Canada Famous Composers from Canada

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List of notable or famous composers from Canada, with bios and photos, including the top composers born in Canada and even some popular composers who immigrated to Canada. If you're trying to find out the names of famous Canadian composers then this list is the perfect resource for you. These composers are among the most prominent in their field, and information about each well-known composer from Canada is included when available.

These people, like Neil Young and Tom Green include images when available.

This historic composers from Canada list can help answer the questions "Who are some Canadian composers of note?" and "Who are the most famous composers from Canada?" These prominent composers of Canada may or may not be currently alive, but what they all have in common is that they're all respected Canadian composers.

Use this list of renowned Canadian composers to discover some new composers that you aren't familiar with. Don't forget to share this list by clicking one of the social media icons at the top or bottom of the page. (185 items)

1

Tom Green age 46 Michael Thomas "Tom" Green is a Canadian actor, rapper, writer, comedian, producer, director, talk show host, and media personality. Best known for his unique brand of comedy, Green ...more

2

Neil Young age 72 Neil Young is a singer-songwriter, Musician,film score composer, film producer, film director, actor and screenwriter.

3

Robin Thicke age 41 Robin Charles Thicke is an American-Canadian singer and songwriter. Thicke has worked with popular artists, such as Christina Aguilera, Nicki Minaj, K.Michelle, Pharrell Williams, Usher, ...more

4

Alan Thicke age 71 Alan Willis Thicke is a Canadian actor, songwriter, and game and talk show host. He is known for his role as Jason Seaver, the father on the ABC television series Growing Pains. He is the father ...more

5

Josh Dolgin Josh Dolgin, better known by his stage name Socalled, is a Canadian rapper and record producer, known for his eclectic mix of hip hop, klezmer, and other styles such as drum & bass and folk ...more

6

Glenn Gould Died at 50 (1932-1982) Glenn Herbert Gould was a Canadian pianist who became one of the best-known and most celebrated classical pianists of the 20th century. He was particularly renowned as an interpreter of the ...more

7

Paul Shaffer age 68 Paul Allen Wood Shaffer, CM is a Canadian-American musician, actor, voice actor, author, comedian, and composer who has been David Letterman's musical director, band leader and sidekick since

8

Owen Pallett age 38 Michael James Owen Pallett is a Canadian composer, violinist, keyboardist, and vocalist, who performs solo as Owen Pallett or, before 2010, under the name Final Fantasy. As Final Fantasy, he won ...more

9

Paul Gross age 58 Paul Michael Gross, OC is a Canadian actor, producer, director, singer and writer born in Calgary, Alberta. He is known for his lead role as Constable Benton Fraser in the television series Due ...more

10

R. Murray Schafer age 84 Raymond Murray Schafer, CC is a Canadian composer, writer, music educator and environmentalist perhaps best known for his World Soundscape Project, concern for acoustic ecology, and his book The ...more

11

Mathieu Soucy age 40 Mathieu Soucy is a professionnal drummer, composer and multi-instrumentist musician based in Quebec city. Drummer and percussionist for many bands and artists such as Quebec city rock ...more

12

Colin McPhee Died at 64 (1900-1964) Colin McPhee was a Canadian composer and musicologist. He is primarily known for being the first Western composer to make an ethnomusicological study of Bali, and for the quality of that work. ...more

13

Claude Vivier Died at 35 (1948-1983) Claude Vivier was a Canadian composer.

14

Loreena McKennitt age 61 Loreena Isabel Irene McKennitt, CM OM is a Canadian musician, composer, harpist, accordionist and pianist who writes, records and performs world music with Celtic and Middle Eastern themes. ...more

15

Buffy Sainte-Marie age 77 Buffy Sainte-Marie, OC is a Canadian-American Cree singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. Throughout her career in all of these areas, her ...more

16

Victor Davies age 78 Victor Davies is a film score composer.

