Bob Ezrin

2025 Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award (Popular Music)

Music and entertainment producer, music education advocate and serial activist

In a legendary career as a music and entertainment producer and entrepreneur, Bob Ezrin has worked around the world on recordings, TV, film, and live event production with such prominent international artists as Pink Floyd, U2, Deep Purple, Peter Gabriel, Rod Stewart, Andrea Bocelli, Taylor Swift, Alice Cooper, Edward Burtynsky, Kiss, Lou Reed, The Canadian Tenors, Aerosmith, Hollywood Vampires, Berlin, and Nine Inch Nails, among many others. One of the most highly respected and sought-after producers in the world, he is also a generous philanthropist and a passionate advocate for music education.
 
Born in 1949 into a musical Toronto family, Mr. Ezrin began his entertainment career at the age of 8 as a child actor on radio and TV. By the age of 20 he was producing records at Toronto’s Nimbus 9 Productions. It was then that he began working with Alice Cooper in what would become an enduring creative partnership.
 
“I’ve had the opportunity to work with some of my childhood heroes, and every single thing I’ve done has been a highlight on one level or another,” he says. “It’s a blessing and a privilege and an honour, and I’m thankful for it every single day.”
 
Mr. Ezrin’s commitment to music education is well known. He co-founded Wow Unlimited Media and The Nimbus School of Recording and Media, both in Vancouver, BC; 7th Level Inc. in Richardson, TX, and Enigma Digital in Los Angeles, CA, both specializing in interactive education, entertainment, and social media; and (with U2’s The Edge) Music Rising, an initiative to replace musical instruments lost in natural disasters. He is co-chair of the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation in Los Angeles, which provides musical instruments to underfunded music programs, and an advisor to the Canadian music education charity MusiCounts.
 
Bob Ezrin is an Officer of the Order of Canada. He has been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame, and Canada’s Walk of Fame, and is a Fellow of the Royal Conservatory of Music and the Royal Society of Arts. He has received three Juno Awards and, with his wife Janet, the inaugural MusiCounts Inspired Minds Ambassador Award, and holds an honorary doctorate from Trent University.