Conservatory Canada is a smaller conservatory to The Royal Conservatory of music but still a significant Canadian Conservatory of music. This institution grew from merging two independent examination systems: the Western Ontario Conservatory of Music based in London, Ontario, and The Western Board of Music based in Edmonton, Alberta, primarily focused on piano and voice instruction. This 1997 merger formed the new Conservatory Canada, which sold its facilities in 2002 due to financial concerns. However, after its facilities closed, Conservatory Canada focused on establishing its robust examination system, accredited in most provinces and territories across Canada.
The Western Board of Music, formed by the three western prairie provinces, operated from 1936-1997, and the Western Ontario Conservatory of Music, according to my research, was formed from two other private music schools, the London Conservatory of Music (1892-1922) and the London Institute of Musical Art (1919-34). So, while Conservatory Canada is a relatively new music conservatory formed in 1997, its roots in music education stretch back to 1892, and parts of the original schools were associated with the Toronto Conservatory of Music, which itself was affiliated with Trinity College and the University of Toronto, the TCM later would become The Royal Conservatory of Music. These mergers of various music schools and their affiliations with universities run back as far as 1888.
While Conservatory Canada appears to be a smaller music conservatory, it offers a broader range of modern repertoire in its publications, including jazz and blues. Their syllabus for piano seems very respectable and established, with solid technical requirements in technique, sight reading, ear training and repertoire. While I don’t have experience in preparing students for the exams of Conservatory Canada, I do have experience with their repertoire books, which I’ve always explained to parents as being half a grade above those books of The Royal Conservatory of Music. In my opinion, based on the difficulty of the pieces found in the graded books of both conservatories, I feel grade one of Conservatory Canada is in between grades one and two of The Royal Conservatory of Music, so I’ll get students who need a challenge to work out of those books as well.
Quite often, if I’m teaching two children of similar ages in the same household, both of whom are potentially interested in taking exams, I’ll use the Conservatory Canada repertoire books because of the parallels between the two examining systems.
Conservatory Canada is worth checking out, and you can do that here.
Have fun practicing.
