Neil Chotem

Neil Chotem (9 September 1920 – 21 February 2008) was a Canadian composer, arranger, conductor, pianist, and music educator. Works Chotem’s compositional style is tonal, and often incorporates elements of jazz and popular music. He composed a considerable body of works for television and radio and also wrote music for a number of leading Canadian performers like Maureen Forrester, Paul Piché, and Michel Rivard. In 1968 he, Paul de Margerie, and Marcel Lévêque were awarded a Montreal Festival du disque prize for 3-12, an LP for which the three men all worked together as conductors and arrangers. He received another prize from that same organization that same year for Renée Claude’s recording of his arrangement of Jacques Brel’s song Ne me quitte pas. For the progressive rock band Harmonium he wrote, arranged and conducted the orchestral score for their critically acclaimed double album L’Heptade (1976). In 1993, he received the Prix de la Guilde from the Guilde des musiciens du Québec. Biography Chotem was born in Saskatoon, and began studying the piano at the age of 5 at the Palmer School of Music. He became a pupil of Lyell Gustin in 1930 with whom he studied for almost the next n