17

Galt MacDermot age 89 Arthur Terence Galt MacDermot is a Canadian composer, pianist and writer of musical theatre. He won a Grammy Award for the song "African Waltz" in 1960. His most successful musicals ...more

18

Brenda Russell age 68 Brenda Russell is an American-Canadian singer-songwriter and keyboardist. Known for her eclectic musical style, her recordings have encompassed several different genres, including pop, soul, ...more

19

Oscar Peterson Died at 82 (1925-2007) Oscar Emmanuel Peterson, CC, CQ, OOnt was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, but simply "O.P." by his ...more

20

Howard Shore age 71 Howard Leslie Shore is a Canadian composer who is notable for his film scores. He has composed the scores for over 80 films, most notably the scores for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film ...more

21

David Foster age 68 David Walter Foster, OC, OBC, is a Canadian musician, record producer, composer, songwriter, and arranger. He has been a producer for notable musical artists including Christina Aguilera, Andrea ...more

22

Steve Barakatt age 44 Steve Barakatt is a Canadian composer, music producer, pianist, and singer. When he was only four, he fell under the spell of music and began piano lessons. Over the next 10 years he studied ...more

23

Tamara Bernier age 43 Tamara Bernier Evans is a Canadian actress, singer, writer and producer. She obtained a BFA in acting at York University in Toronto, Canada. Shortly after graduation, she earned a coveted spot ...more

24

Barbra Amesbury age 70 Barbra Amesbury is a Canadian philanthropist, singer-songwriter, composer and filmmaker, who had several Top 40 hits in Canada in the 1970s as Bill Amesbury before coming out as transsexual. ...more

25

Normand Corbeil Died at 57 (1956-2013) Normand Corbeil was a musician, film score composer and composer.

26

Christophe Beck age 46 Christophe Beck, also credited as Chris Beck, is a Canadian television and film score composer. He is a brother of the noted pianist Chilly Gonzales.

27

Neil Sanderson age 39 Neil Christopher Sanderson is the drummer, backing vocalist, and co-founder of the Canadian band Three Days Grace. He cites his influences as John Bonham, Danny Carey and Stewart Copeland.

28

Lili Haydn age 47 Lili Haydn is a rock violinist, vocalist, recording artist, and composer. As a child, she pursued a career as an actress; at age eight she discovered the violin and began to focus on classical ...more

29

Matthew Gerrard Matthew Gerrard is a Canadian record producer and songwriter.

30

aKido age 42 Kim Gaboury is a composer.

31

Robert Fleming Died at 55 (1921-1976) Robert James Berkeley Fleming was a Canadian composer, pianist, organist, choirmaster and teacher. Robert was born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. At a young age his family settled in Saskatoon ...more

32

Xingu Hill age 44 John Sellekaers is a Canadian-born musician and audio mastering engineer. Born in 1973 in Montreal he later moved to Brussels. John has released over 40 records under various aliases on famous ...more

33

Garth Hudson age 80 Eric Garth Hudson is a Canadian multi-instrumentalist. As the organist, keyboardist and saxophonist for Canadian-American rock group The Band, he was a principal architect of the group's unique ...more

34

Gino Vannelli age 65 Gino Vannelli is a Canadian singer, songwriter, musician and composer.

35

Jane Siberry age 62 Jane Siberry is a Canadian singer-songwriter, known for such hits as "Mimi on the Beach", "I Muse Aloud", "One More Colour" and "Calling All Angels". She ...more

36

Captain Bob Farnon Died at 88 (1917-2005) Robert Joseph Farnon was a Canadian-born composer, conductor, musical arranger and trumpet player. As well as being a famous composer of original works, he was recognised as one of the finest ...more

37

James Rolfe age 56 James Simon Rolfe is one of Canada's leading composers of contemporary music. Rolfe was born in Ottawa. He studied composition with John Beckwith at the University of Toronto and Jo Kondo in ...more

38

Allan F. Nicholls age 73 Allan F. Nicholls born April 8, 1945 in Montreal, Quebec, is a Canadian actor, film director, film producer, screenwriter, composer and musician. He was nominated for both a BAFTA and WGA award ...more

39

Milan Kymlicka Died at 72 (1936-2008) Milan Kymlicka was a Canadian arranger, composer and conductor of Czechoslovakian birth. He became a naturalized Canadian citizen in 1974. He was best known for his composition of film and ...more

40

Claude Champagne Died at 74 (1891-1965) Claude Champagne was a Canadian composer. Born in Montreal, Quebec, he studied violin with Albert Chamberland, organ with Orpha-F. Deveaux, and piano with Romain-Octave Pelletier I and Alexis ...more

41

Don Harron age 93 Donald Hugh Harron, OC OOnt was a Canadian comedian, actor, director, journalist, author, playwright and composer.

