Katherine Pye

(1913-2012)

A native of Falmouth, NS, Katherine Manning’s musical abilities were apparent when she was still a young child.  She began her music studies at Edgehill School for Girls in nearby Windsor, later continuing at the Conservatory of the Mount Allison Ladies’ College.  Subsequently, she studied both piano and organ at Acadia, the latter with Edwin A. Collins, the university’s first Dean of Music—from 1927 to 1963—and sometime Head of the Theory Department of the Halifax Conservatory of Music.  Katherine also studied organ with Dr. Maitland Farmer, long-time organist at All Saint’s Anglican Cathedral in Halifax and Dean Collins’ successor as Head of the Conservatory’s Theory Department.  She obtained her Licentiate in piano from London’s Royal College of Music and was also an Associate in organ of the Royal Conservatory in Toronto.

For many years Katherine Pye was an organist in a succession of Nova Scotian churches.  Beginning at a very young age in her family church in Falmouth, she went on to serve for twenty years as church organist at St. John’s United Church in Windsor which had a very fine Casavant pipe organ, circa 1899; it was on this instrument that she taught organ another of Bravura’s honourees Dr. Garland (Gary) Brooks; when they met again at one of the organization’s dinner after not having seen one another for 55 years, Katherine recognized him immediately, calling him by name.  During the time Katherine was organist at St. John’s, Louise Burchell—a former Halifax Conservatory of Music teacher of organ, theory, and composition—was organist at Windsor’s second United Church, Trinity.  Katherine was later to be organist in a succession of large Halifax churches: St. John’s United on Windsor Street, St. George’s Anglican on Brunswick Street, and J. Wesley Smith United on Robie Street.

While a resident of Windsor, Mrs. Pye was the chief organizer of the Hants County Music Festival, a major regional festival.  She was also a long-time member of the Nova Scotia Registered Music Teachers’ Association, serving as Secretary-Treasurer for almost three decades.

In 1969, Mrs. Pye joined the staff of the Piano Department of what was then called the Maritime Conservatory of Music.  Several members of the Conservatory faculty were actively involved in the planning for the annual meetings of the Canadian Music Teachers’ Association which met in Halifax in 1973, among them Katherine Pye who was responsible for Publicity and Advertising.

When she began teaching piano and organ at the Conservatory, Katherine joined what was then called the Maritime Conservatory of Music Alumni Association, now Bravura Nova Scotia.  She was soon elected Treasurer of the organization, a position she was to hold until 1990.  According to Shirley Ellis, long-time reporter for the Mail-Star, at a fund-raising Christmas Tea “held in the elegant Big Parlour at the Sacred Heart School which houses the Maritime Conservatory of Music,” Katherine Pye was honoured as she stepped down as Treasurer of the Alumni Association.  Subsequently she became the organization’s Archivist.

Mrs. Pye, in a letter to Bligh DesBrisay about the same time, described herself as “getting old and slow”, although this was certainly not apparent to anyone else.  She continued to exercise at the YMCA until a few weeks before her death at age 99, travelling by bus to get there.  And she similarly attended concerts and Bravura Nova Scotia events regularly, insisting that she didn’t need a drive; “I’m fine taking the bus”.  Katherine could frequently be spotted, as well, wearing her signature tam walking briskly along Spring Garden Road.

In recognition of her long and exemplary service to what is now called Bravura Nova Scotia and to the Maritime Conservatory of Music, the then MCPA Association decided to reactivate its Honorary Life Member programme, and Katherine was elected to its ranks in October 2012.After a very brief illness, Katherine Pye died later that same year, on December 31, 2012, a few months before what would have been her 100th birthday.