Neil Chotem

Who was Neil Chotem?

Neil Chotem was a Canadian composer, arranger, conductor, pianist, and music educator. His compositional style is eclectic but conservative, and often incorporates elements of jazz and popular music. He composed a considerable body of works for television and radio and also wrote music for a number of leading Canadian performers like Maureen Forrester, Paul Piché, and Michel Rivard. For the progressive rock band Harmonium he wrote much of the music for their critically acclaimed album L'Heptade. In 1968 he, Paul de Margerie, and Marcel Lévêque were awarded a Montreal Festival du disque prize for 3=12, an LP for which the three men all worked together as conductors and arrangers. He received another prize from that same organization that same year for Renée Claude's recording of his arrangement of Jacques Brel's song Ne me quitte pas. In 1993 he received the Prix de la Guilde from the Guilde des musiciens du Québec.

Chotem began studying the piano at the age of 5 at the Palmer School of Music. He became a pupil of Lyell Gustin in 1930 with whom he studied for almost the next nine years. He also studied with Jeannette Durno in Chicago in 1934. He began his career as a concert pianist in the early 1930s, making his first appearance with an orchestra in 1933 playing Camille Saint-Saëns's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Regina Symphony Orchestra. He was highly active as a concert pianist, recitalist, and radio performer in Winnipeg where he lived with his family between 1935-1939. The outbreak of World War II interfered with his early career, although he did perform a number of recitals in western Canadian cities and appeared in concerts as a duo-pianist with Gordon Kushner. From 1942-1945 he was a member of the Royal Canadian Air Force.