Orford Music celebrates its 75th anniversary!

Founded in 1951, Orford Music began as a summer music camp and cultural hub established by Jeunesses Musicales Canada (JMC) in the heart of Mont-Orford National Park. From the outset, the project stood out for its ambition: to create a place dedicated to musical training, creation, and performance, in a setting conducive to reflection and attentive listening. Seventy-five years later, Orford Music remains a place where people come to learn, share, and grow.

The very existence of Orford Music rests on the visionary commitment of founding members of JMC—Gilles Lefebvre, Anaïs Allard-Rousseau, Laurette Desruisseaux-Boisvert, and Abbé J. H. Lemieux—who began working on its conception as early as 1949. Their shared goal was to offer young musicians a place for advanced training that would be both rigorous and unifying.

The first Academy session, held in August 1951, welcomed ten campers and two teachers. Modest in scale, it nonetheless laid the foundations for a model that would grow and flourish over the decades.

Architecture quickly became a defining element of the Centre’s identity. A concert hall and several pavilions were built. Today, the site includes seven buildings, five of which were designed according to plans by architect Paul-Marie Côté (1921–1969).

The concert hall was inaugurated on August 21, 1960, during a landmark event: the premiere of the first work commissioned by Jeunesses Musicales Canada, Hymne au vent du nord by Clermont Pépin, performed by Raoul Jobin and an orchestra conducted by Sir Ernest MacMillan. In 1974, the hall was renamed Gilles-Lefebvre Hall in tribute to one of the institution’s founders. In 1972, the JMC pavilion presented at Expo 67, Man and Music, was relocated to the Centre, further strengthening its role as a cultural crossroads.

The history of Orford Music is also shaped by the lasting connections forged there. In 1965, four students formed a string quartet on site that would become the Orford String Quartet. Its members later returned on several occasions as faculty, eloquently illustrating the continuity between training and transmission.

Today, as it celebrates 75 years of existence, Orford Music pays tribute to all those who have contributed to building this institution since its beginnings—artists, professors, students, teams, partners, and audiences—and continues with conviction a mission begun more than seven decades ago

Source: The Canadian Encyclopedia