Oskar Morawetz was a Canadian composer, pianist, and music teacher. He was born in 1917 in Svetla nad Sazavou, Czechoslovakia, to a Jewish family. As a child, he learned to read orchestral scores; at 17, George Szell recommended him for a post as assistant conductor at the Prague Opera, which he declined.
Morawetz moved to Canada in 1940, travelling via Vienna and Paris. He studied at the University of Toronto, taking piano lessons with Alberto Guerrero and harmony with Leo Smith. Although he had not initially planned to become a composer, he wrote his String Quartet No. 1 as an alternative to a research paper. The work received an award from the Canadian Association of Composers, Authors and Publishers in 1945.
He taught composition and music theory at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto from 1946 to 1952, then at the University of Toronto from 1952 to 1982, where he became professor emeritus. He also performed regularly as a pianist; his final concert in that role took place in Toronto on March 28, 1992.
Morawetz’s orchestral works include his 1945 Carnival Overture, which Ernest MacMillan approved for performance, and his Sonata Tragica, which received a CAPAC award in 1946. His Piano Concerto won first prize in a Montreal Symphony Orchestra competition in 1962 and was premiered in 1963 by Anton Kuerti with the orchestra conducted by Zubin Mehta. Mehta also conducted the premiere of Morawetz’s Sinfonietta for Winds and Percussion in 1966.
Other works include his Second Symphony, written for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra; A Child’s Garden of Verses and Psalm 22, written for Maureen Forrester; a concerto for brass quintet and chamber orchestra, written for the New York Brass Quintet; and a harp concerto for the Guelph Spring Festival. His vocal works include the song cycles Sonnets from the Portuguese, setting poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and The Weaver, setting poems by Archibald Lampman. The cycles were commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for its 50th anniversary and premiered at Wigmore Hall in London, performed by Mark Dubois.
His chamber and solo works include the Violin and Piano Duo, the Piano Sonata in D major, premiered by Glenn Gould in 1948, a second string quartet, premiered by the Kathleen Parlow Quartet, and seven sonatas for wind instruments written between 1980 and 1985. After retiring, Morawetz continued to compose, including solo works for most of the main instruments of the symphony orchestra. His early music is described as optimistic and playful, while his mature works often have a dramatic, sometimes tragic character. He was known for his orchestration and counterpoint, and his music was performed by more than 120 orchestras across four continents.
Morawetz won Juno Awards for best classical composition in 1989, for his Harp Concerto, and in 2002, for From the Diary of Anne Frank, a work for soprano and orchestra. He received Canada Council fellowships in 1960, 1967, and 1974, the Jan V. Matejcek Concert Music Award in 1994, and the William Harold Moon Award in 1999. He was the first composer appointed to the Order of Ontario, in 1987, and was appointed to the Order of Canada the following year. He died in Toronto in 2007, aged 90.