Sometimes, life gives you an offer you simply cannot refuse. For Tony Sutherland, life offered him music, and it bloomed into a passion that has stayed with him in many forms through the years.
Sutherland retired as a professor in the Music Business Management program in 2024 at Durham College after twenty-five years.
In this time, he not only taught and mentored a generation of students but also piloted the growth of the program’s flagship annual event, Oshawa Music Week, within and outside Durham College.
After his teaching career, he created the awards show ‘Durham Region Excellence in Arts, Music and Sound’ (DREAMS!), which was held for the first time in September. This is not just a single event. Under the DREAMS! banner, there are also events and workshops.
“There’s other industries that’s doing this around the world, but… we want to make it Durham-centric,” he says, describing his initiative that comes as the next chapter in a lifetime of musical involvement.
“There was a certain time in my life… I’m going to say about maybe 10 or 12 years of age, [when] somehow … I felt like I woke up with the feeling of a connection between myself and music,” he says.
Growing up in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean, Sutherland absorbed the diverse sounds from the islands before coming to Canada at the age of thirteen.
Talking about his influences, Sutherland describes Caribbean genres like Soca, calypso and reggae as “celebratory, very fun, very tropical kind of music.”
He also mentions his connection to pop and “the Afrocentric side of me” when discussing his influences upon arriving in Canada.
Perhaps it is this blend and mixture of genres that played a part in him becoming a DJ in his late teens and getting “hooked.”
“Every time I try to move away from it, it always brought me back. I went to school, and I studied to be everything but a music-related person,” he says, shaking his head with a wide grin. “I still came back to music, and so that’s what formed my career.”
Sutherland has earned a place for himself in the hearts and minds of students. Some, like Khushpreet Astha and Spike Universe, see him as a “father figure.”
He learned a lot from his students as well. Some of them motivated Sutherland with, “you’re never done,” on the days he felt like giving up on a difficult classroom.
Spike Universe is Sutherland’s former student who has continued his association as a volunteer with ‘DREAMS!.’ He says Sutherland is the mentor he always wanted because he can sense the potential in others.
“It’s a skill. It’s a blessing he has. He knows how to connect and how to direct you to the right path,” says Universe.
Universe describes Sutherland as “reliable” and “very patient.” As a musician and mature student at Durham College from 2022 to 2024, he says he felt the pressure of age catching up, but Sutherland advised him to “slow down.”
“He has been very patient with me [at] certain times [when] I’ve been pushing him. I’m like, ‘Tony, I need this. I need to do this. I’m getting old,’” says Universe. This difference in approaches is the only minor challenge he has had with Sutherland.
In an email exchange, Khushpreet Astha remembers people cheering Sutherland’s name during his orientation to Durham College, saying he quickly understood why Sutherland is “The Tony.”
“Tony treats his students like individuals with real potential. He’s more like a mentor, someone who guides and motivates us. He doesn’t just teach. He helps us grow and believe in ourselves,” Astha adds, “He’s a great person with such positive energy.”
Even this aspect of Sutherland’s life, his experience as a veteran educator and his joy for teaching, can be traced back to music. He talks about Mighty Sparrow’s song, “Education” as a personal inspiration.
“You can’t sit and let the world pass you by. You have to continually keep yourself moving forward. And how do you do that? It is through education,” Sutherland says.