Music Educator Diane Kolin teaches music to Regent Park residents with disabilities

By Fred Alvarado Fred is a community journalist with FOCUS MEDIA ARTS CENTRE

At Daniels Spectrum Centre, RPTV talked with Diane Kolin, a music teacher and musicologist, who specialized in Critical Disability Studies, and who conducted a series of workshops at the Community Music Schools of Toronto (CMST) in the heart of Regent Park from January to June 2023, as part of her doctoral research on Music and Disability in the professional music industry, funded and supported by York University’s Helen Carsweel Chair in Community Engaged Research in the Arts. During her doctoral research process, Ms. Kolin realized that there is more to be done for the inclusion of performers with disabilities in music education and in the music industry in Toronto.  

Diane works as a voice teacher and early childhood music educator at CMST. She teaches music to diverse groups and people with disabilities to introduce transformed and adaptive instruments and voice allowing her students with disabilities to learn how to perform music.
 
Diane was born in France, and migrated to Toronto 9 years ago.  Her interest in musicology started in her early childhood and never ran away. Ludwig van Beethoven has always been an important character for her, omnipresent in her life. Thanks to him she discovered Franz Liszt and his piano transcriptions of the symphonies. The latter became a frequent companion in her musical journey. She a music history teacher, singer, and senior project manager.

Ms. Kolin spoke to RPTV reporter Kedar Ahmed about the importance of music programs for children with disabilities in our community.

“These music programs are so important because the children that come to Community Music Schools of Toronto live a lot of different experiences; sometimes the immigrate and they don’t know the language, but here in this music school there’s something magical happening when we teach music to these kids. It doesn’t matter that they don’t speak the language, music allows them to communicate.  These workshops series go to the next level because it is something that the children have never experienced before. The adaptive music instruments and other technology help them play an instrument” Diane said in an interview.

Ms. Kolin also shared glimpses of her journey from France to Canada related to her accessibility issues.

“France is country with a lot of problems related to accessibility and disability in general. My issues in France were mostly about accessibility in the transit system, in regular life, with laws and things like that; but when I arrived here suddenly I had a set of laws called The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) which is a law that allows us to have accessibility in the streets and public transit, so when you have a good level of accessibility in a city then you’re able to start working and that’s exactly what I did in Toronto,” Diane said in an interview.