Chris Dawes - Organ

CHRISTOPHER DAWES, numbered among Canada’s leading church musicians, concert organists and choral accompanists, is a freelance musician and consultant based at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music.  Following a 20-year career serving churches and cathedrals of the Anglican Church of Canada in September 2013 he commenced a new chapter in his varied musical story as Principal Organist to Timothy Eaton Memorial Church in Toronto, its Choir School and Radio Ministry.

Mr. Dawes currently divides his professional time between freelance performing across a wide spectrum of the Toronto music scene, the Directorship of Canada’s Summer Institute of Church Music in Whitby and the Organ Concerts and Academy at Stratford Summer Music.  Since 2003 at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music he is accompanist and coach to the graduate and undergraduate choral and instrumental conducting programs and to U of T’s MacMillan Singers, and since 2006 he has also served as a staff accompanist to the Toronto Children’s Chorus.  Following on recent graduate work in Music Criticism in the area of musical genre, he publishes and presents papers at academic conferences and through the website www.genreimplosion.ca.

He is known for a musicianship that freely crosses classical and popular styles and eras; for his imaginative, informed and approachable presentation of both the familiar and the obscure, and for his love of history, people, and all that is unusual and inspirational in music. A native of Kingston, Ontario, Chris lives with his wife Marcia, and their children, Nathaniel, Simon, and Charlotte in Georgetown, 50km northwest of Toronto.