Donated By: Lutheran Social Services
Criteria: Pipe Organ Open Class winner.
Amount: $1,000

Born in Toronto, Ontario, Gerald Bales studied at the Toronto Conservatory of Music from 1936 to 1940. In 1937 he gave his first professional organ concert at the Eaton Auditorium in Toronto and performed his Fantasy for piano and orchestra with the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra in 1948. He was chosen, in 1957, to represent Canada as a recitalist at the First International Congress of Organists in London, England.

From 1937 to 1941, he was an organist and choirmaster at St Anne's Anglican Church in Toronto. He went on to hold many different church posts in Toronto, Calgary, and Minneapolis. He moved to London in 1984 where he was Composer-in-Residence at Wesley-Knox United Church and wrote a number of works dedicated to the choir there..

He was a Fellow and president of the Royal Canadian College of Organists from 1980 to 1982. In 1996, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada.