All the World’s a Stage Part 2: TTC Musicians

Benny Lozano at Bloor-Yonge Station

Last December, a Scarborough rap duo put out the video “I Get On (the TTC),” which received a huge amount of attention online and in the media.  A Toronto take away show of sorts, their comical yet sympathetic rap on the TTC was recorded in buses, subways and stations all over Toronto.

Like the Take Away Shows from my last post, these semi-impromptu performances beg the question of what constitutes a professional performance when it is done in a public space.  Is everyone a professional when they are playing in public?

Part of the appeal of these Take Away Shows seems to be that they capture popular, signed musicians performing in spaces common to even the most musically challenged of us, rather than on the exclusive stages of clubs and concert halls, while also being free for all to see rather than for merely those lucky ticket holders. Yet, as the Scarborough duo shows us, unsigned and technically amateur musicians who have been using the public spaces of cities as a stage for generations can be equally as enjoyable.

Besides rap videos, Toronto is the stage for a huge number of professional-sounding musicians playing daily on its public spaces. The classical violinist in King station, the more exotic sounds of buskers in the Bloor/Yonge Station or the ever-changing lineup of musicians playing in the Spadina subway pedestrian tunnel immediately come to mind.

Li Wang at Sheppard-Yonge Station

The TTC, just like other cultural venues around the City like Roy Thompson Hall, the El Mocambo, the new Opera House or the tiny Communist’s Daughter, has its own standards for performers. Musicians must apply annually for a license, followed by an audition at the CNE before a panel of judges every summer for the year-long gig.  A tradition of live music in our subways has a thirty year history; in 1979, eight musicians were selected by the TTC to perform in eight subway stations around the city. Today, 86 Musicians play in 25 stations around Toronto.

This year’s 31st Annual TTC Subway Musicians’ Auditions for the 2009-2010 season are taking place on August 21-23 at the Canadian National Exhibition where up to 175 solo or duo acts will be invited to Audition.  Get your ‘tokens’ now from a TTC station near you…

To listen to recordings and interviews of musicians who play on the TTC, check out the Underground Music radio show, which has 4 episodes available for downloading.

Photo by Todd Tyrtle