R. Murray Schafer has achieved an international reputation as a composer, an educator, environmentalist, scholar and visual artist. Born in Sarnia, Ontario, in 1933, he was raised in Toronto. In 1980, he was awarded the Prix International Arthur-Honegger; in 1985, he received the Banff CA National Award in the Arts and in 1987, he became the first recipient of the $50,000 triennial Glenn Gould Award. Schafer holds honourary doctorates from universities in Canada, France and Argentina. Yehudi Menuhin praised “his strong, benevolent, and highly original imagination and intellect – a dynamic power whose manifold personal expressions and aspirations are in total accord with the urgent needs and dreams of humanity today.”