Patricia Blomfield Holt

Patricia Blomfield Holt (15 September 1910 – 5 June 2003) was a Canadian composer, pianist, and music educator. An associate of the Canadian Music Centre and a member of the Association of Canadian Women Composers, her compositions have been performed by notable musical ensembles throughout North America and Europe. In 1938 she won the Vogt Society Award for the best music composition for her Suite No. 1 for violin and piano. Her Lyric Piece No. 2 was recorded by Jeremy Findlay and Elena Braslavsky and her Legend of the North Woods was recorded by the University of Calgary Orchestra. Born Patricia Blomfield in Lindsay, Ontario, Blomfield Holt began her career in her teenage years as a largely self-taught composer and pianist. She entered The Royal Conservatory of Music at the age of 19 where she studied and taught concurrently for ten years. She was a pupil there of Norman Wilks, Hayunga Carman, Norah de Kresz, and Healey Willan. She left the RCMT in 1939 at the time of her marriage, but returned to the school's faculty in 1954 teaching courses in music history, music theory, music composition, and piano performance. She retired from the faculty in 1985.