42

Magali Babin age 51 Magali Babin is a musician, composer and sound artist based primarily in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Active since the mid-1980s, she received several commissions from many prestigious new music ...more

43

Percy Faith Died at 68 (1908-1976) Percy Faith was a film score composer.

44

Alexander Brott Died at 90 (1915-2005) Alexander Brott, CM CQ, born Joël Brod, was a Canadian conductor, composer, violinist and music teacher. His wife Lotte was an accomplished cellist. Their sons are Boris Brott, a conductor, ...more

45

D.D. Jackson age 51 D.D. Jackson is a Juno Award-winning jazz pianist/composer and composer for film, TV and media whose work spans 12 CDs as leader or co-leader featuring almost entirely original material. He won ...more

46

Yehudi Wyner age 88 Yehudi Wyner is an American composer, pianist, conductor and music educator. Wyner, who grew up in New York City, was raised in a musical family. His father, Lazar Weiner, was an eminent ...more

47

Norman Campbell Died at 80 (1924-2004) Norman Kenneth Campbell, OC OOnt was a Canadian composer, television producer, and television director best known for co-writing Anne of Green Gables - The Musical. Born in Los Angeles, ...more

48

Boris Brott age 74 Boris Brott, OC OOnt is a Canadian conductor and motivational speaker. Born in Montreal, the son of violinist and composer Alexander Brott and cellist Lotte Brott, and brother of cellist Denis ...more

49

Emmanuel Ghent Died at 78 (1925-2003) Emmanuel Ghent was a pioneering composer of electronic music and a psychiatric practitioner, researcher, and teacher.

50

Ryan Shore age 43 Ryan Shore is an Emmy Award and Grammy Award nominated composer and songwriter for film, television, records, games, and theater. He is a graduate of the Berklee College of Music and is the ...more

1 Tom Green age 46 Michael Thomas "Tom" Green is a Canadian actor, rapper, writer, comedian, producer, director, talk show host, and media personality. Best known for his unique brand of comedy, Green ...more

2 Neil Young age 72 Neil Young is a singer-songwriter, Musician,film score composer, film producer, film director, actor and screenwriter.

3 Robin Thicke age 41 Robin Charles Thicke is an American-Canadian singer and songwriter. Thicke has worked with popular artists, such as Christina Aguilera, Nicki Minaj, K.Michelle, Pharrell Williams, Usher, ...more

4 Alan Thicke age 71 Alan Willis Thicke is a Canadian actor, songwriter, and game and talk show host. He is known for his role as Jason Seaver, the father on the ABC television series Growing Pains. He is the father ...more

5 Josh Dolgin Josh Dolgin, better known by his stage name Socalled, is a Canadian rapper and record producer, known for his eclectic mix of hip hop, klezmer, and other styles such as drum & bass and folk ...more

6 Glenn Gould Died at 50 (1932-1982) Glenn Herbert Gould was a Canadian pianist who became one of the best-known and most celebrated classical pianists of the 20th century. He was particularly renowned as an interpreter of the ...more

7 Paul Shaffer age 68 Paul Allen Wood Shaffer, CM is a Canadian-American musician, actor, voice actor, author, comedian, and composer who has been David Letterman's musical director, band leader and sidekick since

8 Owen Pallett age 38 Michael James Owen Pallett is a Canadian composer, violinist, keyboardist, and vocalist, who performs solo as Owen Pallett or, before 2010, under the name Final Fantasy. As Final Fantasy, he won ...more

