Born in London, England, Liona Boyd moved to Canada with her parents when she was eight years old. She performed her first concert playing The Blue Bells of Scotland on a treble recorder in a talent show on the ocean liner. That same year she had won first prize in her infant’s school for writing the best story. Five years later when she was thirteen she asked her parents for a classical guitar as a Christmas present. It changed her life. Five-time Juno award-winner for Instrumental Artist of the Year, Liona Boyd became known around the world as a classical guitar virtuoso and composer, and has now added singing and songwriting to her illustrious career.

Since 1975, when she made her Carnegie Recital Hall debut, Liona has been called "The First Lady of the Guitar”. Through her concerts, television specials, and twenty-eight releases on London, Sony and Universal, many of which attained Gold and Platinum status, Liona introduced millions of people around the world to the art of classical guitar. The Canberra Times in Australia wrote "breathtakingly beautiful playing, the most musically accomplished and technically flawless playing that I have heard from any classical guitar performer."

Liona has five honorary doctorates, the Order of Canada, the Order of Ontario, the Diamond Jubilee Medal, is the five-time winner of Guitar Player Magazine’s Best Classical Guitar Musician poll and has been inducted into their “Gallery of Greats.” CBC has broadcast several one-hour specials including Liona Boyd in Havana, Romancing the Guitar - The Life and Times of Liona Boyd and Opening Night. Liona penned a best-selling autobiography, In My Own Key - My Life in Love and Music (1999, Stoddart). Her second autobiography, No Remedy for Love was released by Dundurn Press in the fall of 2017 along with a reissue of In My Own Key. In 2022 Liona published her first children’s book The Cat Who Played Guitar.

Liona performed around the globe, playing for dozens of world leaders including the British Royal Family (Liona still regularly communicates with her friend Prince Philip and was invited to perform again in Windsor Castle in 2017), the King and Queen of Spain, presidents of the United States and Mexico, prime ministers of Canada, France, and Britain, and the chancellor of Germany. Her classical guitar music has filled concert halls in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Beijing, Bangkok, New Delhi, Edinburgh, Paris, Auckland, Frankfurt, Santiago, Rio de Janeiro, Bogotá, Havana, London, Copenhagen, Lisbon, Mexico City, to name but a few, and across the United States and Canada.

Liona made her musical presence felt in North America by performing solo concerts in almost every state, often working with symphony orchestras such as The Boston Pops. She has recorded with Sir Andrew Davis and the English Chamber Orchestra, Yo Yo Ma, Georges Zamfir and The Canadian Brass. Liona has performed for G7 Leaders at an economic summit in Quebec, for NATO Ministers of Defense in Ottawa, across Latin America as part of a Canadian anti-nuclear-proliferation tour, for the jurors of the OJ Simpson trial, and at the Kremlin during a World Presidents’ Organization convention.

Breaking with classical tradition, Liona toured with popular artists Gordon Lightfoot and Tracy Chapman, and has recorded with Chet Atkins, Eric Clapton, David Gilmour (Pink Floyd), Roger Whittaker and Olivia Newton-John, among others. 

Liona often performs from her repertoire of original compositions, and music composed especially for her. Her playing was featured in the 20th Century Fox film, A Walk in the Clouds, which won a Golden Globe Award for best musical score.

After spending most of her life in Toronto, Canada, Liona married in 1992 and resided in Beverly Hills, California. Alongside her passionate involvement in music she devoted herself to many charitable causes, helping to raise millions of dollars for causes she believes in.

In 2003, Liona left the stage for six years as over practice had given her Musician’s Focal Dystonia in one of her right hand fingers. She ended up divorcing, reinvented her guitar technique, pursued a life long dream to learn to sing, and returned triumphantly to the stage and recording studio in 2009.

Liona moved around the continent and relocated several times before returning to live permanently in Canada in 2011. Earlier in 2009 Universal Music Canada had released two milestone albums Liona Boyd Sings Songs of Love with guitarist/singer Srdjan Gjivoje, and Seven Journeys, Music for the Soul and the Imagination, a collaboration with Peter Bond, described as “Hauntingly beautiful… emanating from a timeless realm” by renowned film director Deepah Meta. 

Liona is now an accomplished singer and songwriter. In 2025 she released an new version of her patriotic song “My Canada”, with special guest appearances by fellow Canadian artists Jann Arden, Randy Bachman, Divine Brown, Dan Hill, John McDermott, Daniel Lavoie, Richard Margison, Serena Ryder, Robert Pilon and Amanda Martinez, amongst others.

Liona continued to tour in Canada and the USA in the 2010’s. Universal released her third Christmas album, A Winter Fantasy, in 2014 which combined traditional carols interwoven with her own original themes. The album has over one million streams on Spotify and Apple Music. For the last five years A Winter Fantasy, a live concert special, has been shown on dozens of PBS stations across the USA and on CBC GEM. The special will air again on PBS stations in the 2023 holiday season. In 2017 Liona released No Remedy for Love, featuring guest artist Ronnie Hawkins on her tribute song for Gordon Lightfoot, and the four time Juno award winner Jack Grunsky on Song For Ontario. In 2022 her Latin-inspired album L.O.V.E. was released, with widely viewed videos on YouTube.

Liona Boyd captivated music lovers worldwide with album, Once Upon A Time released at the end of 2023. A return to form, this enchanting musical journey results from a five-year creative voyage, inviting her listeners to enter a realm of nostalgia, beauty and timeless imagination. To celebrate the release of Once Upon a Time, Liona sponsored of a generous guitar giveaway in collaboration with Yamaha and Long & McQuade music stores where Liona gave away 30 classical guitars across Canada.

Liona’s latest album is This Thing Called Love — a deeply personal and emotionally resonant collection that she calls her best work yet in her evolution as a vocalist and songwriter.

Produced by her longtime collaborator Peter Bond, the album features a stellar lineup of guest artists and new interpretations of treasured past collaborations. Among the highlights is a charming duet with Mark Masri (of The Tenors fame) on the Everly Brothers’ classic Bye Bye Love. Liona also revisits two beloved tracks, offering newly reimagined versions of Summer Dreams — her dreamy collaboration with the late Olivia Newton-John, and Gordon Lightfoot, a heartfelt tribute recorded with Ronnie Hawkins in a tribute to their mutual friend.

In Liona’s own words: “These songs cover the full range of emotions I’ve personally experienced in life — the passion of love and joy, balanced by the sadness of yearning and loss. The ballad Sweet Dreams embraces the tender aspects of love, while The Wedding Song describes the blissful feeling of realizing you want to share your life with someone special. My playful fantasy piece, Tamarinda, was inspired by my time living in Mexico, while songs like Living On Borrowed Time and My Life Alone are more introspective, reflecting on how brief and fragile our time here truly is.”

With This Thing Called Love, Liona Boyd invites listeners into a lush and lyrical world that spans genres and emotions — blending folk, pop, Latin influences, and her signature classical guitar sound into an album as heartfelt as it is timeless.