Charles F. Thiele

Charles F. Thiele, a distinguished musician of Waterloo, invented a collapsible metal music stand and was the first music stand manufacturer in Canada. He came to Waterloo from New York in 1919 and founded the Waterloo Music Company and the Waterloo Metal Stampings Company producing music stands, drums, cymbals, other rhythm instruments and office furniture.

Bandmaster of the Waterloo Musical Society, which he led for thirty-two years from 1919, he also organized the Ontario Bandmen’s Association and founded the Canadian Bandmasters’ Association.

No music festival on the continent was comparable with the Waterloo Music Festival which he started in 1932 with fifteen bands and eighty solo contestants. In 1953 there were sixty bands and 1,000 individual entries.

Thiele, who was particularly interested in forwarding the musical interests of young people, bought a sixty-five acre property near Bamberg as a summer music camp which he dedicated to the memory of Canadian bandsmen who died in the two world wars. His large library of band music was willed to the Waterloo Musical Society.