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Phil Nimmons is widely known as a clarinetist who plays free and mainstream jazz, and who composes both jazz and "classical" music. He has written over 400 works, including film scores, incidental music for radio, TV, and stage plays, and concert music ranging from solos and chamber works to pieces for large ensembles, including big band, concert band, and symphony orchestra.
He has had his own weekly CBC radio show leading his bands, Nimmons 'n' Nine and Nimmons 'n' Nine Plus Six, and is revered as one of Canada's most influential jazz educators, having taught for the past thirty-five years at the University of Toronto, and before that at the University of Western Ontario. Now eighty-three years young, Nimmons has received numerous honours for his achievements, including a Juno award, the DownBeat Achievement Award for Jazz Education, the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement, the Order of Ontario, and the Order of Canada.
This interview, conducted by Paul Read, the Director of Graduate Jazz Studies at the University of Toronto, on behalf of Canadian Winds/Vents canathens at the composer's home in Thornhill, Ontario on December 28, 2006, concentrates on Phil Nimmons the composer, but inevitably the conversation turned in other directions, as his life has been one long, creative continuum. The following transcript is a condensed version of the original, which was redacted in its entirety by Michael Carter and Michael McClennan.
CW/Vc. You've said that you were basically self-taught as a composer. Tell us how you got started composing and what some of your early experiences were.
PN: I don't really remember a lot about the initial inspiration, but I know I had the urge to write music. Why? I don't know. You can look at the genes of my mom and dad. My mom was sort of very explosively creative all the time in her own way. So there's probably some connection there. But it was evidently quite intense because I used to write pages and pages of piano music.
CW/Vc: At what age?
PN: I would say in my early teens.
CW/Vc. Do you remember the first significant piece you completed?
PN: I do remember that I wrote some piano pieces. My dad had a very dear friend...