Don Mowatt - Revised Libretto


Don Mowatt was born in Montreal. In 1964 he was appointed producer of radio arts at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Vancouver, where he remained for thirty-four years. In that capacity he won nearly every North American award for broadcasting, including:
  • multiple ACTRA awards
  • two Peabody awards
  • awards from the Gabriel, Armstrong, and Wilbur competitions
  • special awards from B'nai B'rith and the New York Radio Arts Festival
Since 1997, Don has been on the faculty of Creative Writing, Film, and Theatre at UBC, and he has been co-artistic director of Western Gold Theatre, a professional company for performers over the age of fifty-five.

Don's play for actress and harp, The Collected Silences of David's Mother, has been performed on tour by Rita Costanzi in British Columbia, Ontario, New York state, and Great Britain, where it received its British premiere at historic Clare College Chapel in Cambridge. He has written an opera libretto, The Caravanserai, for Cambridge composer Kate Waring. He also lectures, directs, writes, and performs for the Scandinavian community on the west coast of Canada and the U.S.

Further links and information

  • Don's higher education included eight years of study in Edinburgh on the 1953 J.P. Crerar scholarship. He later attended the University of Victoria and the University of British Columbia, where he studied German and English literature.
Don Mowatt's creativity serves both the formal and informal higher education of Canadians. He continues a creative partnership with his longtime colleague Jurgen Hesse and has directed, edited, performed and written music for many of their joint productions heard on CBC Radio in Canada and abroad. Some of Don's and Jurgen's joint or separate work for the Ideas series is available in transcript or can be sampled online.