Don Ross

About Don Ross

Don grew up in Montreal and studied Music at Toronto’s York University. Strangely enough, he didn’t focus on guitar but rather on composition, electronic music, and sound recording. Upon graduating, he had visions of being a composer of orchestral and electronic music or film scores, certainly not any delusions of playing solo guitar for a living! What changed his mind was seeing the success of musicians like Michael Hedges, Steve Reich and Keith Jarrett, player/composers who followed their musical intuitions wherever they led and who fell more into the category of “artist” rather than “guitarist” or “pianist.” Don was the first two-time winner of the US National Fingerpick Guitar Championship. He has released music on Duke Street Records, Sony Music, Narada Records and was the first signing for CandyRat Records. He also releases music independently. In addition to his recording and performing career, Don composes scores for television, film and video games, and does production and recording engineering for a variety of other musicians. In addition to acoustic guitar, Don also plays electric guitar, slide dobro and lapsteel guitar, harp guitar, voice, piano, keyboards, bass guitar and drums. In 2021, Don graduated with an MA in Orchestration from the University of Chichester (UK), and and also won the Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts, administered by the Canada Council for the Arts. He now resides in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada.