In the early half of the 20th century, Canadian composers recognized that there was a need to create a central repository for information on Canadian music as well as a need to promote and facilitate the performance of Canadian music. After much lobbying, the Canadian Music Centre (CMC) was officially formed in 1959. In its humble beginnings, the CMC was responsible for collecting and cataloguing serious musical works, developing a catalogue of music scores, copying and duplicating the music, and making it available for loan, both nationally and internationally.

The Canadian Music Centre today has grown to be Canada’s only organization mandated to house, actively promote and disseminate the music of Canada’s composers within Canada and internationally. With over 700 established Canadian composers to date (some 25-30 join each year), CMC makes these composers music accessible through an array of programs. At its core, the CMC houses a public lending library and archive totalling some 22,000+ music scores and recordings which continue to expand as composers deposit new works. CMC accepts new Associate Composers bi-annually through a juried process upon which their works may be deposited to the CMC archives.

Since its beginnings, the CMC has grown considerably and today five regional centres offer the music of its Associate Composers through full lending music libraries. In 1973, the Regional Centre in Montreal, Quebec was opened. This was followed in 1977 with a new CMC Centre in Vancouver B.C. and in 1980, the Music Centre already existing in the Prairie Region joined the CMC. The Ontario Regional Centre came into being in 1983 and became a tenant of the CMC National building in Toronto, sharing its library. In 1989, a CMC Atlantic office was created in Sackville, N.B., as a donation from Mount Allison's University, and is now part of its main Music Library space..