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The Canadian tenor, violinist, director and music teacher, Larry Beckwith, began his immersion in music in childhood. After graduating from Jarvis Collegiate, he studied violin and musicology at the University of Toronto, obtaining undergraduate and graduate music degrees..
Larry Beckwith enjoys a successful and versatile career in the arts in and around Toronto. He has been called a “musical polymath” for his wide-ranging professional experience and interests. He has vigorously pursued his interests in choral music, Baroque and contemporary music, theatre, radio, teaching and writing. He has been a radio producer, sound designer, singer, Baroque violinist, journalist, university sessional instructor, teacher and festival programmer. As a professional singer, he has appeared regularly with the Elora Festival Singers, Tafelmusik Chamber Choir, Opera Atelier, Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and the Exultate Chamber Singers. As an accomplished Baroque violinist, he studied with Jeanne Lamon and was a founding member of the Arbor Oak Trio and the the Aradia Baroque Ensemble (Director: Kevin Mallon). He has also conducted two mainstage productions for Toronto Operetta Theatre - John Beckwith’s Taptoo! and La Vie Parisienne by Jacques Offenbach.
In 2003, Larry Beckwith founded Toronto Masque Theatre (TMT). As the Artistic Director of TMT, he puts into play his intense interest in presenting multi-discplinary, eclectic programs featuring music, dance, theatre and other performing arts disciplines in innovative, open and entertaining ways. Always of the highest calibre, brimming with a palpable combination of intellect and joy and wide-ranging in their historical scope, TMT productions are a reflection of Beckwith’s innovative and unpretentious approach to performance. Under his artistic leadership, TMT has presented more than 25 critically-acclaimed programs of interdisciplinary performing art, including a cycle of the five major music theatre works by Henry Purcell and stage works by Molière, Igor Stravinsky, John Blow, John Beckwith, Monteverdi, George Frideric Handel, Charpentier and others. Through TMT, Beckwith has commissioned and premiered new works in the spirit of the masque by Canadian composers Abigail Richardson, James Rolfe, Omar Daniel, Dean Burry and Alice Ho.
As a teacher, Larry Beckwith runs the celebrated strings program at the arts-intensive Unionville High School and lives in Toronto with his wife, soprano Teri Dunn, and their two daughters, Alison and Juliet. |
