Skip to main content
obituary
Open this photo in gallery:

Donald Whitton playing his cello in 1979.Fernand R. Leclair

Donald Whitton was one of the most unlikely rock ‘n’ roll musicians of the 1960s, an era that celebrated sex, drugs and loud music.

He was in his mid-40s, a war veteran, married with children and had played cello with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the CBC Symphony Orchestra.

And yet, the man who later become the much-admired principal cellist of the National Arts Centre (NAC) Orchestra in Ottawa made a brief stopover as a rock ‘n’ roller, playing cello with the popular Canadian band Lighthouse for more than a year, starting in 1968.

“We met Don and he fit in,” remembered keyboard player Paul Hoffert, the co-founder of the 13-piece band, which included a string section of violins and cellos.

“His musicianship was immediately evident and he was just a fantastic person.”

Mr. Whitton died on April 26 in Ottawa, a few months short of his 95th birthday. He leaves his wife, Gail Halliday, and his children, David and Sylvia. He was predeceased by his son Philip.

Donald Richard Whitton was born on Aug. 2, 1923 in London, Ont. His father, Richard Edsen Whitton, worked for 61 years at the D. H. Howden warehouse, from the age of 14 until he retired at 75. His mother Kate Josephine (née Whitehead) was a homemaker and amateur pianist.

Mr. Whitton and his older brother and sister took piano lessons. But a defining musical moment in his boyhood came when he heard the violin for the first time.

His daughter, Sylvia Newman, said her father still remembered it vividly decades later.

“He said, ‘I was three feet off the ground. I had never heard anything in my life like that.’”

He told his parents that he wanted to study the violin at school. But he lost out because of his last name. The school offered instruments to students in alphabetical order. By the time the teacher got to the Ws, all the violins had been spoken for by other students. He had to settle for a cello instead.

The family moved to Toronto in the early 1930s when Richard Whitton’s employer transferred him there. His parents bought him a cello for 25 dollars, a huge amount during the Depression, and signed him up for lessons.

He graduated from high school with the Second World War dominating the headlines and enlisted in the Second Canadian Division, 4th Field Artillery Regiment. He was sent to France just after the D-Day landing in 1944.

Mr. Whitton’s regiment was involved in heavy fighting against German forces in Normandy, first to take the city of Caen and later to close the Falaise Gap.

At the end of the war, he heard about auditions for The Army Show, a musical revue that entertained Canadian soldiers and included among its cast members comedians Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster.

Despite not having played the cello for many months, Mr. Whitton auditioned on a borrowed instrument and was eventually asked to join the show.

He was sent to England where he performed in The Army Show’s Western-themed Rhythm Rodeo in a giant tent outside London.

Back in Canada, Mr. Whitton enrolled at the University of Toronto and later graduated with a degree in cello performance.

He joined the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 1950 and later the CBC Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Whitton was also a busy session musician, recording everything from ad jingles to the music played by the cat band on CBC Television’s The Friendly Giant.

And he played in live shows, including the Broadway musical Camelot, starring Richard Burton, which had its tryout in Toronto in 1960.

His son David remembers his father as a busy musician, once working 35 days straight without a break.

“He had this enormous drive, enormous energy, to do the very best job he could do,” he said.

For Donald Whitton, music was serious business and not something for background listening. So the family home had no stereo system and their car had no radio.

Mr. Whitton performed and recorded several times with Glenn Gould. When he ran into the legendary pianist one day on the street in Toronto, Mr. Gould introduced Mr. Whitton to a friend as “Don Whitton, the perfect continuo player.”

In 1968, he joined Lighthouse. After touring and performing with the band, Mr. Whitton got a call in 1969 from the newly-formed NAC Orchestra in Ottawa. Conductor Mario Bernardi had played with Mr. Whitton in Stratford, Ont., and wanted him to become the orchestra’s principal cellist.

Pianist Evelyn Greenberg remembers sitting in the hall, waiting for the NAC Orchestra ’s very first rehearsal to begin, when Mr. Whitton entered.

“All of a sudden, this tall, handsome man came in looking like Joseph Cotton and carrying himself like Charlton Heston,” she said.

“He had the most glorious and rich sound, never harsh or forced, that filled the hall.”

His family said Mr. Whitton enjoyed the new orchestra’s high level of musicianship and the array of visiting performers.

When the Bolshoi Ballet made its first visit to Canada in June, 1972, it was Mr. Whitton who performed the cello solo for the company’s performance of Swan Lake.

At 2 o’clock the next morning, the phone rang at Mr. Whitton’s home.

“It was [NAC head] Hamilton Southam,” Ms. Newman said. “The prima ballerina had insisted that he call my dad and tell him how much she was moved by his playing and how, as a result, she had never danced such a beautiful dying swan.”

Mr. Whitton retired from the NAC Orchestra in 1993 after 24 years. But he wasn’t finished with music. In 2009, at the age of 86, he decided to record one final album.

He practised for three months and prepared several pieces for the album, his son David said.

Not surprisingly, given his age, the recording showed a musician no longer at the peak of his ability. But his playing revealed something else.

“What came through,” David said, “was the depth of his music.”

Interact with The Globe