Daisy Sweeney taught musical icons

Daisy Sweeney, the woman credited with being the first teacher of Canadian musical talents like her brother Oscar Peterson and Oliver Jones, has died at the age of 97.

Sylvia Sweeney says her mother’s impact on numerous lives went beyond Montreal’s Black community and the musical icons who credit her with their success.

“One of her greatest accomplishments: She broke the colour barrier by taking students she’d taught for 25 cents a lesson on Saturdays and took them to preparatorial exams at McGill University, to competitions,” Sweeney said Monday.

“She changed the picture of what was possible — not in the minds of those children — but in the minds of those who were adjudicating them.”

Daisy Sweeney was born Daisy Elitha Peterson in1920 in Montreal’s Saint-Henri district.

She eschewed the usual occupations for Black people at the time and paid her way through a music degree at McGill University.

Meanwhile, she was enlisted by her father to train the Peterson kids, among others.

Sylvia Sweeney said her mother had a philosophy of exceeding expectations; that was her legacy and what the mother of eight instilled in her own kids. “My mom didn’t care whether it was piano, or any instrument or any vocation, she just always said, ‘Never leave anything, go to something.’ ”Although she wasn’t able to play music in the last years of her life, she still very much enjoyed music.

“The very last photo taken of her, my sister had her with her earphones on listening to Oscar play,” Sweeney said.

“She went out the way she lived, with music.”

A public service is planned for Saturday morning at Union United Church in Montreal.