Gareth Burgess

Gareth BurgessGareth has been playing the steel pans for over 15 years and is currently enrolled in the Music Faculty at York University, Toronto in the Jazz Program, having given up a basketball scholarship in the US to pursue a career in music. Since participating in the relentless jazz ensemble playing in the York program over the last couple years, he has developed into one of the finest jazz soloists in the city, with a refined technique reminiscent of Northern Illinois university’s Liam Teague. He has played in three of Toronto’s top steelbands: Silhouettes, Panatics, and Earl La Pierre’s famed Afropan. This has given him the opportunity to work with some of the best arrangers in the city. Gareth teaches steelband classes at two high schools in the Greater Toronto Area. His father Lindy Burgess, who leads the Toronto chapter of the La Petite Musicale Choir, also teaches a steelband ensemble class at the York U. Faculty of Music. Gareth plays drums with that student band at York and coaches the ensemble students as a Teaching Assistant in the Faculty.