A Toronto music school featured on one of Taylor Swift’s albums is now hoping to expand, launching a $19.89 fundraising campaign aptly named after the pop superstar’s album 1989.
In 2019, Swift featured a piece of music on her album Lover, performed by 15 students at the school and produced by Canadian musician Frank Dukes. The music was used on her track, It’s Nice To Have A Friend.
Now, Community Music Schools of Toronto is pushing to raise funds to build a new site at its Jane and Finch location, a project it says will cost $10 million dollars.
The school offers free music lessons to 700 students in Toronto and has locations in the Regent Park and Jane and Finch areas. But at Jane and Finch, it operates out of two portables, where over 200 students attend.
“We are looking for people to enter into their selfless era,” said Richard Marsella, the school’s executive director. “We all know the transformative power of music education can change a community for the better.”
If you listen closely to Taylor Swift’s new album, Lover, you’ll hear the Regent Park School of Music in Toronto. They’re sampled on the song It’s Nice to Have a Friend, which was also produced in part by Toronto’s Frank Dukes.
Marsella said the fundraiser will help expand space at the site by paying for a permanent home that includes multi-purpose rooms and rehearsal space.
“It’s like confined, you know, and the heating isn’t quite right in the winter and the air conditioning isn’t right in the summer. It’s a challenge,” Marsella said of the current space.
The school decided that the $19.89 campaign would be a clever way to raise the money that it needs, while also highlighting the school’s special connection with Swift.
Marsella says $7.5 million has already been raised with the help of donors, but says “every $19.89 counts.” If the funds are raised, the project will break ground in 2025.
Dayton Smith, a 19-year-old student from Regent Park who performed on Swift’s Lover album, says the experience was life changing, and campaigns like the fundraiser are important to ensure youth in the area can continue having similar experiences.
“Having this program could really show kids that they can really chase their dreams and chase their passions,” he said.
Music programs critical in marginalized areas, experts say
As the school pushes to expand its space in the north-west Toronto neighborhood, Mark V. Campbell, associate professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough’s faculty of music, says expanding music programs in the city — especially in inner-city areas — should be a municipal priority.
“It’s absolutely critical in areas of the city that are marginalized to create places where people can experience community and build strong social bonds, can express themselves, where young people can be safe with teachers and with music professionals,” he said.
Campbell says music programs are often keeping their doors open through grants, and says the city needs to prioritize sustaining programs and venues by recognizing music as a “form of healthy society.”
“Just because music is not necessarily the same economic driver as opening our doors and letting developers pillage our city, it doesn’t mean it’s any less important to the health of the city of Toronto,” he said.
