Alexander Brott
Alexander Brott, CM CQ, born Joël Brod, (March 14, 1915 – April 1, 2005), was a Canadian conductor, composer, violinist and music teacher. His wife Lotte was an accomplished cellist. Their sons are Boris Brott, a conductor, and Denis Brott, a cellist and conductor.
Born in Montreal, Brott earned degrees from the Schulich School of Music at McGill University (MU) and the Juilliard School. Among his teachers were Albert Chamberland and Alfred Whitehead. He began his career as a concert violinist in the 1930s. He joined the faculty at the MU in 1939, teaching there until his retirement in 1980. He founded the McGill Chamber Orchestra.
Brott was leader of the Montreal Orchestra, Les Concerts symphoniques de Montréal and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra from 1945 to 1958. In 1939, he joined the Faculty of Music at McGill University, where he remained until 1980. His compositions included Arabesque, Circle, Triangle, 4 Squares, and Paraphrase in Polyphony. He was also the founder and musical director of the McGill Chamber Orchestra. He also conducted the Kingston Symphony from 1965 to 1981.
In 1979 he was made a Member of the Order of Canada and in 1988 he was made a Knight of the National Order of Quebec.
His memoirs, Alexander Brott: My Lives in Music (with co-writer Betty Nygaard King), were published by Mosaic Press in 2005.
He died in Montreal at the age of 90.