Alan Darragh was born May 1985 in a small hospital outside of Ottawa, Canada, the fourth child of Ian Darragh, a writer, editor and communications specialist, and Maria, a teacher. Following in the footsteps of his three older siblings, he took up piano at the age of seven. That was also the year he startled his grade two teacher when he asked if he could use "abbreviations" instead of spelling out the whole word. His ingenuity showed up in unusual ways. He said, "When I was doing my piano exercises I used buttons so I’d know how many times I’d done my exercise. When the piano tuner came to tune the piano he couldn't figure out why the piano was full of buttons and paper clips and other small objects. I would put ten buttons on the piano keys and every time I finished a scale, I would move a button to count down the number of scales."
Like many other youngsters, he started out in the classical stream. Alan said, "I know that nobody likes to hear a speech about someone's 101 mentors, so I will keep this brief. I started out on a diet of Bach inventions, classical theory, contemporary music under the strict, but fortunately for me, flexible direction of Winifred Canty and Colin Mack. There were a couple of teachers before them. They got me started but it was with Miss Canty and Colin that I got to be more than fingers playing scales and cute songs."
In her youth, Winifred Canty won a full scholarship to the Julliard School of Music but she froze her hand in a freak skiing accident and had to give it up. She was brilliant and a renegade, which is probably why she got on so well with Alan. He said, "Lessons with her were half about her life. I remember her showing me Liberace's autograph on the inside of the lid of her Steinway piano. He'd borrowed it to play at a concert he gave in Ottawa. She taught Paul Anka and her good friend was Bill Glen, who helped launch the long-running television soap opera The Young and the Restless. For many years she co-hosted a children's CBC TV show with Jack Pearse. Every Wednesday after school, their show, "Vacation Time," covered everything from stories, to music, to art, to swimming pointers.
Her funniest stories were about her pet skunk and the antics it caused when unsuspecting visitors knocked on her door! But as a musician there was no one like her. There wasn’t anything she didn’t know about music – classical, jazz, rock – she was up on everything. Even with the damage that she suffered to her hand (at one point the doctors said it would have to be amputated) she could still play with incredible virtuosity and had a touch like an inspired angel. She was phenomenal. But what was most valuable to me was that I could talk to her about music to my heart’s content. I had a lot of 'WHY should it be this way' questions for her and none of it fazed her. We’d spend hours arguing. My greatest regret was she had to stop teaching after she fell on some ice and injured herself seriously."
After Alan left Miss Canty, he studied with a teacher trained in Germany. She brought a different interpretation to the music, which intrigued him. But it wasn’t long before she started to complain that he was more interested in improvising off the music than playing it with technical precision. Alan persisted and soon they were at loggerheads in earnest. YOU CAN’T IMPROVISE ON BACH, she’d exclaim throughout the lesson. It genuinely pained her to listen to the liberties Alan took with the masters. She finally came up with an inspired solution. She suggested Alan might find the study of jazz a more congenial fit. He said, "I thought why not? I liked improvisation and improvising on Bach was not looked on too fondly. Jazz, on the other hand, from what I was told was all about improvising. That sounded good to me. But at that point I didn’t know much about what jazz was."
In October of 2000, he dropped out of the gifted program at Lisgar Collegiate Institute before completing his tenth grade. He’d already been home schooled during his early elementary years and wished to return to that arrangement. Not having to attend regular school would free him up to concentrate on music. Almost from the day he’d started to learn the rudiments of music notation, he’d written his own compositions and there was a lot he wanted to learn.He began his jazz studies in 2001 with Dave Hildinger, "a brilliant arranger, composer and conductor at home with both bebop and modern jazz" as well as a sensitive artist with an extraordinary touch on the piano. 
