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Tim Beattie

Guitar Lecturer

Tim is a performer and Lecturer in Guitar at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Associate Teacher and Guitar Co-ordinator at the University of St Andrews Laidlaw Music Centre, founding director of St Andrews GuitarFest and Simcoe Guitar, and a PhD researcher at the University of Surrey’s International Guitar Research Centre.

Tim Beattie is a Canadian guitarist whose artistry boasts “impeccable technique, great expressivity, and artistic sensitivity” (Leo Brouwer), offering “classical guitar at its very best” (Perthshire Advertiser).

He gained international attention after winning the 2018 Brussels International Guitar Competition and has since earned top prizes in Antwerp, Calgary, Enschede, Hamilton, Leicester, Manhattan, Uppsala, and Vienna. In 2025, Beattie was named among ‘30 Hot Canadian Classical Musicians under 30’ by the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company).

Recent performance highlights include recitals at Carnegie Hall (NYC), Wiener Musikverein (Austria), Festival Aix-en-Provence (France), Festival Corde d’Autunno (Italy), Kitaranova Festival (Finland), Áureo Herrero Festival (Spain), and Bath International Music Festival. He has toured extensively as a soloist and in collaboration with the Canadian Opera Company, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Scottish Opera, and Quartet Malamatina, and has been heard on Dutch National TV (NPO2), BBC Radio Scotland, and CBC Music.

As a scholarship student at the Amsterdam Conservatory, Beattie graduated cum laude (BMus’19). He went on to complete fully-funded postgraduate studies at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (MMus ‘21, Artist Diploma ‘22), and was the first-ever guitarist invited to join the prestigious Rebanks Fellowship at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music (2022-23).

Tim is a Lecturer in Guitar at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Associate Teacher and Guitar Co-ordinator at the University of St Andrews Laidlaw Music Centre, founding director of St Andrews GuitarFest and Simcoe Guitar, and a PhD researcher at the University of Surrey’s International Guitar Research Centre.

“Beattie’s guitar dazzles … moving between textures and moods with ease” (Musicworks Magazine).