6 Best Music Classes for Kids in Toronto

How will you know if you're living with the next Beethoven if you don't expose him or her to music lessons? Here are a few picks for music classes in Toronto.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I know someday you’ll go far.
Up above Bloor, or in the South, East or West,
Music lessons can inspire your best.

Early exposure to music has been credited with a host of developmental benefits and with improving overall brain function in children. The key to their enjoyment–and willingness to stick with lessons–is finding an instructor who knows how to hit the right note with kids.

Julie Sousa of Annette Street Music, located in the Junction, definitely knows how to play along. This 14-year veteran of musical instruction is more than capable of inspiring and motivating your little virtuoso.

Sousa also teaches adapted lessons for children with special needs and she knows how to draw beginners, as young as three, into the world of music. (If you’ve been considering moving beyond ‘Chopsticks’ yourself, she educates adult students as well.)

Private lessons are taught in her home/studio or Sousa will travel within the city’s west end to students’ homes.

Beyond cultivating minor piano players, Annette Street Music hosts Creative Moments, a preschool-age music and language program at Wise Daughter’s Craft Market on Sunday mornings. We love the small class sizes (just three to five children, all aged 3 and 4) and that, without knowing it, our kids are being introduced to piano and music theory, rhythmic skills, syllable identification and more while singing and dancing. (The next session begins in mid-November. Sousa can offer additional days and times with sufficient enrollment, so don’t be worried about getting a spot.)

For kids who’ve grown up and out of popular rhyming songs, Annette Street Music has a child ensemble group: the Annette Street Choir. In the current season, they’ve tackled Florence & The Machine, Arcade Fire and Gotye, culminating in a concert where they get to show off the fun indie rock/pop songs they’ve spent weeks working on together.

Jazz things up a bit in your house. Check out our picks for the Best Music Classes for Kids in Toronto.