Cole Canaday began his musical journey when he chose the viola as his first learned instrument when he was 11, and has been a dedicated working musician from the age of 15 where he attended the Etobicoke School of the Arts as a music major. During his high school years in his spare time Cole took part in every extra-curricular ensemble available to him and practised the viola for up to 6 hours a day. On weekends Cole would take on paying gigs and busk in string quartets for the public to practice performing for others.
Cole's love and appreciation for music began much earlier on in his life however. At the age of 3 he would play with his favorite toy, a small 4 octave electronic keyboard, for prolonged periods of time. He took joy in memorizing how to play the pre-programmed musical arrangements and subsequently learned to transpose them by ear which sparked great musical literacy from a young age.
Cole continued to pursue his passion for music and graduated from the University of Toronto with a bachelor of music under the tutelage of Katharine Rapoport where his studies focused on performing, music education and music theory. As a result Cole puts a large emphasis on music theory in his teaching, getting his students to take as much time studying music as playing their instrument to bolster musical literacy.
Currently Cole enjoys teaching and performing in a variety of different genres as a freelance performer and music educator, while also operating and cultivating his family business as an arborist! Coles especially enjoys playing string quartets and staged plays such as operas and musicals. In his spare time Cole enjoys making string arrangements from a variety of different genres, experimenting with synthetic sounds on his electric violin, and continues to enjoy working with the North York Concert Orchestra as their principal violist.