Douglas Cowling (1950-2017)
Doug Cowling died last Monday of a heart attack; his funeral was on Friday.
He was best known for his work on the Classical Kids CDs; he was responsible for the core creative work on five of them (Mozart’s Magic Fantasy, Tchaikovsky Discovers America, Vivaldi’s Ring of Mystery, Hallelujah Handel! ‑ and Mozart’s Magnificent Voyage), of which four won Juno awards (the awards still sit on his piano at home). On the pure musicology side, he also provided much of the planning for Toronto's Tallis Choir (of which he was a founding member) and contributed program notes to the Tallis Choir and Toronto Classical Singers.
Doug had begun his post-University career in English rather than music, though. He taught English at Seneca College until the late 1980s, and at George Brown for some years after that. He then succeeded David Parry as Artistic Director of the Poculi Ludique Societas, a mediaeval drama group based at the University of Toronto. (I have known Doug since 1984, but my first extended contact with him was when I was in a mystery play he directed as part of the PLS's Towneley Cycle production in 1985; he also directed plays in the York Cycle in 1977, the Chester Cycle in 1983, N-Towne in 1988, and York Cycle again in 1998, as well as a production of Philippe de Mezières' Presentation of the Virgin in 1988 for which I was MC in Choir.) His first publications were in this area: "The Liturgical Celebration of Corpus Christi in Medieval
York", REED Newsletter 1 (1976), and a brief note in 1988 published in Notes and Queries on "The Angels' Song in Everyman".
After leaving PLS he was a Church Music Director at several churches. He had a long-standing interest in liturgy, having co-authored Sharing the Banquet: Liturgical Renewal in your Parish with Fr. Paul Maclean (1994), which was based on years of experience with "experimental" liturgy at the "folk mass" (not really, long story, few to no guitars) at Saint Mary Magdalene, which he effectively ran after Fr. Eugene Fairweather retired in the mid 1980s. He also contributed to Let Us Keep the Feast, ed. Kevin Flynn (1999), a collection of papers on Holy Week liturgy. He had a strong interest in congregational liturgical participation, and his musical compositions are largely designed to encourage it. He left detailed musical and liturgical instructions for his funeral, for which I was MC; a very highly experienced scratch choir provided the music.
Doug's sense of humour, as well as the breadth and depth of his scholarship, struck everyone who knew him. Peter Walker, a brother-in-law, describes him as "a funny, larger-than-life, sometimes Falstaffian figure…an artful, cultivated renaissance-man". I would concur in all of these things. He will be missed.
He was best known for his work on the Classical Kids CDs; he was responsible for the core creative work on five of them (Mozart’s Magic Fantasy, Tchaikovsky Discovers America, Vivaldi’s Ring of Mystery, Hallelujah Handel! ‑ and Mozart’s Magnificent Voyage), of which four won Juno awards (the awards still sit on his piano at home). On the pure musicology side, he also provided much of the planning for Toronto's Tallis Choir (of which he was a founding member) and contributed program notes to the Tallis Choir and Toronto Classical Singers.
Doug had begun his post-University career in English rather than music, though. He taught English at Seneca College until the late 1980s, and at George Brown for some years after that. He then succeeded David Parry as Artistic Director of the Poculi Ludique Societas, a mediaeval drama group based at the University of Toronto. (I have known Doug since 1984, but my first extended contact with him was when I was in a mystery play he directed as part of the PLS's Towneley Cycle production in 1985; he also directed plays in the York Cycle in 1977, the Chester Cycle in 1983, N-Towne in 1988, and York Cycle again in 1998, as well as a production of Philippe de Mezières' Presentation of the Virgin in 1988 for which I was MC in Choir.) His first publications were in this area: "The Liturgical Celebration of Corpus Christi in Medieval
York", REED Newsletter 1 (1976), and a brief note in 1988 published in Notes and Queries on "The Angels' Song in Everyman".
After leaving PLS he was a Church Music Director at several churches. He had a long-standing interest in liturgy, having co-authored Sharing the Banquet: Liturgical Renewal in your Parish with Fr. Paul Maclean (1994), which was based on years of experience with "experimental" liturgy at the "folk mass" (not really, long story, few to no guitars) at Saint Mary Magdalene, which he effectively ran after Fr. Eugene Fairweather retired in the mid 1980s. He also contributed to Let Us Keep the Feast, ed. Kevin Flynn (1999), a collection of papers on Holy Week liturgy. He had a strong interest in congregational liturgical participation, and his musical compositions are largely designed to encourage it. He left detailed musical and liturgical instructions for his funeral, for which I was MC; a very highly experienced scratch choir provided the music.
Doug's sense of humour, as well as the breadth and depth of his scholarship, struck everyone who knew him. Peter Walker, a brother-in-law, describes him as "a funny, larger-than-life, sometimes Falstaffian figure…an artful, cultivated renaissance-man". I would concur in all of these things. He will be missed.