This site is dedicated to one of Canada’s busiest musicians, surely one of the busiest ever, whose career spanned over 60 years and flourished at a time when many of the country’s musical organizations were broadening their scope and spreading their influence throughout the cultural panoply of Canada.

The idea for a website was born when, a few years after George’s death, I began to explore his eight 5-year diaries – 40 years’ worth of very brief daily entries which he began in January 1946 and left off at the end of 1985. For the most part these concerned his daily activities as a professional musician. As a vehicle for extremely short descriptions of his daily life they suited his unassuming and reserved nature very well. Compressing the whirlwind of his busy life into these tiny sketches, they laid before my eyes such a colourful mosaic of musical activity that I knew I must do something to share them, here in the 21^st century – otherwise all these stories, all these memories of people and events might be lost forever.

So while this is primarily George’s story it is also, in a very small way, a snapshot of a piece of the vibrant musical scene in Canada at that time, insofar as George participated in it.

The sectional divisions have been decided upon wherever logical separation points between years or events have become apparent. Brief spotlights have been allowed to appear: features about other people or things which touched George’s life however significantly or lightly – for example, stories of gifted people whose destinies were shaped or altered by circumstance. The subjects for these are entirely my own choices; I could have chosen many others – and perhaps still will.