Winnipeg Free Press, 5 Jan 1995
Links to Other Sites
Canadian Music Centre
Search the extensive CMC multimedia website for audio samples, biographies, music scores, and interviews about contemporary classical works by Canadian composers. Registration required for some features.
Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame
The website for the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, an organization dedicated to promoting Canadian popular music songwriters. Check out the annual list of inductees and click on a name to read an inductee’s biography. Also offers video highlights of previous award ceremonies.
CBC Archives
This site features an extensive selection of radio and television clips from the Archives of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Robert McMullin fonds
A biographical sketch of the multitalented Canadian musician Robert McMullin. From Library and Archives Canada.
Trocadero Orchestra
The website for the Trocadero Orchestra features a brief profile of Bob Mcmullin and a 1950 photo of the Bob Mcmullin Sextet.
The Group
A brief note about the CBC Television show “The Group” featuring Bob McMullin’s band The Sassy Brass. From the Canadian Communications Foundation.
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