pianist

Ken Gee is a Classical pianist born in Hamilton but now a longtime resident of Guelph.  He studied music at McMaster University, where he was awarded the McMaster Medal for the Creative and Performing Arts, and piano in Toronto with Boris Berlin. Ken was a music critic for the Hamilton Spectator, manager for chamber music series and Ensemble Sir Ernest MacMillan, co-director of the Hamilton Kiwanis Music Festival, and a teacher at McMaster University, Sheridan College and Mohawk College. He developed classical piano music software for PG Music Inc., Victoria, and computer-engraves music for the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.

Ken has performed an impressive amount of string and piano chamber music, especially repertoire for violin & piano, cello & piano, and piano trio, quartet and quintet. He has also been the pianist for choirs, including the Guelph Youth Singers. Although known mainly as a collaborative pianist, Ken has also given many concerto performances with various orchestras (including Bach, Mendelssohn, Bloch, the Canadian premiere of the Yellow River Concerto, and more recently, Mozart with the Cambridge Symphony), as well as solo piano recitals.

He is the pianist for Suzuki String School of Guelph, and Suzuki summer Institutes in Waterloo and Montreal. Ken has also been a piano adjudicator, private teacher and chamber music coach. He is on the board of the Guelph Youth Music Centre (former chair) and the Kiwanis Music Festival of Guelph. In 2008, he was the recipient of a City of Guelph Mayor’s Award. Ken is married to his violinist wife, Paule Barsalou (teacher and teacher trainer at the Suzuki String School of Guelph and Laurier).

Ken created and continues to be the sole organizer of Guelph Musicfest (guelphmusicfest.ca), a chamber music festival at the Guelph Youth Music Centre (gymc.ca), celebrating its 19th season in 2025. Select Guelph Musicfest concerts are repeated in Hamilton and Thornbury (Blue Mountain).