Head and shoulders image of Lyell Gustin, honourary Doctor of Laws degree recipient; taken possibly near time of presentation.

Bio/Historical Note: Lyell Adams Raphael Gustin was born at Fitch Bay, near Sherbrooke, Que. on 31 May 1895. He showed musical talent at an early age and studied with a local teacher, Sarah Scheafe. At the age of twelve he became a resident student at Stanstead College, some twenty miles from Fitch Bay. He studied piano and theory with A. Harlow Martin, an inspiring teacher at the Eastern Townships College of Music, an affiliate of Stanstead College. In 1912 Gustin graduated from Stanstead and in his music diploma examination taken through the Toronto College of Music he was awarded the highest marks that year in Canada. In the summer of 1912, when he was 17 years of age, the Gustin family moved to Saskatoon. From 1912 to 1916 Gustin studied with a Saskatoon teacher, Blanche St. John Baker, who had been a pupil of Leopold Godowsky. During these four years he became well known as one of her more talented students, as a public performer and as a teacher. In 1916 Gustin went to Chicago to study with Blanche St. John Baker's sister, Jeannette Durno, who, while studying in Vienna for 14 years, was first a pupil and then a teaching assistant of Theodor Leschetizky. Franz Liszt and Leschetizky are considered to be the two great piano teachers of the 19th century.
Back problems prevented Gustin from becoming a concert pianist, so he became a piano instructor. Returning to Saskatoon in 1920, he established the Lyell Gustin Piano Studios, operated out of his house that was built the same year. Gustin House, at 512 Tenth Street East, was designated a municipal heritage property in 1989. In over 60 years of teaching, his hundreds of pupils included Edmund Assaly, Garth Beckett and Boyd McDonald, Reginald and Evelyn Bedford, Dorothy Bee, Alma Harrington Brock-Smith, Anne Campbell, Neil Chotem, Robert Fleming, Gordon Hancock, Audrey Johannesen, Paul de Margerie, Thelma Johannes O'Neill, Marguerita Spencer, Walter Thiessen, Douglas Voice, and Gordon Wallis. Gustin directed his own summer school program for over 30 years and served from 1944-1970 as an examiner for the TCM (RCMT). He also lectured from 1936-1942 at the University of Regina, from 1950-1951 at the University of Saskatchewan, and the summers of 1950 and 1968 at the RCMT. Gustin was the founder in 1924 of the Musical Art Club, Saskatoon, and a founding member of the SRMTA; he also served from 1941-1946 as president of the CFMTA and from 1952-1964 as chairman of the music committee of the Saskatchewan Arts Board. In 1955 Gustin received the University of Alberta National Award in Music and in 1967 he was one of six recipients of the CFMTA Centennial Citations for outstanding teaching. He was awarded an honourary Doctor of Laws degree from the U of S in 1969. In 1973 Gustin was given the Canadian Music Council Medal. CFQC-TV (Saskatoon) broadcast a two-part documentary, 'A Man and his Music,' in 1975. In 1976 Gustin was honoured by a CBC radio documentary on his life and work. He was awarded the CCA's Diplôme d'honneur in 1983 and received the Saskatchewan Award of Merit in 1986. Gustin died at Saskatoon on 7 February 1988 at age 92.