BIOGRAPHY

Fraser Linklater is now retired from the Desautels Faculty of Music at the University of Manitoba, where he directed the Wind Ensemble, Concert Band and Chamber Winds and taught courses in music education from 1999 to 2016.  Prior to his university appointment, Fraser taught junior high and high school music in Manitoba public schools for over twelve years.

 

At the provincial level, Dr. Linklater served on the Executive Board of the Manitoba Band Association for almost two decades and coordinated all three levels of the MBA Honour Band program. In October 2002, he received the MBA Award of Distinction for his services to music education in Manitoba.

Nationally, Dr. Linklater was an assistant editor of Canadian Winds, the national journal of the Canadian Band Association and contributed over twenty-five articles to this journal.   An authority on Canadian wind band repertoire, in addition to his writing on the topic Dr. Linklater founded the North Winds recording project, which resulted in five CDs of Canadian band music featuring over eighty pieces, most of them never recorded before.  In October 2014, Dr. Linklater was presented with the 2014 National Band Award by the Canadian Band Association, in recognition of outstanding contribution to band at the educational, community and professional level in Canada. 

 

For almost a decade, Fraser Linklater was co-director (with Dale Lonis) of the Canadian Wind Conductors Development Program, an international conducting and instrumental music education summer workshop.  In May 2006 Dr. Linklater was the guest conductor of the National Youth Band of Canada and has also guest conducted wind groups several times at the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s New Music Festival.   

 

During his time at the University of Manitoba, Dr. Linklater created almost twenty transcriptions of orchestral works for wind band, many of which he conducted with the U of M Wind Ensemble.  More recently he has branched out into composition, and has produced over eighty works for wind band.  In spring 2020, Dr. Linklater received the Howard Cable Memorial Prize in Composition from the Canadian Band Association.  Apart from music, Fraser and his wife Joan enjoy traveling, reading, and spending time with friends, family and their two grandchildren. 

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Fraser holds music degrees from Brandon University, the University of North Texas, and a PhD in Music Education from the University of Michigan, where he studied trumpet with Armando Ghitalla and conducting with Robert Reynolds.  Fraser has also studied trumpet with Alan Ehnes, Vincent Cichowicz, and Edward Tarr, and participated in conducting workshops with Larry Rachleff, Mallory Thompson, Allan McMurray, and Craig Kirchhoff, among others.