Ernest MacMillan

Sir Ernest Alexander Campbell MacMillan (18 August 1893 – 6 May 1973) was a Canadian conductor, composer and organist. He was Canada’s only “Musical Knight”, and is widely regarded as being Canada’s pre-eminent musician from the 1920s through the 1950s. His contributions to the development of music in Canada were sustained and varied, as conductor, performer, composer, administrator, lecturer, adjudicator, writer, humourist, and statesman. Biography Early life and education (1893–1914) Ernest Alexander Campbell MacMillan was born in Mimico (Etobicoke), Ontario, the first-born of Reverend Alexander MacMillan (1864-1961), and Wilhelmina “Minnie” Ross (1870-1932). His parents had moved to Mimico the previous December, when Rev. MacMillan, educated in Edinburgh, Scotland, was called to be the first resident minister of Mimico Presbyterian Church, that had been formed in 1889. His mother, was a third generation of ministers daughters from Scotland, and in her case from Pictou, Nova Scotia. His first musical influences were his parents. From a very young age, he became fascinated while watching his mother play piano and decided to learn music. His father, who became minister at Toronto’s