Toronto-based Italian-Canadian composer, theorist, educator, and copyist Massimo Guida was born in Modena, Italy, in 1990, and has lived in Canada since 2008. He completed his doctoral studies in composition at the University of Toronto in 2019, under the supervision of Professor Christos Hatzis. Described by La Scena Musicale in 2012 as a composer who writes with “a particularly strong melodic inspiration,” Massimo seeks to combine his fondness for Italian melodic lyricism and storytelling with a contemporary musical language in his works. A multi-award-winning composer, in 2015 he won the Violet Archer Prize, for his song cycle Confessions (2014), as well as the Mississauga Festival Choir Competition for his choral work Infant Joy (2013), which was written for the birth of his nephew. Massimo’s compositions and arrangements have been performed and read in Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, South Korea, and the United States, by artists including the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra, the Brantford Symphony Orchestra, the North York Concert Orchestra, The Music4Life Ensemble, Fawn Chamber Creative, Slow Rise Music, The Odin Quartet, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, the Interro Quartet, the Bedford Trio, the Mississauga Festival Choir, the Fujita–Ko Duo, the GamUT Contemporary Ensemble, the University of Toronto Brass Ensemble, organist James Devor, Juno nominee Lindsay Schoolcraft, and pianist Alexander Panizza. He served as the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra New Generation Affiliate Composer during the 2020–21 season, and also took part at the Orford Music Academy in 2020. One of his piano compositions, Fantasia Sopra Sei Temi di Puccini (2021), is featured on Panizza’s album Everything Waits for the Lilacs, in collaboration with the SPO, which was released in March 2024. A keen supporter of contemporary music in Canada, Massimo also served on the board of the Canadian League of Composers as an Ontario councillor between 2020 and 2022, and is an associate composer with the Canadian Music Centre, as well as a Professional Member of the Canadian League of Composers.
(2024)
