Len Ballantine was born into a musical household where he began piano studies with his father at an early age. After earning an Associate diploma in piano from Western Conservatory, he studied under Yvonne Hubert at Montreal’s L’Ecole Vincent D’Indy and, following that, Pierre Souveran at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music. This grounding proved formative for his degree in composition where he was deeply influenced by Lothar Klein, John Weinzweg and John Beckwith. However, it was his encounter with choral music while at the U. of T. which most profoundly shaped his destiny as a composer and arranger. Since then, Len’s choral and brass works have gained world-wide notoriety, with premiere performances being commissioned by The King’s Singers, Yorkshire Building Society, The International Staff Band of The Salvation Army, and others.