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Profiles of Alberta Women

Violet Archer – Supporting Information


Archival records

Ina Dennekamp fonds. The Paul D. Fleck Library and Archives at The Banff Centre. Banff, Alberta, Canada. https://www.albertaonrecord.ca/roberta-stephen

Violet Archer fonds. CA ACU SPC F0181. University of Calgary Special Collections, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. https://searcharchives.ucalgary.ca/violet-archer-fonds


Awards and honours

1970 – Alberta Achievement Award

1971 – Honorary Doctorate of Music, McGill University

1978 – Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee Medal

1983 – Order of Canada

1986 – Honorary Doctorate of Music, University of Windsor

1989 – Honorary Degree, LLD, University of Calgary

1990 – Alberta Lifetime Achievement Award

1992 – Canada 125 Award

1993 – Honorary Doctor of Music, Mount Allison University

1993 – Honorary Degree, LLD, University of Alberta

N.d. – Lifetime membership, Canadian University Music Society

N.d. – Lifetime membership, Accademia Tibernia of Rome

N.d. – Honorary Fellow, Royal Canadian College of Organists


Selected compositions

Archer, Violet. Fanfare and Passacaglia. Toronto: BMI Canada, 1964.

Archer, Violet and Dorothy Livesay. Plainsongs: Four Songs to Poetry of Dorothy Livesay. Toronto: Plangere, 2014.

Archer, Violet. The Bell: Cantata for Mixed Chorus and Orchestra. Toronto: Canadian Music Centre, 1972.

A longer list of Violet’s compositions can be seen here: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/violet-archer


Further reading

Banfield, Emma, D. M. “Violet Archer: A Canadian Woman in Composition.” PhD diss. Northwestern University, 2008.

Hartig, Linda Bishop. Violet Archer: A Bio-bibliography. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991.

Qureshi, Regula Burckhardt, Albert La France, and Brenda Dalen, eds. “Voices of Women: Essays in Honour of Violet Archer.” Canadian University Music Review/Revue de musique des universités canadiennes 16, no. 4 (1995).

Willoughby, Angela Sue. “The Solo Piano Music of Violet Archer: A Study of Selected Didactic Works.” PhD diss. Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, 1998.

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