Hugh LeCaine (1914 - 1977) was a Canadian inventor, scientist, and composer who was a pioneer in the design of electronic musical instruments, and is generally known as the father of Canadian electronic music.

LeCaine grew up in northern Ontario in the town of Port Arthur, now called Thunder Bay, where he developed an interest in electronics and music.

Later, he attended Queen's University where he earned an M.Sc in 1939. Immediately upon graduating he got a job at the National Research Council (NRC) in Ottawa to work on radar and atomic research.

By 1945 he had built his own music studio where he would pursue his research into new methods of creating sounds. Among the estimated 22 inventive instruments he created, his three best known instruments were the Electronic Sackbut (1945), the Touch Sensative Organ (1952), and the Sonde (1968).

After a 1954 demonstration of his electronic music research to the NRC they allowed him to continue his work under their funding.

Later he would go on to teach electronic music at both McGill University and University of Toronto, helping found studios in each of them, as well as at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Though his composition output was small, LeCaine is remembered as one of the great pioneer composers of Musique concrète. His best known work being Dripsody (1955), a piece of Musique concrète based on the sound of a single drop of water that is permuted and contorted into a chorus of sounds.

External link

• HughLeCaine.com