“For me to call myself a musician, it's necessary to play live, and it rewards so much - not just in the pay cheque sense but what it does for my playing. I feel it through a tour - I feel it at the end of a tour - all that I've gathered, and especially now that I am improvising so much.”

Canadian musician, songwriter and author

Neil Peart was a Canadian musician, songwriter, and author, born in 1952 and died in 2020. He was the drummer, percussionist, and principal lyricist for the progressive rock band Rush. Known as “the Professor” because of his resemblance to the Gilligan’s Island character, Peart was admired for his technical drumming and for live performances that demanded precision and endurance. He received several awards for his musical work, including induction into the Modern Drummer Readers Poll Hall of Fame in 1983, when he was 30.