A number of outstanding organists occupied church positions in the post-war era, fulfilling these roles on a high musical level and contributing to the city's concert life as organ recitalists, choir directors, or both. Among these have been Leonard Wilson 1935-63 at St Michael's Anglican and St James Anglican; a succession of incumbents including Hugh Bancroft, Thomas Jenkins, Beal Thomas, Patrick Wedd, and Rupert Lang at Christ Church Cathedral; Lawrence Cluderay after 1947 at St Andrew's Wesley United, St John's Shaughnessy, and St Stephen's Anglican; Hugh McLean 1957-73 at Ryerson United; and Frederick Carter at St John's Shaughnessy.

The Vancouver Bach Choir continued after World War II as the leading concert choral ensemble. New groups included the Music Makers, a children's choir directed by Nancy Paisley Benn during the 1940s and 1950s; the Cantata Singers of Vancouver, under their founding conductor, Hugh McLean 1958-67 and beginning in 1973 led by James Fankhauser; the Phylis Inglis Singers 1959-67; the Vancouver Welsh Male Voice Choir, formed ca 1962 (see Wales); the Vancouver Chamber Choir, formed in 1971 by Jon Washburn; Phoenix, founded in 1983 by Cortland Hultberg; the Vancouver Bach Children's Chorus, established in 1984 with Bruce Pullan as music director; and Elektra Women's Choir, formed in 1987 and co-directed by Diane Looner and Morna Russell.

Chamber music thrived in Vancouver after 1945. Many new performing groups and concert societies came into existence. Among these were the de Rimanoczy Quartet, the Steinberg String Quartet, and the Vancouver Chamber Sinfonietta, all founded in 1947; the Friends of Chamber Music, formed in 1948 by Ida Halpern, ethnomusicologist at the University of British Columbia; the Cassenti Players, formed in 1954 by George Zukerman; the Vancouver String Quartet, formed in 1958 by Jack Kessler and others; the Baroque Strings of Vancouver, active 1966-88 the Vancouver Woodwind Quintet (1968 to the late 1970s), the Purcell String Quartet (1968-1991); and the Vancouver Cello Club, established in 1969. Added incentives for small ensembles have also been provided by various series of performances under the aegis of the Ramcoff Concert Society (founded in 1978 by Gene Ramsbottom and Melinda Coffey and incorporated in 1981) first in North Vancouver and then, beginning in the mid-1980s, in Vancouver. The society also organised the Whistler International Mozart Festival in 1989 and 1990. Events in areas adjacent to the city also flourish under the sponsorship of the Burnaby Arts Council, the Deep Cove Chamber Soloists Society (founded in 1983), and the North West Opera Society (established in 1987), among others.

The late 1960s were notable for the revival of medieval and renaissance music performed on original instruments or authentic replicas. The Hortulani Musicae (1968-84), and the baroque trio the Cecilian Ensemble, formed in 1972, became groups-in-residence of the Vancouver Society for Early Music, established in 1969. The society also sponsored the orchestra L'Age d'or 1972-4. The New World Consort was formed in 1984. The work of these groups and individuals and the growth of a Vancouver community of early-instrument builders (see Ray Nurse, S. Sabathil and Son Ltd, Edward Turner) have led many to consider Vancouver the leading Canadian centre of early music activity. (See also Instruments: medieval, renaissance, and baroque.)

This early-music reawakening was paralleled by a new public interest in contemporary music, the first signs of which were demonstrated in 1950 at the First Symposium of Canadian Contemporary Music initiated by Jacques Singer. The major continuing contemporary music organizations, both of which perform at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre (established in 1973), have been the Vancouver New Music Society, founded in 1972 with Phyllis Mailing as director and president, and Days Months and Years to Come (in 1982 renamed Magnetic Band), formed in 1974. The Western Front has been an active new-music venue.

The Vancouver International Festival brought noteworthy visiting attractions to the city 1958-68. Vancouver musicians and ensembles have toured under the aegis of George Zukerman's Overture Concerts, established in Vancouver in 1955, and the Festival Concert Society, founded there in 1961 by J.J. Johannesen. A recital series was initiated in 1968 by the Vancouver Art Gallery. The Music in the Morning Concert Society, in its sixth season in 1991, offers performances by local and visiting soloists and ensembles (including dance) at the Koerner Recital Hall in the Vancouver Academy of Music. The Vancouver Recital Society, in its eleventh season in 1991, has established a formidable standard in its offerings, especially for young soloists of international calibre. First Night (launched in 1987) offers numerous performances on 31 December annually.

Post-war Vancouver musicians and musical organizations have been fortunate in the patronage of David Spencer, the Koerner Foundation, the Vancouver Foundation, and the British Columbia Cultural Fund (established in 1967). Indicative of a new emphasis on education in the broadest sense was the founding in 1946 of the Community Arts Council of Vancouver, with Ira Dilworth as its first president. Although not an educational body, the council, as a source of well-researched ideas, encouraged the formation in 1959 of a Dept of Music at the University of British Columbia (where Harry Adaskin had established music courses in 1946) and the opening in 1969 of the Community Music School of Greater Vancouver. The latter institution, a model for other cities, moved in 1976 to its own premises in Vanier Park and in 1979 adopted the name Vancouver Academy of Music. R. Murray Schafer was one of the several composers-in-residence at Simon Fraser University 1966-75 and also directed there the World Soundscape Project, established with headquarters at the university in 1971. In 1973 the pianist Robert Silverman moved to Vancouver to teach at the University of British Columbia; he was joined on the faculty there by Jane Coop in 1980.

Vancouver pop musicians and groups have included Bryan Adams, Chilliwack, D.O.A., Headpins, Heart, Terry Jacks, Loverboy,Pacific Salt, Prism, Trooper, and Jim Vallance. The expansion of the music industry in the late 1960s led BMI Canada (see SOCAN) to open a Vancouver office in 1968. It persuaded Tom Northcott to found in 1968 the recording company Stage 3 Productions. The Canadian Music Centre opened a regional office in Vancouver in 1977. Two of the finest music libraries in Canada have been developed at the University of British Columbia and the Vancouver Public Library. Two notable festivals have been annual musical events: the Vancouver Folk Music Festival and the du Maurier Ltd International Jazz Festival.

Musicians born in or near Vancouver include Norma Abernethy, Milla Andrew, Nancy Argenta, David Astor, John Avison, Donald Bell (South Burnaby), Marjorie Biggar, Lloyd Burritt, Irenee Byatt, Dolores Claman, F.R.C. Clarke, Jean Coulthard, James Creighton, Barbara Custance, Terry Dale, Clifford Evens, jazz clarinetist Wally Fawkes, Don Francks, Don Garrard, Anthony Genge, Bryan Gooch, Ray Griff, Lance Harrison, Gordon Hilker, Edmund Hockridge, Desmond Hoebig, Gwen Hoebig, the cellist Gary Hoffman, Ricky Hyslop, Gerald Jarvis, G. Herald Keefer, Gordon Manley, the pianist Michelle Mares, Glen Morley, John Oliver, Doug Parker, Jon Kimura Parker, Jamie Parker, Betty Phillips, Arthur Polson, Nora Borrowman Polson, Dal Richards, Sherwood Robson, Thomas Rolston, Malcolm Tait, Heather Thomson, and Timothy Vernon.

Author Bryan N.S. Gooch