This music, sown in the cornfields of Iowa, ripened in the
wheatfields of Saskatchewan, harvested in Alberta, owes its genesis to
the Turtleford Brass Band, the pride of the village of Turtleford,
Saskatchewan.
From 1926 to 1941 this traditional British Brass Band (a band
composed entirely of brass instruments) was known throughout the
province. The band was founded and led by Adolph August Deegan,
born Adolph Gustav Rauh, Humboldt Township, Iowa, 1898.
This early influence on the bandmaster's young son was so profound
that, in time, he resolved to become a composer. With his father's
blessing and support, Roger left Edmonton for Los Angeles to study
composition with the renowned Swedish-American composer, Ingolf Dahl,
and film composition techniques with Hollywood film composer, Miklos
Rozsa, both at the University of Southern California.
Roger tarried so long in Los Angeles, soaking up the musical culture,
he became a family man with a wife, Betty, and two children, Gwendolyn
and Brougham. They moved to Edmonton in Canada's Centennial Year
where Roger began his career as a free-lance composer. Over the
years he provided background music for a multitude of documentary
films as well as many scores for theatre and dance events. When
composing concert pieces he frequently reworked and extended ideas from
these sources.
"In January 1984, the first artists arrived to work in the cluster of studios on the edge of the [Banff] Centre's main grounds. Among them were artists Evelyn Roth, composer Roger Deegan and poet Dorothy Livesay, all working on individual projects that were independent of the Centre and each other" (Thompson, The Banff Centre, 41).
