TORONTO — Cellist Leo Zhang has performed for more people than some musicians may ever see in their lifetime.
He does it with easy expertise, his fingers dancing across the cello in downtown Toronto on a Thursday afternoon. But his stage doesn’t have a spotlight or curtains or rows of seats. Most of the time, it isn’t even above ground.
His stage is a subway station, where he’s performed for nearly 30 years. He plays multiple times a week, with commuters rushing past him and occasionally dropping a compliment or a couple of coins, train cars screeching to a halt just metres away, his music periodically accompanied by the overhead blare of a staticky announcement.
Still, he can’t seem to get enough. He owes a lot to the busking scene in Toronto’s subway system — the end of his performance anxiety, numerous career opportunities and best of all, “joy to share with the world,” he says with a smile.
“It feels surreal because it feels like music is connected with the world. With the world going crazy, people having a good day or bad day, what I can do is bring that energy to heal the people.”
Zhang is among the 89 musicians who perform across 29 Toronto Transit Commission subway stations in a program dating back more than 45 years. TTC artists are chosen through an audition process every three years, and musicians like Zhang say they perform amid the commuter chaos in the hopes of brightening someone’s day.
Zhang has been a licensed TTC musician since 1997. He first got the idea when he was in high school and was feeling nervous in his performing arts program, and he encountered a violinist at a subway station who inspired him to give it a shot.
“Playing in front of strangers helped me get over my stage fright, and I kept on going,” he says.
Performing underground opened up an entire world for him. He regularly plays weddings and special events thanks to people who found him underground, and in 2018 he even won a TTC contest that saw him record a song with Universal Music Canada. His song, “Cancion,” was released on Apple Music, which he calls “a huge accomplishment.”
“It’s like every day I try to use the TTC as a platform, as a performance, as a stage, entertaining hundreds and thousands of daily commuters every day,” says Zhang.
Commuters on the TTC might also run across Benji Crane, a singer who plays guitar and violin. Performing at Dundas West station on a Tuesday afternoon, he sees riders pass by and one even stops and joins in for the chorus of “Shallow” by Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga, which makes Crane smile.
“There’s just this instinctual draw to want to perform, like I’m bound to it,” says Crane, who’s been performing at subway stations since 2019. “There’s nothing else I’d rather do.”
He makes a solid income busking on the TTC, but it’s about more than just money, he says. He likes to think that his music can cheer people up, or that his songs can evoke a memory in someone.
“Sometimes a little kid will drag their parents over and want to stand and listen. It’s just a nice reminder that, yes, I am adding value to the space around me,” he says. “I’m giving people something to think about.”
Those kinds of interactions are the highlight of Charmie Deller’s subway station performances. Deller, a singer and guitarist, has been busking for more than half her life, starting at the Scarborough Town Centre mall when she was 15. She became a licensed TTC performer almost 10 years ago and hasn’t looked back since.
“It’s still work, too. Sometimes you are happy to go and sometimes you’re dragging your feet to go, but when I get there, because I genuinely love singing, I can get lost in my shift,” she says, adding it was through busking that she was connected to Nelly Furtado, with whom she later got to perform and write.
Her interactions with members of the public — whether it’s a passing smile, a compliment or a conversation — always boost her confidence.
“It makes me feel like I was meant to be there at that exact time that I was there,” says Deller.
Even those moments when commuters “see you as a fly on the wall” make it worth it, she adds.
“I could sing to a colony of ants and feel like I’m meant to be there.”
After nearly three decades of performing in the subway, Leo Zhang now has a repertoire of thousands of songs, he says. Hearing his mastery of the cello, one might think they’re in a concert hall or the pit of a Broadway musical — not Bloor-Yonge subway station.
Zhang says he always becomes immersed in his performances, and sometimes when he opens his eyes and looks up from his instrument, there’s a crowd of people surrounding him, crying, dancing, smiling.
He can’t imagine a world where he isn’t playing cello on the TTC, he says.
“As long as I can play music, I will always audition for the licence,” says Zhang. “Even if my concert tours or music career is taking a new height, I’ll still come out and play because it’s just one of my joys.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 23, 2026.
Rianna Lim, The Canadian Press
