Born, Vienna, 1924, Eli Kassner, in his early years as a teenager, sang in a synagogue choir and received a Jewish education from his father before he escaped persecution of Jews in Austria, 1939, by joining a Jewish women’s organization, Hadassah, as part of a group of 60 youths who  had been given permission to emigrate to Israel. In the process, Eli left behind his mother, father, and sister, all of whom would later perish in a Nazi concentration camp. Between 1939-1951, while living in various kibbutzes, Eli’s interest in guitar music escalated. By 1951, he made a decision to join his brother, who had also survived Nazi persecution, and found passage to Canada. Soon Eli was teaching guitar lessons in Toronto. In 1958, Andrés Segovia, the famous classical guitarist, invited Eli to Spain to study with him. The next year, 1959, Eli returned to Canada and joined the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto, and began teaching at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Music. He also opened his own guitar academy, teaching such students as Norbert Kraft and Liona Boyd. Today, Eli Kassner is renowned throughout the guitar world, not only as a musician and teacher but as the person who organized the Guitar Society of Toronto and who formed the University of Toronto Guitar Ensemble. An international juror and lecturer, Eli Kassner has been the catalyst behind the classical guitar renaissance that has taken place around the world. [Photo, courtesy Eli Kassner]