Our Champions
/CHam pee ONs/
noun 1. a person who is fully behind this project
Jim Cuddy
“Toronto has always been a hotbed of music creativity. So much and so little of it documented. A Toronto music museum could tell the story for generations of musicians, writers and producers to come. It helps to know who came before you. "
Michie Mee
“It's high time for a music museum that features all the genres and showcases the whole rich history of recorded sounded in Toronto. A museum inclusive of all the colourful humans who have made good music in our city."
Alannah Myles
“The Toronto Music Experience is long overdue for a city that has inspired so many to greater heights in the music industry than anyone might have imagined.”
Jay Douglas
“Music is an international language and its message is love. We cannot live without music, so let's preserve it history now and for future generations. For these reasons, I support the creation of the Toronto Music Museum.”
Maestro Fresh Wes
“We should document Toronto's music history - I'm so honoured to part of it. "
Sylvia Tyson
songwriters and musicians of all kinds. It was the starting place of my own career in 1959, and the rich and diverse creative atmosphere I found in Toronto had an indelible effect on the subsequent direction of my writing and performing. The scope of this project, the gallery, the performance venue, the recording studio, and the educational programs, all would make it not just a museum, but an active, relevant, ongoing experience and a must-see destination not just for residents of the city and its satellites, but an exciting and engrossing tourist destination.
"Toronto has always been a microcosm, a magnet for the best in Canadian musical talent for decades, a Mecca for singers,
QuiQue Escamilla
"The presence of rhythm and pulse in our lives may be traced all the way back to the beginning of human life in the womb.
Our mothers' heartbeats are the first drum beats we hear and feel, and regardless of genre, language, tempo, or era, all people enjoy the soothing energy that music can provide. Before any other language, music is our species' built-in universal language. As a result, it deserves a special home that documents, records, and preserves its history and evolution across time.
Murray McLauchlan
“Top ten reasons for not having a Canadian music museum in Toronto? There aren’t any! Canadian music has been second to none for decades and we need to document and celebrate that.”
Carole Pope
“Toronto has a rich musical heritage that I was lucky to be a part of. So many great musicians continue to come out of the city. It would be amazing to preserve and celebrate that scene in a Toronto music museum."
Dan Hill
It would take several chapters to include all the towering musical talent that has been based out of Toronto. More than ever, to commemorate such a musically iconic city, we need a Toronto music museum."
"I’ve written songs, performed and recorded around the world for close to 50 years. The more I travel, the more I realize that Toronto remains one of the most potent musical centers anywhere. Period.
Kim Mitchell
"As a musician who moved here at 17 and has lived here since .. You see that Toronto has a pretty kool musical history ... in all genres! .. & that’s why I’m supporting The Toronto Music Experience” ... A place where anyone can go and learn about this city's great musical history ... & as it continues to evolve for generations to come!"
Cheri Maracle
“The Toronto Music Experience is an extraordinary endeavour to document and celebrate a wealth of music past and present. As an Indigenous vocalist
and songwriter. I previously found space to express my stories through music on the local stages of Toronto, and the encouragement from peers and audiences propelled me forward. I saw the Indigenous music industry grow and flourish in Toronto and I'm so grateful for the chance to see it become the vibrant and revolutionary scene it is today. TME will service the up and comers, and invite a new audience to witness the societal growth and change that has taken place as we've solidified our place in the present music Industry."
David
Clayton-Thomas
“Yonge Street (The Strip) was a hotbed of talent in the 1960s. Stretching from King to Bloor, there were a dozen or more bars featuring live music. This is where artists who would
later become world famous honed their craft. This was the birthplace of the “Toronto Sound.” It’s wonderful to see a museum dedicated to this amazing era and celebrating its place in the rich creative history of the city. "
Julian Taylor
city should be represented and put on display for the rest of the world to see and hear and learn from. I am all for a Toronto Music Museum and hope to see pictures and stories on the walls of some of my mentors and idols to fill the halls with pure glory and fond memories."
"Toronto is such a vast and beautiful city with a rich musical history, from the Riverboat in Yorkville to The Underground Railroad Club overlooking the Rosedale Ravine. The sheer talent that has come out of our
Lorraine Segato
"In every world class city you’re going to find a physical space that is representative of the importance of that city’s cultural history. So let’s do that here. The Toronto Music Experience is an idea
who’s time has finally come. And our own rich cultural history can be celebrated and honoured and we can showcase the music artists that have helped to form us into the cosmopolitan city we are today. We can trace a line throughout the decades, from the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s grassroots music and change movements, and actually see how we were responsible for catalyzing this transformation from the small provincial city into a thriving diverse hub. When we turn our lens on our own cultural history, not only do we recognize the importance of our roots but we can see the connections to our present and we can cast a lifeline to future generations who want to leave their own indelible mark in this fantastic city."
Steven Page
“The story of Toronto’s musical history is the story of Toronto itself: multicultural, exciting, problematic, rapidly growing, underestimated, overhyped, and, ultimately, important. From Glenn Gould to The Weeknd, the Cowboy
Junkies to Leroy Sibbles, Gordon Lightfoot to Drake, Torontonians have shaped the cultural landscape of their times. The Toronto Music Experience will provide a great place to explore and celebrate Toronto’s musical past, present and future..”
