Tom Allen to Receive Honorary Degree and Perform Bach Tale at Brandon University

On May 28, 2025, at 7:30 p.m., Tom Allen, the beloved Canadian broadcaster, trombonist, and author, will step onto the stage of Lorne Watson Recital Hall not just as a performer, but as a newly minted honorary degree recipient from Brandon University. The event marks the culmination of a career that’s spanned radio waves, concert halls, and the quiet corners of music history — and it’s also the public debut of his most ambitious project yet: an 18th-century-style publication called Classical Musick Almanack, created in collaboration with illustrator Ian Bell.

A Voice in the Living Room, a Storyteller on Stage

For over three decades, Tom Allen’s voice has been a familiar companion in Canadian homes. From Weekender to Shift to his current CBC Radio program, About Time, he’s turned classical music into something intimate, alive, and deeply human. But Allen never stopped being a musician. He began as a bass trombonist in New York, toured with the Great Lakes Brass Band, and later hosted a decade of Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s Afterworks series — where he didn’t just introduce pieces, he told their stories.

That’s the secret to his appeal: he doesn’t lecture. He invites you in. As Dr. Kofi Campbell, Brandon University’s Acting President, put it: "Tom inspires us with his keen ability to share the joy of music with us." And that joy isn’t confined to the studio. It spills onto the stage in the form of what Allen and his wife, harpist Lori Gemmell, call "chamber musicals" — hybrid performances that weave music, history, and narrative into something entirely new.

JS Bach’s Long Walk Home: A Journey in Notes

The centerpiece of the May 28 event is JS Bach’s Long Walk Home, a chamber musical that tells the true story of an 18-year-old Johann Sebastian Bach walking 400 kilometers across Germany in 1705 — not for fame, but to escape trouble and find his way back to music. "It was a turning point," Allen says in interviews. "He didn’t have money, no map, just his talent and a desperate need to hear the organist in Lübeck. He walked because he had to."

The show, which has toured across Canada since its debut, features live performance by Allen and Gemmell alongside musicians like cellist Kevin Fox and violinist Mark Fewer. Critics call it "a glittering whole," as Joyce Janzen of The Valley Concert Society wrote. "Each musical selection was like a tiny perfect jewel." The title? A gentle tweak of his earlier work, JS Bach’s Long Walk in the Snow — a nod, perhaps, to the idea that some journeys aren’t about distance, but transformation.

A Renaissance Man for the 21st Century

Greg Gatien, Dean of Music at Brandon University, didn’t mince words: "Tom is a renaissance person for the 21st century." And it’s true. He’s not just a broadcaster, not just a performer, not just an author. He’s all three — and more. He’s written critically acclaimed chamber musicals like The Missing Pages, which recounts the true story of the only Canadian to meet Beethoven. He’s hosted symphonies from Detroit to Nova Scotia. He’s collaborated with Soulpepper Theatre and Chamberfest Ottawa. And now, he’s creating a publication that feels like it was pulled from a 1740s bookshelf.

The Classical Musick Almanack, illustrated by Ian Bell, is no gimmick. It’s a meticulously researched, hand-styled homage to 18th-century almanacs — complete with moon phases, musical advice, and biographical sketches of composers, all rendered in period typography and ink-wash illustrations. "It’s not just about facts," Allen explains. "It’s about the texture of musical life back then. What did people listen to on a Tuesday? Who was the gossip of the court? What did Bach eat for breakfast?"

That curiosity — that hunger for context — is what sets Allen apart. While others simplify classical music for mass appeal, he deepens it. He doesn’t dumb it down. He dusts it off, lights a candle, and lets it breathe.

Why This Matters

In an era when classical music is often seen as elitist or outdated, Allen’s work is quietly revolutionary. He proves that deep knowledge doesn’t have to be dry. That history can be thrilling. That a 300-year-old fugue can feel as urgent as a new pop single — if you know how to tell its story.

His honorary degree isn’t just recognition of past work. It’s validation of a model: that music education doesn’t need to be institutional to be meaningful. It can happen in a radio studio, on a train ride, or over a cup of tea while flipping through a hand-printed almanac.

What’s Next

After Brandon, Allen returns to CBC’s About Time, continues work on the Classical Musick Almanack — the first volume is slated for late 2026 — and begins planning his next chamber musical, rumored to center on Clara Schumann’s travels across Europe in the 1840s. He and Gemmell are also developing a touring version of The Missing Pages for school audiences, aiming to bring Beethoven’s ghost into Canadian classrooms.

"We’re not trying to preserve music in a museum," Allen told a recent interviewer. "We’re trying to keep it alive in the bloodstream."

Behind the Scenes: The Making of a Chamber Musical

Allen’s creative process is as meticulous as it is unconventional. For JS Bach’s Long Walk Home, he spent months tracing Bach’s route on 18th-century maps, reading letters from the time, even studying the acoustics of the churches Bach would have visited. He and Gemmell rehearse in their Toronto home, recording fragments on a vintage tape machine to capture the warmth of analog sound. "We don’t use metronomes," he says. "We use heartbeats."

It’s this attention to sensory detail — the rustle of parchment, the creak of a door, the echo of a harpsichord in a stone chapel — that makes his performances feel less like concerts and more like time travel.

What People Are Saying

"Tom Allen doesn’t just talk about music. He makes you feel it in your bones." — Calgary Herald "A rare blend of scholarship and soul. If you’ve ever thought classical music was boring, see Tom Allen live." — Montreal Gazette "The almanac project? Genius. It’s like if The New Yorker and a Bach manuscript had a baby." — Musicworks Magazine