Education and outreach are key parts of the Guitar Society of Toronto’s mandate. We are committed to enriching Toronto’s cultural life and building awareness of classical music and classical guitar. We do this by providing performance opportunities for students and aspiring professionals, helping outstanding young guitarists pursue their musical development, creating a meeting place for guitar aficionados, organizing free concerts for schools and retirement homes, and other activities.
Investment in Students
The Guitar Society supports learning through classical music and classical guitar in a variety of ways:
Masterclasses
The Guitar Society supports the development of up-and-coming guitarists by sponsoring masterclasses at the University of Toronto for university level students.
Outreach concerts in schools and retirement homes
We are particularly excited by our Outreach Program, which funds guitar concerts and workshops in local schools and retirement homes. This program was for many years sponsored by the Kenneth G. Mills Foundation, and continues with the generous support of our donors.
These concerts benefit both performer and students, as they provide valuable performance experience to aspiring professional guitarists and give audiences a taste of live classical music played on guitar. Concerts are presented free of charge, and the performer is paid a modest fee by the Guitar Society.
If you would like to be considered as a performer for this program, or know of an organization which would benefit from a concert, please contact the coordinator at info@guitarsocietyoftoronto.com.
Commissioning
The Guitar Society of Toronto has a long history of commissioning works for guitar, with a focus on supporting new and upcoming Canadian composers. Recently, we commissioned a work from Dr. Daniel Mehdizadeh for Naoko Tsujita (marimba) and Daniel Ramjattan (guitar), which was premiered at the 21st Century Guitar Conference in Indiana in 2022. For more information about commissioning, please contact info@guitarsocietyoftoronto.com.
Urban Outreach
The Guitar Society of Toronto provides free tickets to each of its International Performing Artist Concerts so that people who could not normally attend classical music concerts can enjoy a taste of the classical guitar. Please contact info@guitarsocietyoftoronto.com.
Free Noon Hour Concerts at St. Andrew’s
These noon-time classical music performances take place Fridays from September to April at St. Andrew’s Church, King and Simcoe Sts. in downtown Toronto. Sign up to our email list to receive notifications of guitar performances, or visit standrewstoronto.org for a list of concerts.