9 Paul Gross age 58 Paul Michael Gross, OC is a Canadian actor, producer, director, singer and writer born in Calgary, Alberta. He is known for his lead role as Constable Benton Fraser in the television series Due ...more

10 R. Murray Schafer age 84 Raymond Murray Schafer, CC is a Canadian composer, writer, music educator and environmentalist perhaps best known for his World Soundscape Project, concern for acoustic ecology, and his book The ...more

11 Mathieu Soucy age 40 Mathieu Soucy is a professionnal drummer, composer and multi-instrumentist musician based in Quebec city. Drummer and percussionist for many bands and artists such as Quebec city rock ...more

12 Colin McPhee Died at 64 (1900-1964) Colin McPhee was a Canadian composer and musicologist. He is primarily known for being the first Western composer to make an ethnomusicological study of Bali, and for the quality of that work. ...more

13 Claude Vivier Died at 35 (1948-1983) Claude Vivier was a Canadian composer.

14 Loreena McKennitt age 61 Loreena Isabel Irene McKennitt, CM OM is a Canadian musician, composer, harpist, accordionist and pianist who writes, records and performs world music with Celtic and Middle Eastern themes. ...more

15 Buffy Sainte-Marie age 77 Buffy Sainte-Marie, OC is a Canadian-American Cree singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. Throughout her career in all of these areas, her ...more

16 Victor Davies age 78 Victor Davies is a film score composer.

17 Galt MacDermot age 89 Arthur Terence Galt MacDermot is a Canadian composer, pianist and writer of musical theatre. He won a Grammy Award for the song "African Waltz" in 1960. His most successful musicals ...more

18 Brenda Russell age 68 Brenda Russell is an American-Canadian singer-songwriter and keyboardist. Known for her eclectic musical style, her recordings have encompassed several different genres, including pop, soul, ...more

19 Oscar Peterson Died at 82 (1925-2007) Oscar Emmanuel Peterson, CC, CQ, OOnt was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, but simply "O.P." by his ...more

20 Howard Shore age 71 Howard Leslie Shore is a Canadian composer who is notable for his film scores. He has composed the scores for over 80 films, most notably the scores for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film ...more

21 David Foster age 68 David Walter Foster, OC, OBC, is a Canadian musician, record producer, composer, songwriter, and arranger. He has been a producer for notable musical artists including Christina Aguilera, Andrea ...more

22 Steve Barakatt age 44 Steve Barakatt is a Canadian composer, music producer, pianist, and singer. When he was only four, he fell under the spell of music and began piano lessons. Over the next 10 years he studied ...more

23 Tamara Bernier age 43 Tamara Bernier Evans is a Canadian actress, singer, writer and producer. She obtained a BFA in acting at York University in Toronto, Canada. Shortly after graduation, she earned a coveted spot ...more

24 Barbra Amesbury age 70 Barbra Amesbury is a Canadian philanthropist, singer-songwriter, composer and filmmaker, who had several Top 40 hits in Canada in the 1970s as Bill Amesbury before coming out as transsexual. ...more

25 Normand Corbeil Died at 57 (1956-2013) Normand Corbeil was a musician, film score composer and composer.

26 Christophe Beck age 46 Christophe Beck, also credited as Chris Beck, is a Canadian television and film score composer. He is a brother of the noted pianist Chilly Gonzales.

27 Neil Sanderson age 39 Neil Christopher Sanderson is the drummer, backing vocalist, and co-founder of the Canadian band Three Days Grace. He cites his influences as John Bonham, Danny Carey and Stewart Copeland.

28 Lili Haydn age 47 Lili Haydn is a rock violinist, vocalist, recording artist, and composer. As a child, she pursued a career as an actress; at age eight she discovered the violin and began to focus on classical ...more

29 Matthew Gerrard Matthew Gerrard is a Canadian record producer and songwriter.

30 aKido age 42 Kim Gaboury is a composer.

