Eli Kassner

Eli Kassner (born 27 May 1924 Vienna, Austria) is a Canadian guitar teacher and musician. Eli Kassner studied guitar in Vienna and Israel prior to moving to Canada in 1951. He performed until 1967. In 1956, he founded the Guitar Society of Toronto. He was its president from 1960 to 1966 and artistic director from 1970 to 2008. In 1967, he established the Eli Kassner Guitar Academy. He established the guitar program at the University of Toronto and the The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto (RCMT) in 1959 and started the University of Toronto Guitar Ensemble in 1978. In the 1970s, Kassner became interested in microphotography, and worked as a composer and performer for the CBC Television series The Lively Arts and The Nature of Things.