Hello Parents and Students!  As usual, the summer has passed rather too quickly and the school year is upon us!  We have been very busy at ABC over the summer and have a lot of things to update you about as things get rolling for the academic year.  If you have any questions, please call us at 416-651-7529.

Lessons Begin September 3

We start right away after Labour Day.  As part of our new software system, you should get reminder emails every week about your lesson time.

New Software System

In addition to automatic emails, there will be a variety of things that may affect you.  We will be more easily able to book your times, change times if there is a one-time schedule problem, and make sure that you can always access the schedule from your internet connection.  This way you can instantly be aware of holiday weeks, scheduled make-ups, moved times, etc.

We hope to give students and parents access to this system before the New Year.  We’ll keep you posted!

As we transition to this new system, we are moving our payment system with it.  We hope that there will be no hiccups, but ask for your patience and communication should anything unusual happen.  We are taking care to make sure this end of things is as you expect it to be.

Construction and Upgrades

We have been undergoing some repairs and upgrades to the school.  This should not interrupt lessons, but may cause some disarray and dirt in some of our studios.  We have asked teachers to have their students wear shoes in the event that this should happen, both for sock cleanliness, but also for safety.

Hello, Goodbye, and See You Soon

Each year we have a number of teachers that have increased opportunity and move on to take advantage of them.  This is a bittersweet time, as we are sad to lose excellent people, but ABC deliberately chooses teachers that are professionally viable – we really believe that this makes a teacher more vital and excited about what they do.

So, we have a number of people leaving, new faces joining us, and some of our teachers who will be off for short periods this year.

Goodbye

Sally Norris, Josh Laing, Tamsin Johnston, Anita Lin, and Christopher Cancian are leaving to pursue a variety of things, from more education, to greater professional opportunity, and even to be Principal Oboist in the Regina Symphony (Woo-hoo Tamsin!)  We wish them the very best, and look forward to hearing of the great things they will do.

For Josh’s Students, most will be assumed by Leandro, and Academic Tutoring will be taken on by Avi.

Hello

We are delighted to welcome the following new faculty members:

The photos and Biographies for these new Teachers can be seen on the Teachers Page!

See You Soon

Some teachers will have some temporary leave this autumn.  Laura Savage (Drums) will be away until the new year on Saturdays only.  Lisa Ribout (Piano) will be having a baby this winter, and will likely be away from as early as the start of November, and be back in the late winter or early spring.  Fabio Dwyer (Guitar) is also taking a leave after the first few weeks of the year, and we will update his students as to his replacement as that information becomes available.

Coming Soon

We are currently in the final stages of searching for another Piano Teacher and Clarinet Teacher.  We will update those as soon as possible, and if your lessons are directly concerned, we will be in touch with you directly.  Sally Norris’ replacement for Tuesdays, will be Lisa Ribout for a short period of time.