RITCHIE

RITCHIE (b.1981) is a Toronto based Singer-Songwriter, Composer and Producer from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

His music has been featured on an International Compilation called Rock 4 Life, produced by Quickstar Productions, and was a benefit CD to raise money for Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis or PSC. Released in 2007, the compilation features a variety of music by unsigned artists from Canada, the United States, Great Britain and Australia.

His Debut EP, The London Session (2004), was recorded in one night at Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. Produced by Dougal Rodgers, a student at the time and done largely without permission after the school was closed. The story behind how these two talented young people meet and how they came to collaborate on such a beautiful album is long....and arduous. And perhaps one for a later time. The EP includes 5 tracks recorded mostly in one take, and features RITCHIE on grand piano, vocals and strings.

He has played and performed regularly in and around the Toronto area since 2007. 

Currently, RITCHIE actively plays live and has been working on his first Full Length Studio Album, entitled; "It All Comes To Pass." due for release on REO MUSIK early in 2017.

Since 2004, when he arrived in Ontario from Nova Scotia, RITCHIE has worked with other musicians to develop several other musical projects including Aminus, Being Eugene, Go Go Cadillac and a special one time adventure, called the Chris Ritchie Band. The CRB performed a live show in 2011 at what was then The Sound Academy. Footage of this extraordinary event exists on YouTube.

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Chris Ritchie was born in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia in March 1981. His father, an accountant, and his mother, a homemaker, encouraged their son to pursue music from an early age. He started teaching himself Piano at the age of 11. Soon, he would teach himself the Drums and guitar, and began to crudely multi-track his progress using a dual-cassette karaoke machine he received for Christmas one year. His cassette recordings, and an upright piano would be his best friends for most of his early teens.

"I've always loved to make songs. I used to overdub Beatles cover tunes when I was a kid using this old Karaoke machine my mom gave me. That developed into making my own songs, which is why i started playing guitar in the first place. I used to record them on piano, and add vocals along with harmonies and stuff. Eventually I just got tired and taught myself guitar so that I could add guitar parts to the songs. Drums followed, and before you knew it I had these cassette recordings with very basic songs and ballads on them that I used to give to my family as Christmas presents...I had no idea that what I was doing was actually what I would end up doing as a career. It was just fun to me then, and it still is!"

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Though originally from the East Coast, Chris Ritchie has lived in Toronto since the Summer of 2004, when he left the comfort and security of Nova Scotia behind to pursue his dreams of being a Professional Musician and touring the world.
When he arrived that summer, he arrived with little more than a backpack of clothes and personal items, $55.00 in cash and a 12-String Guitar. With no family and no place to stay it was to be a game of survival from day one. In fact, the song "It Will Come Too" (off 2004's The London Session) was one of the songs written during extended periods of homelessness on the streets of Toronto.