Hildinger had played with the Charlie Ventura Quintet and the experimental Sauter-Finnegan Orchestra in the 1950s. From 1966 to 1970, he was the director of RIAS Berlin Orchestra. In 1971, he started the jazz program at the University of Ottawa, where he was a professor for 25 years. He recorded with Stan Getz between 1991 and 1999. He’d just retired when he took on Alan. Although he did private teaching, he coached already established musicians who wanted to hone their skills. He did not teach rookies. Fortunately, he made an exception in Alan’s case.
2003 Colin Mack and Alan Darragh - Ottawa
A rigorous and generous teacher, Hildinger left no jazz touchstone unturned. A relentless taskmaster with a stunning temper, he walked Alan through the intricacies of jazz. In this brilliant man, Alan met his match in wilfulness. He’d return from each lesson with his cheeks burning fiercely red with exertion and massive frustration. Hildinger brooked no discussions or deviations from his curriculum. Alan said, "He taught me just about everything I needed to know about jazz, and more importantly, musical discipline. But I never could talk to him about the things I was interested in. I kept it a big dark secret because my ideas were the exact opposite of what he was teaching. You couldn’t bring them up and you certainly couldn’t play the way I wanted to play during the class."
Hildinger's lessons were so dense and advanced that Alan went to Clay Young, an experienced jazz pianist, for help. Together they mulled over the Gordian knots Hildinger assigned. It was a challenge for both because even Young sometimes found it hard slogging. Hildinger was one of those rare teachers who cut a student cold if they came to him unprepared. He told Alan right from the start, "Don't bother coming if you haven't done your work." He meant it too.
Alan took to the language and nomenclature of jazz like the proverbial duck to water. But his interest lay less with mastering interpretive skills or technical wizardry. His creative impulse remained dominant. He immediately became fascinated with chords. He spent hours creating his own combinations. New compositions emerged from these experiments.
Clayton Young and Alan Darragh
In spite of Hildinger’s rigid focus on jazz standards, Alan gradually wormed a few of his own compositions into the lessons. But other than making a few technical corrections and giving him a terse yea or nay, there was no discussion. Although this left Alan frustrated, he was heartened when Hildinger commented on one of these occasions, "You will make your mark in composition."
As part of his studies, Hildinger suggested that Alan study classical theory and harmony. Colin Mack, a quiet and introspective teacher, prepared students for The Royal Conservatory Music exams at the University of Ottawa Professional Training Services. As a "conservatory" teacher, he taught from a preset structured curriculum. Its inflexibility was not at all to Alan’s liking, so right from the beginning it was made clear that the emphasis was on learning and not cramming to pass an exam. In fact, he had no intention of writing any exams. Alan said, "As far as I was concerned, the conservatory program barely covered the questions I had. It left no room for what I wanted to know. I didn’t care about passing exams. I remember one time suggesting to Colin that Bach could have used a different chord in a piece we were studying. I thought it sounded better. I was very adamant about it too." Fortunately, Mack was foremost a musician and a composer in his own right and took it all in stride. But he did say that although it was OK for Alan to question Bach’s genius in his class, it wouldn’t be a good idea to do the same if he decided to take a formal conservatory class. There was no danger of that. Although Colin’s background was classical, after he took Alan
through classical theory and harmony, they’d spend the greater part of the time discussing the theoretical and harmonic differences between classical and jazz music.
After moving to Toronto at the end of 2004, Alan continued his studies with Bernie Senensky, who has the reputation of being one of Canada's premier jazz artists. As well as being an accomplished pianist, Senensky is a composer and arranger of jazz works with two of his albums nominated for Juno awards. Alan said, "Bernie gave me invaluable constructive criticism about my compositions. Our styles are very different, but it didn’t matter. I could talk about my ideas. With Mr. Hildinger, it was student/teacher. With Bernie, although he was teaching me, it was more as colleagues. He didn’t always agree with me, but we’d have long discussions about it. He was also very encouraging, which for someone starting out, is essential."
2009 - Alan Darragh at work, Despot Studio, Toronto