31 Robert Fleming Died at 55 (1921-1976) Robert James Berkeley Fleming was a Canadian composer, pianist, organist, choirmaster and teacher. Robert was born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. At a young age his family settled in Saskatoon ...more

32 Xingu Hill age 44 John Sellekaers is a Canadian-born musician and audio mastering engineer. Born in 1973 in Montreal he later moved to Brussels. John has released over 40 records under various aliases on famous ...more

33 Garth Hudson age 80 Eric Garth Hudson is a Canadian multi-instrumentalist. As the organist, keyboardist and saxophonist for Canadian-American rock group The Band, he was a principal architect of the group's unique ...more

34 Gino Vannelli age 65 Gino Vannelli is a Canadian singer, songwriter, musician and composer.

35 Jane Siberry age 62 Jane Siberry is a Canadian singer-songwriter, known for such hits as "Mimi on the Beach", "I Muse Aloud", "One More Colour" and "Calling All Angels". She ...more

36 Captain Bob Farnon Died at 88 (1917-2005) Robert Joseph Farnon was a Canadian-born composer, conductor, musical arranger and trumpet player. As well as being a famous composer of original works, he was recognised as one of the finest ...more

37 James Rolfe age 56 James Simon Rolfe is one of Canada's leading composers of contemporary music. Rolfe was born in Ottawa. He studied composition with John Beckwith at the University of Toronto and Jo Kondo in ...more

38 Allan F. Nicholls age 73 Allan F. Nicholls born April 8, 1945 in Montreal, Quebec, is a Canadian actor, film director, film producer, screenwriter, composer and musician. He was nominated for both a BAFTA and WGA award ...more

39 Milan Kymlicka Died at 72 (1936-2008) Milan Kymlicka was a Canadian arranger, composer and conductor of Czechoslovakian birth. He became a naturalized Canadian citizen in 1974. He was best known for his composition of film and ...more

40 Claude Champagne Died at 74 (1891-1965) Claude Champagne was a Canadian composer. Born in Montreal, Quebec, he studied violin with Albert Chamberland, organ with Orpha-F. Deveaux, and piano with Romain-Octave Pelletier I and Alexis ...more

41 Don Harron age 93 Donald Hugh Harron, OC OOnt was a Canadian comedian, actor, director, journalist, author, playwright and composer.

42 Magali Babin age 51 Magali Babin is a musician, composer and sound artist based primarily in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Active since the mid-1980s, she received several commissions from many prestigious new music ...more

43 Percy Faith Died at 68 (1908-1976) Percy Faith was a film score composer.

44 Alexander Brott Died at 90 (1915-2005) Alexander Brott, CM CQ, born Joël Brod, was a Canadian conductor, composer, violinist and music teacher. His wife Lotte was an accomplished cellist. Their sons are Boris Brott, a conductor, ...more

45 D.D. Jackson age 51 D.D. Jackson is a Juno Award-winning jazz pianist/composer and composer for film, TV and media whose work spans 12 CDs as leader or co-leader featuring almost entirely original material. He won ...more

46 Yehudi Wyner age 88 Yehudi Wyner is an American composer, pianist, conductor and music educator. Wyner, who grew up in New York City, was raised in a musical family. His father, Lazar Weiner, was an eminent ...more

47 Norman Campbell Died at 80 (1924-2004) Norman Kenneth Campbell, OC OOnt was a Canadian composer, television producer, and television director best known for co-writing Anne of Green Gables - The Musical. Born in Los Angeles, ...more

48 Boris Brott age 74 Boris Brott, OC OOnt is a Canadian conductor and motivational speaker. Born in Montreal, the son of violinist and composer Alexander Brott and cellist Lotte Brott, and brother of cellist Denis ...more

49 Emmanuel Ghent Died at 78 (1925-2003) Emmanuel Ghent was a pioneering composer of electronic music and a psychiatric practitioner, researcher, and teacher.

50 Ryan Shore age 43 Ryan Shore is an Emmy Award and Grammy Award nominated composer and songwriter for film, television, records, games, and theater. He is a graduate of the Berklee College of Music and is the ...more