Bursary in Ellison’s name

At the 21st annual Vision Celebration, a gala fundraising event for Montreal’s Black Theatre Workshop, music professor Charles Ellison was presented with the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award.

Ellison was born in Tennessee, where he was exposed to the rich southern gospel tradition. He was thrilled by his first experience of sitting in the brass section of a student band —by the thrilling sound of a band in full flight, but also by the sense of community in an orchestra.

Although he was talented in mathematics and science, he took up the trumpet, and was soon marked as a prodigy, playing classical music, jazz, blues and rhythm and blues in various groups. He went on to study in the fine music program at Indiana State University.

He has been a member of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, the Canadian University Music Society and the International Association of Jazz Education, chair of Concordia’s Music Department (1994), recipient of the Alumni Award for Excellence in Teaching (1995) and a charter member of the President’s Circle.

At the celebration at the Omni Hotel on Jan. 27, it was announced that a $3,000 bursary in Ellison’s name will be awarded every year to a student in the Music Department. The benefactor, Stanley Aleong, has financed the award for three years in the hope it will be extended.