Gordon Wry was a Canadian tenor

Tenor

The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...

 and conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

. His voice is preserved on a handful of recordings made with pianist Glenn Gould

Glenn Gould

Glenn Herbert Gould was a Canadian pianist who became one of the best-known and most celebrated classical pianists of the 20th century. He was particularly renowned as an interpreter of the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach...

.

Born in Saint John, New Brunswick

Saint John, New Brunswick

City of Saint John , or commonly Saint John, is the largest city in the province of New Brunswick, and the first incorporated city in Canada. The city is situated along the north shore of the Bay of Fundy at the mouth of the Saint John River. In 2006 the city proper had a population of 74,043...

, Wry studied singing with renowned contralto

Contralto

Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...

 Nellie Smith and music theory with Healey Willan

Healey Willan

Healey Willan, was an Anglo-Canadian organist and composer. He composed more than 800 works including operas, symphonies, chamber music, a concerto, and pieces for band, orchestra, organ, and piano...

 at the Toronto Conservatory of Music. He was one of the original members of the Festival Singers of Canada

Festival Singers of Canada

The Festival Singers of Canada was a professional choir located in Toronto, Canada from 1954-1979. Founded in 1954 by Elmer Iseler as the Festival Singers of Toronto, the choir was heard first heard on CBC radio in a 1955 Good Friday broadcast of Bach's Christ lag in Todesbanden...

 and was instrumental in encouraging Elmer Iseler

Elmer Iseler

Elmer Walter Iseler, OC was a Canadian choir conductor and choral editor. He was the conductor of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and founder of the Festival Singers of Canada and the Elmer Iseler Singers....

 to form that choir. He performed with that ensemble during the 1950s, '60s and '70's. He also worked as G. Ricordi & Co.'s Canadian agent during the 1950s.

Wry performed with the Canadian Opera Company

Canadian Opera Company

The Canadian Opera Company is an opera company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest opera company in Canada and the third largest producer of opera in North America. The COC performs in its own opera house, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.-History:For 40 years until...

 during its early years and was a leading tenor with the CBC Opera Company from 1949-1953. He notably portrayed the role of Bob Boles in the Canadian premiere of Benjamin Britten

Benjamin Britten

Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...

's Peter Grimes

Peter Grimes

Peter Grimes is an opera by Benjamin Britten, with a libretto adapted by Montagu Slater from the Peter Grimes section of George Crabbe's poem The Borough...

for the opening of the CBC Opera Company's second season with William Morton

William Morton (tenor)

William Morton is a Canadian tenor. opera director, and voice teacher. He first studied singing with Alicia Birkett in Regina, and later with Albert Whitehead and James Rosselino in Toronto. He made his professional singing debut in 1932 and made his first radio appearance in 1933 on CKCK...

 in the title role, Edmund Hockridge

Edmund Hockridge

Edmund Hockridge was a Canadian baritone and actor who had an active performance career in musicals, operas, concerts, plays, and on radio...

 as Captain Balstrode, Frances James

Frances James (soprano)

Frances James was a Canadian soprano who specialized in the concert repertoire. She worked prolifically as a performer on CBC Radio and as a recitalist from the late 1920s through the 1950s; premiering works by numerous Canadian composers of note and championing works by contemporary international...

 as Ellen Orford, and Eric Tredwell as Swallow. The production was awarded the Best Music Program prize at the 1950 Canadian Radio Awards Competition. In 1954 he portrayed the title role in the world premiere of Frederick Jacobi

Frederick Jacobi

Frederick Jacobi was a prolific American composer and teacher.His works include symphonies, concerti, chamber music, works for solo piano and for solo organ, lieder, and one opera....

's The Prodigal Son at the Forest Hill Collegiate Auditorium in Toronto.

Wry taught for many years on the faculty of Massey College

Massey College

Massey College is a postgraduate residential college at the University of Toronto, established in 1963 with an endowment by the Massey Foundation. Similar to All Souls College, Oxford, members of Massey College are nominated from the university community, and are elected by and as fellows of the...

 at the University of Toronto

University of Toronto

The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...

where he founded and conducted the Massey College Singers.