Composer and vocalist Lieke van der Voort was born in The Netherlands and moved to Toronto in 2009. Her works focus heavily on improvisation and unconventional vocal use. Lieke’s roots lie in combining jazz, new music and all aspects of the human voice. Lieke frequently uses her own text in her pieces, confronting the emotional-psychological impact of ongoing social issues. Her work has been described as emotionally complex, raw and honest. Current pieces include “Mother’s Tongue” (Soundstreams ECW), “Endings” (Jumblies Theatre), “center, unrestrained” (PIVOT, Continuum Contemporary Music)) and a new work for flute and guitar duo (Émergences (f. pl.).

Her voice can be heard in ensemble The Band Named Crow. She is also featured on Veryan Weston’s “Make”; Schafer’s “Apocalypsis”; soundtracks of movies “The VVitch”, “Clara” and “In the Tall Grass”; and various Tanya Tagaq shows with Christine Duncan's Element Choir. Lieke also leads and vocalizes in Kontraband Kollektif, an art music collective, with its debut EP “Atropos” having been released in January 2018. 

Lieke was selected as a composer for Toronto Creative Music Lab 2017, Soundstreams Emerging Composer Workshop 2018 (under the mentorship of David Lang and James Rolfe), PIVOT 2018/19 (under the mentorship of Juliet Palmer) and participated at Banff’s International Workshop in Jazz and Creative music, where she studied under the guidance of Vijay Iyer, Tyshawn Sorey and Okkyung Lee. Her works have been supported by Canada Council of the Arts and Ontario Arts Council. 

www.kontrabandkollektif.com

Afarin Mansouri is an award-winning composer whose works have been performed in Canada, the United States, England, Iran, and South America. She has collaborated with various organizations and Festivals such as Tapestry Opera, You Dance National Ballet of Canada, Tirgan Festival and Toronto Nuit Blanche. In 2018, her opera “Forbidden” gain national and international attention by Globe and Mail and BBC world. As a soprano, Afarin has appeared as guest artists, has performed new music for Toronto Culture Days, Tirgan Festival and Iranian-Canadian Composers of Toronto’s program “The Thirtieth Act”. 

Currently, Afarin is national councilor of Canadian League of Composers, co-founder and Artistic Director of Iranian-Canadian Composers of Toronto (ICOT), and is working on the last stages of her PhD studies at York University finishing her research on Canadian children’s opera while teaching undergrad courses in music. 

www.afarinmansouri.com

photo credit: Dom Garcia

 

Émilie Girard-Charest is a cellist, a composer and an improviser. As a chamber musician, a soloist and with different ensembles, she dedicates herself to new music.

 

She has recorded several albums, namely Émilie préfère le chant(2016, Ambiances Magnétiques), Race with time(in duet with Mart Soo, 2016, Improtest Records), Avec(2016, Kohlenstoff Records), Musica in camera(Quatuor d’occasion, 2014, &records) and Bruit court-circuit(Ensemble SuperMusique, 2012, Ambiances Magnétiques).

 

Émilie has played at numerous festivals in Québec (Festival de musique actuelle de Victoriaville, OFF Festival de Jazz, Festival de Jazz de Montréal, Montréal/Nouvelles Musiques), in the United States (Avant-Music Festival, New York), in Belgium (Ars Musica), in Austria (Klangspuren Schwaz and Impuls), in Germany (Darmstadt Ferienkurse for Neue Musik and Donaueschingen Musiktage), in Chile (Encuentro Internacional de Compositores), in Argentina (Sonido Presente), in Estonia (Autumn Festival), in Finland (MuTe Fest), in Spain (Mixtur) and in Macedonia (Macedonian Music Days). She also played concerts in France, in Russia, in San Marino and in Uruguay.

 

Émilie holds a degree in cello (Denis Brott) and in composition (Michel Gonneville) from the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal and a CoPeCo Master (Contemporary Performance and Composition) from the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. She is now enrolled as a doctorate student at the Conservatoire National Supérieur Musique et Danse de Lyon under the supervision of Philippe Hurel and Laurent Pottier.

 

She is the recipient of the Bourse de développement de carrière from the foundation of the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal (2014) and of the Prix d'Europe of Composition Fernand Lindsay (2015).  www.emiliegirardcharest.com

photo: Anna Van Kooij

James O’Callaghan (b. 1988) is a composer and sound artist based in Montréal praised for his “mastery of materials and musical form” (Electromania, Radio France). His music has been described as “very personal… with its own colour anchored in the unpredictable.” (Goethe-Institut) His work intersects acoustic and electroacoustic media, employing field recordings, amplified found objects, computer-assisted transcription of environmental sounds, and unique performance conditions.

His work, spanning chamber, orchestral, live electronic and acousmatic idioms, audio installations, and site-specific performances, has been variously commissioned by the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (INA-GRM), the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, Ensemble Paramirabo, Quasar quatuor de saxophones, and Standing Wave, among others. His album Espaces Tautologiques, released by empreintes DIGITALes, won a Prix Opus, and was listed by 5:4 as one of the “best albums of 2016”.

His music has been the recipient of over thirty prizes and nominations, including the ISCM Young Composer Award (2017), the Salvatore Martirano Award (2016), the Robert Fleming Prize (2015), the Jan V. Matejcek Award in New Classical Music (2018), the Jeu de Temps / Times Play Awards and the SOCAN Foundation John Weinzweig Grand Prize (2014). Significant nominations include those for the Gaudeamus Award (2016), Prix Métamorphoses (2018), and a JUNO Award for classical composition of the year (2014).

Active as an arts organiser, he co-founded and co-directed the Montréal Contemporary Music Lab. Originally from Vancouver, he received a Master of Music degree from McGill University in 2014, studying with Philippe Leroux.

www.jamesocallaghan.com

Trained as an architect and orchestral contrabassist, Roxanne Nesbitt is an interdisciplinary artist, investigating the space between sound and design. Her research includes contemporary classical composition, experimental instrument design, electroacoustic music, improvisation, sound installation and performance.

Recently, Roxanne has focused on her project, symbiotic instruments, where she designs, builds, and composes for “parasite-like” acoustic instruments that are played in or on existing traditional instruments. With the support of the Canada Council, Roxanne made 146 ceramic

percussion instruments and composed five new pieces which were debuted, at a recent concert at the Western Front in Vancouver, BC.

Roxanne collaborates with dancers and choreographers as a performer and composer. In January 2019, Roxanne composed a live electroacoustic score for the Biting School's Suddenly Slaughter, presented at the PUSH festival. Roxanne also fronts her own band, graftician as vocalist /noise maker. She is a member of the improvised duo, why choir alongside Juno-award winning drummer Ben Brown.

www.roxannenesbitt.com