Jones, Kelsey, 1922-2004

Herbert Kelsey Jones was born on June 17, 1922, in South Norwalk, Connecticut, and died on October 10, 2004, in Montreal. He moved to New Brunswick in 1939 to study with Harold Hamer at the Mount Allison Conservatory. In 1942, Jones lived in Boston during the Second World War and was employed in an optics factory at Harvard University. That same year, he married pianist Rosabelle Smith. In 1945, he received a bachelor's degree in music from Mount Allison University, and in 1947, another bachelor’s degree in music from the University of Toronto, under the tutelage of Sir Ernest MacMillan. From 1948 to 1949, Jones taught music theory and conducted the student orchestra at Mount Allison University. From 1949 to 1950, he studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, France. Throughout the 1950s, he performed and toured with his wife Rosabelle, as duo pianists. In 1950, he founded the Saint John Symphony Orchestra in St. John’s, and conducted here for five years. In 1954, Jones moved to Montreal to teach as a part-time instructor at McGill University. From 1954 to 1984, he taught history, harpsichord, piano, theory and counterpoint (modal, tonal, fugue, canon, etc.) at McGill. Jones co-founded the Baroque Trio of Montreal in 1957, which recorded his Sonata da Camera and Sonata da Chiesa. In 1963, he was commissioned by the Tudor Singers to compose Prophecy of Micah, and in 1965, was commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Company to write a chamber opera for their contribution to the Canadian Centennial Celebration. In 1967, Jones’ comic chamber opera Sam Slick, with libretto by Rosabelle Jones, premiered in Halifax for a CBC broadcast performance. Four years later, the Jones’ moved to Cook’s Lines, a municipal of Hinchinbrooke (south of Huntingdon, Quebec) on the Canadian/US border. In 1984, Jones retired and was named Professor Emeritus of McGill University and set up a winter home in Florida in 1984.

Revised on July 17, 2024, by Leah Louttit-Bunker