Colin Eatock

Colin Timothy Eatock is a Canadian composer, writer and journalist who lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Life and career

Eatock was born in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1958, and attended the University of Western Ontario,^[1] McMaster University,^[2] and The University of Toronto,^[3] from which he received a PhD in musicology.

Eatock's music has been performed in Canada, the US and Europe. He is an associate member of the Canadian Music Centre,^[4] which released a CD of his compositions entitled Colin Eatock: Chamber Music in 2012 on its Centrediscs label.^[5] It contains six of his compositions: "Ashes of Soldiers" (2010), "Suite for Piano" (1995), "Tears of Gold" (2000), "Three Songs from Blake's 'America'" (1987), "Three Canzonas for Brass Quartet" (1991), and "The Lotus-Eaters" (2000).

In 2023, Centrediscs released a second CD of Eatock's music, Colin Eatock: Choral and Orchestral Music. It contains a chamber-orchestra arrangement of his "Ashes of Soldiers" (2010-2012) and "Sinfonietta" (1999), also for chamber orchestra, as well as eight of his choral works: "The Lord Is Risen!" (2021), "In the Bleak Mid-Winter" (1998), "Cast Off All Doubtful Care" (2012), "Three Poems by Amy Lowell" (2018), "Three Psalms" (2018), "Benedictus es: Alleluia" (2018), "Two Poems by Walt Whitman" (2017), and "Out of My Deeper Heart" (2015).

As a music journalist and critic, Eatock has written for Toronto's The Globe and Mail newspaper,^[6] and also the National Post, The New York Times,^[7] the Houston Chronicle,^[8] the Kansas City Star, and the San Antonio Express-News, as well as numerous magazines and journals^{[9][10][11][12]} in Canada, the US and the UK.

He has also written three books: the first is on the life of Felix Mendelssohn,^[13] the second is a collection of interviews about the pianist Glenn Gould^[14] and the third, Music After the Millennium, is a collection of his music journalism.

In 2025, Eatock's board game Schooled was published under an anagrammatic pseudonym by Analog Game Studios of Toronto.^[15]

Published works

Books

• Eatock, Colin, Mendelssohn and Victorian England, Ashgate Press (London, England), 2009
• Eatock, Colin, Remembering Glenn Gould, Penumbra Press (Newcastle, Ontario), 2012
• Eatock, Colin, Music After the Millennium, published independently, 2024

Articles

• Eatock, Colin. "Classical Music Criticism at the Globe and Mail: 1936–2000." Canadian University Music Review (Canadian University Music Society) 24/2: 8–28.
• Eatock, Colin. "The Crystal Palace Concerts: Canon Formation and the English Musical Renaissance." 19th Century Music (University of California) 34/1: 87–105.
• Eatock, Colin. "Mendelssohn's Conversion to Judaism: An English Perspective." Mendelssohn Perspectives (Ashgate Press) 2012: 63–79.