Rudi Brouwers, vice-president and COO of Cosmo Music, oversees what can only be described as an indoor village of any variety of shops dedicated to different instruments.
Richmond Hill
July 19, 2008 10:33 PM
Adam McLean
It’s 10 a.m. on a Monday morning and Cosmo Music’s new superstore location is bouncing with rhythm.
The beating of drums echoes from down a hallway, meshing with the subtle tones of a saxophone floating from a repair desk around the corner.
A few more steps and then the sound of fingers feverishly pounding at a piano comes tumbling down from a staircase filling Cosmo’s lobby with frantic and brooding tones.
The environment crawls with students and instructors rushing to practise studios, technicians and managers scampering from the cafe in the lobby back to their stations, and the first wave of customers trickling in.
All that is missing are Oompa-Loompas and Willy Wonka.
In this musical wonderland, vice president and guitarist Rudy Brouwers is one of the people handing out a golden ticket to all who walk through the door.
“We hope a facility like this will inspire people to take up an instrument,” Mr. Brouwers said.
“We wanted to make a big impact and do something different than any other music retailer has done. We are so diversified in what we carry, there aren’t many instruments we don’t stock right now,” he added.
Big certainly seems to be the theme of Cosmo’s new 55,000-square-foot superstore, located just east of Leslie Avenue, north of Major Mackenzie Drive.
The store is the world’s largest musical retail space, according to general manager and drummer Jack Frenchman.
“We basically had a wish list of ideas if we were able to accomplish something like this, and now we are doing it. We try to have something for everybody in the music community,” Mr. Frenchman said.
It is a community in which Cosmo Music has been a key player for 40 years.
Moving into their new home during the May long weekend, they were able to combine what had previously been divided between two locations.
The merger also allowed them to offer a bigger selection of products and new educational programs and camps.
The camps for rock, musical theatre and strings operate for up to two weeks at a time during July and August, accommodating kids from eight to 16 years old.
Walking through the practice studio hallways, you find miniature classrooms with five or six kids and an instructor. In a setting reminiscent of the movie School of Rock, students armed with electric guitars and amplifiers, form a semi-circle around their teacher strumming chords in unison. A concert at the end of the session allows campers to show what they’ve got in the on-site, 250-seat auditorium.
It hosted performances by Triumph singer/guitarist Rick Emmett, as well as English guitarist Guthrie Govan.
“When people are sitting at home on a Saturday, we want them to think that ‘Cosmo always has something going on, let’s go check it out,’” Mr. Brouwers said. “We feel this brings the musical experience here at Cosmo full circle.”
But if getting a little more interactive is your thing, Cosmo offers boutiques equipped to massage your musical trip.
Each department is housed in its own boutique store, along a virtual street in the lobby.
Drums, banjos, violins, grand pianos and guitars, of course, are fair game to a customer’s idle hands. Accordingly, departments are equipped with playing areas and there is also a recording booth available.
So what does a teenager strum along to when they pick up an “axe” these days? Linkin Park? Coldplay?
According to guitar department manager Ray Kopko, the melodic picking heard throughout his neck of Cosmo’s woods hasn’t changed much since he began 17 years ago.
“It goes through phases, but you always hear a lot of Led Zeppelin and AC/DC. The classic rock stuff seems to live on, even with kids just starting out,” he said.
Cosmo music plans to celebrate their 40th anniversary this fall.
Call 905-770-5222 or visit
www.cosmomusic.ca for more information on events, classes and camps.
Fast facts about Richmond Hill’s biggest music store:
• Founded in 1968
• It took five days to move all the gear from Cosmo’s previous locations
• The print music department is stocked with more than 50,000 titles
• Cosmo supplies about 10,000 musical instruments to schools across Ontario
• The 3,000 square ft. theatre has a stage that is 30 feet wide and can be 8 to 16 feet deep.
• The auditorium can accommodate 250 guests
• At any time, there are more than 30 drum kits on display
• There are 112 slots for various styles of drum sticks
• More than 40 various brass instruments on display
• More than 30 woodwind instruments on display
• Nearly 300 guitars, bass guitars and banjos on display
• 14 grand pianos on the floor of the upstairs piano loft
• 39 lesson studios and 18 repair technicians
• A regular staff of about 100 people and nearly 60 instructors