Raymond Bisha

With deep sorrow, we note the passing of Raymond Bisha, eldest son of Norma Lee and Edward Bisha, on August 5, 2025.

Born to a musical family, Raymond found his lifelong calling in music, first as a professional French horn player and then as a promoter and manager on different sides of the music industry. He studied French horn formally in Detmold and Cologne, then earned his Bachelor of Music Performance at the University of Toronto. Returning to Germany, he played for two years in a touring opera orchestra before transitioning to arts management through a program launched jointly by the Canadian Opera Company, the National Ballet of Canada, and George Brown College. After three years as tour and television production manager for the Canadian Opera Company, he spent five years as a producer for Stereo Morning at CBC Radio 2 before finally joining Naxos of Canada and then Naxos of America. There, he dedicated the next thirty years, rising to the position of Senior VP of Marketing. Beyond his role connecting products to buyers and performers and composers to audiences, Raymond's own initiatives at Naxos generated hundreds of weekly podcasts that explored countless facets of the global music scene. He also launched Naxos en Español, a social media platform providing access to classical music in Spanish, a language he took it upon himself to learn.

Fueling this diverse career was a restless curiosity, musical and otherwise. The same spirit that drove him to make cross-country skis as a teenager and then write and publish about it also drew him to new places, people, and cultures throughout his life. It helped him arrive in Germany that first summer, armed only with a suitcase, his horn, and little German. It led him onto many stages as a performer and into new places in the music industry, each a world of its own. It inspired him to co-create a new-music concert series in Toronto. It energized twenty years of creative podcasting with Naxos, compelled him to learn Spanish, and inspired professional and personal outreach to Spanish-speaking communities in North America and overseas. Even his formal position at Naxos, where he navigated emerging technologies and audiences in an age of streaming, roused his intrepid soul.

Innately humane, Raymond dignified and elevated everything he did and everyone he met. The suddenness of his passing, a lightning strike to all who knew him, also means his ennobling, passionate trek through the world stayed vital to the end. We hold this thought dear as we now struggle to reckon with his loss.

Raymond is survived by his wife Carol, their daughter Alicia and her partner Andrew, brother Bernard, and brother Tim and his wife Ji-Eun.