Describe your background and industry experience, and explain how it will help you contribute to the SOCAN Board of Directors?
I am a Kingston, Ontario, concert music composer and Queen’s University Professor Emeritus, who retired in 2025 after 38 years of teaching. “Katarokwi,” is the traditional Indigenous name for the Kingston region and being fully aware of my privileged white settler background, I am grateful to live and work on the ancestral territory of the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee Nations. My numerous university administrative positions include being Director of the School of Music from 2006 to 2009. A twice Juno-nominated composer, my work, FLANDERS FIELDS REFLECTIONS, for string orchestra, as recorded by Sinfonia Toronto, received the 2009 Juno Award for the Best Recording of a Canadian Classical Composition.
I have served on numerous local boards, including being a founding board member of Cantabile Choirs of Kingston (1995) and Board Chair of the Music at Port Milford Summer Music School during a period of significant renewal from 2012 to 2017. On a national level, I was elected to the executive of the Canadian League of Composers (CLC) from 1993 to 2007, holding the position of President from 1998 to 2006. While on the CLC board, I worked directly with SOCAN and the SOCAN Foundation and these efforts were acknowledged with an invitation to join the SOCAN Foundation Board of Directors in 2009 as an invited board member, a position that was subsequently renewed every three years. After serving as the SOCAN Foundation Treasurer/Secretary from 2017, I was not invited to return to the SOCAN Foundation Board in 2025. At their best, universities are collegial organizations run with a spirit of cooperation that continually looks for mutual points of agreement and new solutions to old problems. After 38 years of university administration and teaching, I am well prepared for the demands of the SOCAN board and am fully committed to creating opportunities for all music creators and publishers in Canada.
In your opinion, what issues will be most important to SOCAN members over the next three years?
There are many important issues facing music creators, publishers and performing rights organizations, such as the ongoing protection and modernization of copyright legislation to meet the demands of a constantly evolving technological, digital and AI landscape. However, my current motivation in running is to bring to SOCAN members’ attention the diminishing financial support that SOCAN is providing to the SOCAN Foundation with the hopes of reversing this trend. Simply put, in a world where cultural identity and nation building seem paramount, SOCAN should be moving in the opposite direction and endeavouring to fund its foundation to the same level as other international PROs. For example, as recently as 2023, SOCAN Foundation distributed almost half-a-million dollars to festivals and performing organizations in support of Canadian music performances and educational activities, through the Canadian Music Assistance Program (CMA). SOCAN Foundation announced the closing of CMA in January 2026, without any warning. Indeed, returning applicants to the program were expecting the January announcement to provide details of when the 2026 CMA application portal would open. SOCAN Foundation has many wonderful programs and a great staff, but, more than ever, needs funds to support Canadian music within the national music ecosystem.