Introduction

Biography

Sanders stu­died at the Roy­al Col­lege of Mu­sic (RCM) with Charles Swin­ner­ton Heap (or­gan), Charles H. Kit­son (the­ory), and Charles W. Per­kins (or­gan).

After gra­du­at­ing from the RCM with an as­so­ci­ates di­plo­ma in 1896, he served as or­gan­ist at Camp­hill Pres­by­ter­ian Church in Birm­ing­ham.

He left there af­ter a few years to work in the same ca­pa­ci­ty at St Mary’s Me­tho­dist Church in Tru­ro, Corn­wall.

He al­so played the vio­lin in a num­ber of or­ches­tras while liv­ing in Eng­land.

In 1907, San­ders emi­grat­ed to Ca­na­da and be­came or­gan­ist at Chal­mers’ Pres­by­ter­ian Church in Guelph, On­ta­rio.

He left there af­ter just one year to as­sume a si­mi­lar role at the Do­min­ion Me­tho­dist Church in Ot­ta­wa, where he stayed un­til 1929.

While there, he toured ex­ten­siv­ely through­out Ca­na­da as an or­gan re­ci­tal­ist and ac­com­pa­nist, and served as di­rect­or of the Ot­ta­wa Ora­tor­io So­ci­ety.

He was al­so pre­si­dent of the Ot­ta­wa Arts and Let­ters Club and worked for the Ot­ta­wa Jour­nal as a mu­sic cri­tic.

Harry Pud­di­combe hired him to teach at the Ca­na­di­an Con­ser­va­to­ry of Music, and he al­so ran a pri­vate teach­ing stu­dio.

Among his pu­pils were Ken­neth Meek, Charles O’Neill, and Bill Ri­chards.

Sanders moved to Mont­re­al in 1929, and be­came mu­sic di­rect­or of the new Tu­dor Hall in the J. A. Ogil­vy De­part­ment Store, a po­si­tion he held un­til his death. There, he per­formed sev­er­al noon-time or­gan re­cit­als ev­ery week, and ar­ranged for ap­pear­anc­es by oth­er not­able ar­tists.

In 1932–33 he was pre­si­dent of the Roy­al Ca­na­di­an Col­lege of Or­gan­ists (RCCO). Dur­ing the 1930s he al­so served as or­gan­ist of West­mount Park Mel­ville Unit­ed Church.

Sanders con­trib­uted ar­ti­cles to nu­mer­ous mu­sic­al jour­nals, in­clud­ing Etude, Mu­sic­al Quar­ter­ly, and The Am­eri­can Or­gan­ist.

He was as­so­ci­ate mu­sic ed­it­or of the 1917 Me­tho­dist Hymn and Tune Book, and con­trib­ut­ed sev­er­al of his own hymns to the work. He ed­it­ed the RCCO’s bul­le­tin, which was print­ed in Mu­sic­al Ca­na­da (1928–33).