Brenda Russell
“I never studied music, but when I came from Hamilton to Toronto at the behest of Al Rain, who became my first manager when I joined the vocal group he managed called The Tiaras,
that was where I zoomed in on my trajectory which has brought me to this moment. The musicians, singers and writers I met when I moved to Toronto, that was like going to a university for music for me. Being around Doug Riley, Eric Mercury, Steve Kennedy, Mouse Johnson, Dianne Brooks and Shawne Jackson Troiano—this was my “college” experience. I will be eternally grateful for finding my musical path through all of those beautiful souls. Toronto is always deep in my heart and I’m honoured to be a champion of the Toronto Music Experience."
George Stroumboloupoulos
and I think it’s enormously important to create a space where they can all live together. In part, so we can celebrate what incredible artists have already done, but also to have a place that feeds the imagination to inspire our next wave of musicians."
"Our stories don’t exist as isolated moments. They are each a part of the collection of memories and experiences that tell the tale of who we were,
Shawne Jackson
"Toronto has Always been The Major Music Hub of Canada!
Reggae, Rock, Rockabilly, RnB and Country. You name it, Canada had and still has it all.
It is time to properly promote, preserve
and showcase our musical heritage. We need a facility worthy of the talent we are remembering and exalting. It is high time we had a Major Music Museum in Toronto! We are long overdue!"
Paul Shaffer
“I’ve been hearing some ideas floating around about something called the Toronto Music Experience. This is a proposal for something that might be built in the future. It sounds
absolutely marvellous to me, because it would be a museum and a tribute to Toronto and how influential it continues to be in music. It certainly was for me, from the classical music of Glenn Gould and watching the CBC and getting to see Norman Amadio, up through the Toronto Sound and all the great r&b groups of the 1960s that influenced me so much. Now look at today: the biggest artists on the planet happen to be from Toronto. So Toronto deserves a place like the Toronto Music Experience. It would be an interactive place, with rooms for creating, for making music, for listening to music. It’s a fantastic idea and I support it 100 per cent."
The Weather Station
“Toronto is an incredible music city. It is unparalleled in terms of the sheer wealth of amazing musicians,
the strength of the community and the diversity of musical genre and spirit that comes from here. But that has never been visible to visitors to the city—if you don't know where to go, it's hard to find evidence of the powerful and diverse music that has come from this place and it's hard to even know that there is a thriving music scene here. I strongly support the idea of a space where visitors or residents could go to touch and experience Toronto's musical history - and present - and future. It would mean a lot to all of us who live and work here to see our music scene immortalized in this way."
Lee Aaron
Toronto has such a diverse and rich musical history to be proud of. It absolutely deserves a music museum where we can educate and celebrate this incredible legacy."
"So many talents, with roots in Toronto, have made a national as well as powerful global impact.
Kairo McLean
"Toronto is blessed with sounds from many cultures. As a city, we should uplift people through music and I believe the Toronto Music Experience will help do this."
Snow
“I give 1000% to this beautiful thing, the Toronto Music Experience. Me growing up in Toronto, in a place called the Allenbury project, a lot of
different cultures, country, reggae, rock, this is going to be a beautiful thing for the city and for the culture. I’m really excited. Let’s go! “Informer”—who else could write these songs but someone from Toronto, being around all these different cultures? Big up all this and big up the Toronto Music Experience. It’s going to be a beautiful thing for the kids and for the culture. Love and respect.”
Daniel Lanois
"Thank you for taking the time to celebrate the wealth of talent that has come up through the decades of music making in Toronto.
I see it as a chance to respect the past and, as always, embrace what the future might hold. No matter how far I travel, I always think about all the many inventive records that I have made in Ontario and the artists behind them."
Keshia Chanté
We have created some of the most talented producers, musicians, writers, singers the world has seen. And now, for the first time ever, I’m really seeing Toronto being acknowledged on a global scale. When I travel internationally, people acknowledge how amazing Toronto is as a city and how it has been a hub for so much talent. And I think it’s time that the city itself acknowledges those people. There are a ton of legends that have been underrepresented, or deserves their flowers. There is a lot of up-and-coming talent that is incredible, making huge strides, making record-breaking numbers, that are not being acknowledged. And I feel like it would be such a wonderful experience and really inspirational for those to see how much talent we truly have in this city. I would love to see the Toronto Music Experience happen and would be 100 per cent behind it, supporting it and promoting it. And I would love a really good history lesson on this amazingly talented city."
"Toronto is such an incredible city that I feel deserves so much more respect, so much more acknowledgement.
John Irving
"Although I’ve only lived in Toronto full-time for the past ten years, I have been listening to its musicians for as long as I can remember, and regarded Toronto as a significant city for
innovative and globally embraced musical talent. It astonishes me that there is no museum celebrating the contributions Toronto musicians have made to the world, including Glenn Gould, Gordon Lightfoot, Sylvia Tyson and many others. The Toronto Music Experience is too important not to happen, and it needs to happen now."
Lawrence Gowan
“TME is a great idea that I fully support. The vital importance of music in our lives and our musicians, many of whom have achieved worldwide acclaim, and a music scene that has thrived in Toronto for decades, need
a public place of acknowledgement. Historic venues that have come (and many that have sadly gone) mean so much to the development and growth of Toronto's musical story, and deserve to be honoured in one place that rightfully recognizes their significance."
And a few more ...
Chris Taylor (MNRK)
George F Walker
Gil Moore
Leroy Sibbles
Lorraine Segato
Lou Pomanti
Marc Jordan
Matt Dusk
and the beat goes on...