STEWART M. THOMSON TROPHY

Family members donated the Stewart M. Thomson trophy to the Winnipeg Music Festival in 2004. This trophy is awarded for the most outstanding performance in a competition of boys with unchanged voices, 8 and 10 years of age & under.

Stewart MacMillan Thomson was born into a musical Winnipeg family in 1930. At the age of 12, he began accompanying his father, W. Davidson Thomson, in recitals and concerts. In 1951, with the encouragement of Richard W. Cooke, (his future father-in-law), he assumed the position of Organist at St. James Anglican Church. In 1954, he became Deputy Organist of St. George's Anglican Church, Crescentwood, directed by his predecessor Donald Leggat, whom he succeeded as Organist and Choirmaster on January 1, 1956.

Since that time Stewart Thomson has developed and maintained a tradition of choral excellence with St. George's Anglican Men and Boy's Choir, the last of its kind in Western Canada. In training the boy's (treble) voice over the years, he has developed hundreds of singers many of whom have become trophy winners and accomplished musicians in their own right.

Stewart Thomson has been very active in the Winnipeg Music Festival for over 50 years as choir director, vocal coach and accompanist. It its day, he was heard on the CBC Distinguished Artists Series as collaborator with singers and instrumentalists. He has been accompanist and then Chorus Master of Winnipeg Philharmonic Choir, accompanist of the Winnipeg Male Voice Choir, many Manitoba Youth Choirs, and has prepared many children's choruses for performances with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Manitoba Opera Association, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and the Manitoba Theatre Centre.