John Arpin

John Francis Oscar Arpin (3 December 1936 – 8 November 2007) was a Canadian composer, recording artist and entertainer, best known for his work as a virtuoso ragtime pianist. John Arpin has long been regarded as one of the most versatile performers on the Canadian music scene. Born in Port McNicoll, Ontario, Mr. Arpin graduated from the Royal Conservatory of Music at the age of sixteen. After studying at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto, John became active in the Toronto music scene playing night clubs with his trio and as a soloist. He could also be found on the concert stage accompanying an opera singer, or performing turn-of-the-century music by Canadian composers on radio. His attention soon turned to playing, composing and arranging for television, the recording studio and the concert stage. This talented artist composes, arranges, conducts, records and maintains a full concert schedule. He is as comfortable playing solo piano as he is performing in concert with full symphony orchestra and tours extensively throughout Canada, the United States, Europe and the Orient. John Arpin has been nominated for Juno Awards in Canada on three separate occasions and in October of 2000 celebrated a milestone with the release of his 60th career album. Though he plays everything from turn-of-the-century classics to jazz to Broadway show tunes, John Arpin's name has become synonymous with piano rags and he is respected as one of the top Ragtime musicians in the world today. His diversity is reflected in his many recordings - from piano and orchestra recordings of "The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber" to piano solo albums featuring ragtime, baroque treatments of Broadway hits, honky-tonk and Spirituals, three albums with Maureen Forrester, and an instrumental album devoted to the music of Canadian singer/composer Gordon Lightfoot. High Fidelity magazine remarked of one of his albums, "This is the best recorded collection of piano rags that I know of and is, I suspect, the most authentically performed." Other albums include "Arpin at the Opera", "The Complete Piano Works of Scott Joplin" (a four disc set), "Ragtime on Broadway" and "The Greatest Hits of Al Jolson". More recently John has released a collection of solo piano tangos called "Blue Gardenia", another fine solo album of standards called "The Things I Love" and a series of seven CDs of popular nostalgic melodies, bringing his career album total to an unsurpassed sixty-seven. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.