In 1995, Steve battled a life threatening illness with bacterial meningitis-a serious infection of the lining of the brain. At that time, he had only just begun designing and teaching his first guitar course at a local recreation centre. He was already an instructor of the martial art of taekwondo at the centre and wanted to expand his teaching interests with guitar- a passion of his since he was 9 years old. The illness left him in a coma for six days during which Last Rights were given and many, many friends and family concentrated their love for Steve and each other. Obviously, the illness did not take Steve but it did re-focus him.
Leaving behind his previous career as a Youth Worker and Researcher, Steve decided to put his energy into his first passion- playing guitar- and bring to this his teaching and program design skills from his previous youth leadership work. One problem, however, is that the illness left him with some memory loss and that included the "finger memory" of his guitar repertoire. Yup! He had to re-learn his music. Luckily, it turned out that with even the smallest recall of playing something on the guitar, a flood of "finger memory" would return. Over about a year, this process managed to recover much of his repertoire. While his memory of the repertoire was affected, thankfully his technical skill was intact.
When he was relatively healthy and ready, he returned to study classical guitar with Ken Davidson Jr. and it was Ken who encouraged and created the opportunity for Steve to teach guitar through the Maritime Conservatory which he did for three years while always maintaining his own private home studio. Steve continues to teach part-time through the Long and McQuade Music Education Centre (Formally the Canadian Conservatory). The bulk of his teaching, however, is through his private studio which is now named Dempster Guitar Studio (DGS). Between DGS and the Music Education Centre, Steve enjoys a full-time teaching load of 70+ students with many previous students moving on to study music at the university level.
Always looking to learn more and share more, Steve has just completed his Specialist Certificate in Blues, Rock and Jazz Guitar through Berkley College of Music and is studying orchestration through Alexander University. Also, he is working toward his A.R.C.T in theory & Composition through the Royal Conservatory of Music. From his previous life, he also holds an MA in Education and a B.Sc. in biology. I told you! It's an interesting story.
Dempster Guitar Studio has experienced steady growth since its inception in 1995 and with the help of friends, family and students, this studio will surely see continued success. In the words of Yoda: Do or do not there is no try! We at Dempster Guitar Studio Lessons & Instructions are looking forward to working with you. To be continued… |
