Born in beautiful British Columbia, Tod has been playing and composing music for over 20 years. A recognized Vancouver singer/songwriter, guitarist and drummer in the 1990’s, Tod’s ensembles have included: The Jaunting Car, Crawl and Trust Us, Prof. Zio and The Zio Ensemble, which have ranged in style from experimental pop to avant-garde. In 1996, Tod attended Vancouver Community College and graduated in 1999 with a major in Composition & minor in Guitar. While there he worked with post-modern composers Peter Hanan and David Duke. He was also notably given the citation of “Best Performance/Composition in the history of Performance Technique at VCC” by Jerry Domer (V.C.C. Prof.) In 2000, Tod moved to Toronto. Since then, he has been the recipient of two Interplay Composers Symposium Workshops Awards hosted by Jon Washburn and the Vancouver Chamber Choir in 2000/2005 and has studied privately with renowned guitar pedagogue, Eli Kassner. He has also had master classes with guitar virtuosos, Pavel Stedil, Remi Boucher and Andrew Zohn
Tod currently has eight solo guitar pieces published with Les Productions d’OZ. His solo guitar work Passion Prelude, was favourably reviewed by internationally-acclaimed guitar virtuoso Christopher Parkening, and in response to hearing Tod’s latest guitar solo, Alma Española, guitar icon Andy Summers (The Police) commented: “Clearly, you are a talented guitarist and composer”. Tod has over 50 solo works for various instruments distributed throughout the world; his unique brand of 21st century composition is sought after by virtuoso guitarists, instrumentalists and teachers alike! Tod lives in Toronto Canada with his wife, Catherine and 3 young children, Eden, Gabriel and Jericho. Tod likes to paint in the summers and many of his photos don the covers of his scores.
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