In Memoriam
1925-2007
Thank you for inspiring us every day.

Legendary Canadian jazz pianist Oscar Peterson is a passionate supporter of music education and the Coalition for Music Education in Canada. Peterson was featured in a powerful advocacy video in 1995 called “A music education is every child’s right”, which highlights the importance of protecting school music programs and how music benefits us all.  Students talk about the way music class has enriched their lives and how it compliments all other subjects at school.  Click here to order your own copy of this video.

Peterson’s  mesmerizing talent has entertained audiences world-wide for more than 50 years.  He was born in Montreal and grew up in a musical family, where he was taught to play the piano by his father Daniel Peterson.  He went on to study music in high school with an accomplished Hungarian classical pianist, Paul de Marky, who taught him “technique and speedy fingers”.  He was also the inspiration Peterson drew from to become one of the world’s best performers.

Peterson’s career began at the age of 14 with weekly performances on a Montreal radio station called Fifteen Minutes' Piano Rambling and later performances on a national CBC broadcast called The Happy Gang.  Shortly afterwards, Peterson decided to leave high school to pursue his career in music. 

Throughout his career, Dr. Peterson has been honoured with numerous awards including eight Grammy Awards, 16 Honourary Degrees, eight Hall of Fame awards, and dozens of other highly recognized awards and honours, including the Champion in the Order of Canada. 

Oscar Peterson is still regarded as one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time .  He resides in Mississauga, Ontario with his wife Lillie.

Pianist/composer Hiromi headlined a special gala concert in August 2004, sponsored by Yamaha Canada Music and MIAC to honour Canadian jazz legend Oscar Peterson with a lifetime achievement award. Proceeds from the gala were donated to the Coalition for Music Education in Canada.  Performing live for Oscar Peterson was a dream come true for Hiromi who has been mentored by him since she was a child.  Hiromi has since toured with Peterson, opening for him at his Blue Note concert in Japan. 

Hiromi mesmerized the jazz community with her 2003 Telarc debut, Another Mind, and continues to inspire and impress music lovers with her May 2004 release, Brain. The buzz started by this Japanese-Bostonian's debut album spread all the way back to her homeland, where Another Mind reached gold and was awarded Jazz Album of the Year by the RIAJ. Her notoriety as a breathtaking artist continued when she recently performed at the JVC Jazz Festival in New York, the Earshot Jazz Festival in Seattle, and the 2004 Convention for the International Association for Jazz Education.

Born in Shizuoka, Japan, in 1979, Hiromi took her first piano lessons at age six. She learned from her earliest teacher to tap into the intuitive as well as the technical aspects of music. Hiromi took that intuitive approach a step further when she enrolled in the Yamaha School of Music less then a year after her first piano lesson. By age 12, she was performing in public, sometimes with very high-profile orchestras. Further into her teens, her musical taste expanded to include jazz as well as classical music. A chance meeting with Chick Corea when she was 17 led to a performance with the well-known jazz pianist the very next day.

After several years of writing advertising jingles for Nissan and other high-profile Japanese companies, Hiromi came to the United States in 1999 to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston where she graduated in May 2003.

He is also an enthusiastic supporter of music education, lending his voice to the cause of preserving and protecting music programs in our schools.  In the United States, Bob Ezrin strongly supports the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation, an organization that sponsors music initiatives for needy schools.  In Canada, Bob is working closely with the Coalition for Music Education in Canada and CARAS to help increase awareness and save music programs in Canadian schools.

At the 2004 Juno Awards, Bob Ezrin was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and had this to say about saving music programs in our schools:

“…Even though I am the guy who brought you, School’s Out and We Don’t Need No Education, I am very passionate about music education and music education in particular.  And I’m worried - and I need your help - because today we are facing dramatic cut backs of non-academic programs in our schools, like music education. 

This is very dangerous.  Not just culturally, but for our society, because while the three Rs provide kids with the basic tools that they need, it is the arts that give them the imagination to do something with those tools. 

The positive effects of music education on children’s emotional and intellectual growth have been proven.  Music education demonstratively improves student academic achievement, behaviour and attitude.  Through music kids learn how to have constructive relationships with other people, how focus counts, how application produces results, how to dream and most of all, how to feel true joy. 

This is not rhetoric.  This is a known fact.  Canada cannot afford to lose these benefits for our children.  The cost to society of a generation of kids who grow without inspiration, discipline and purpose is enormous.”