Gene Martynec

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Canadian musician/composer Eugene Martynec (born March 28, 1947 in Germany) first came to prominence as a guitarist in Toronto group Bobby Kris & The Imperials in August 1965. He left the group in May 1967 to form Kensington Market with singer/songwriter Keith McKie, bass player Jimmy Watson and drummer Alex Darou.

Martynec was also a noted record producer; he won the Juno Award for Producer of the Year in 1981 for his work on Bruce Cockburn's "Tokyo" and Rough Trade's "High School Confidential".

Full rock discography available at [Artist Direct]^[1] website

Eugene Martynec has performed, composed or recorded with pop groups, pit orchestras, and created music for visual media and live theatre. He studied electronic music, composition and orchestration with Dr. Samuel Dolin at the Royal Conservatory of Music where he received 2 scholarships to study electronic music and composition (1970-1975).

His interest in record production resulted in Juno Awards (Canadian Grammy) in 1981 and 1973 for his work with Bruce Cockburn, pop groups Rough Trade and Edward Bear. He has produced over 50 recordings from 1969 to the present.

On Lou Reed's Berlin album of 1973, he played acoustic guitar, synthsizer as well as the vocal arranging on "The Bed," bass playing on "Lady Day".

He has been awarded Canada Council for the Arts and Toronto Arts Council grants for music composition. He taught signal processing, principals of digital audio, Midi, studio production, synthesis, and studio orchestration at the Harris and Trebas institutes in Toronto.

His current interest is in improvised new music, performing and composing live interactive electro-acoustic music using alternate controllers and interactive music software. Recently he has added a video component to his improvisational performances.

From 2000 to 2004 he curated Eugene's Sunday Series,[1] an exploration of new music and other art forms at Artword Theatre^[2] in Toronto.