Avalanche: Banff Musicians in Residence Participant Concert

Crossing boundaries is a feature of Hannah Epperson’s life and music—from residence in the US and Canada to more than 300 live performances in North America, Europe and the Middle East. Singled out by Bandcamp as “one of the most stunningly unconventional artists making music today,” renowned musicologist/critic Ted Gioia chose her debut album Upsweep as one of the Top 3 recordings of 2016, calling it “unique, haunting, addictive.” Classically trained, her genre-bending violin looping and singing was enriched by apprenticeships with the fiddler of acclaimed Deseret String Band and studio work and performances with Fleet Foxes, Dirty Projectors, Julianna Barwick and Ry X. A graduate in Human Geography, a member of Canada’s world champion Ultimate Frisbee Team, Hannah embodies music as a bridge, gathering soundscapes and people together in transfiguring moments of live and studio performances.
 

Hannah Epperson was generously supported by the Banff Centre Endowment.

Canadian clarinetist Dr. Liam Hockley is a versatile performer and passionate advocate for new and experimental music. Described as “a musician for whom alternative or avant-garde approaches to his instrument are only part of the everyday tool kit” (Georgia Straight), he is equally fluent in classical and contemporary idioms, with a repertoire spanning the eighteenth to twenty-first centuries. His appearances across three continents include prize-winning performances at the Stockhausen-Konzert und Kurse Kürten.

Liam’s debut solo album Pulse-Tide was named one of The Wire’s 10 best Modern Classical releases of 2024, which praised it as “at once vigorous and forensic, grappling with this music’s overall physicality, while also paying microscopic attention to its fine details, its agitated particles and molecular trails.” Forthcoming releases include a collaborative project with composer Ray Evanoff and an EP of solo improvisations with electronics.

Liam holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of British Columbia, where his SSHRC-supported research explored performer agency in complexist music. His writing has appeared in The Clarinet and FOCI Arts/Words, and he maintains an active performing career across British Columbia, including as clarinetist with the Vancouver Inter-Cultural Orchestra.

Liam Hockley was generously supported by the Lucy and Stephen Maxym Endowment.

Gage Salnikowski is a multi-instrumentalist composer, sound artist, and performer, based in Winnipeg Manitoba Canada on Treaty One Territory.

As an autodidactic proficient in over 50 different instruments, Salnikowski’s work seeks to undermine the dichotomy between the colloquial and cultural academia. Embracing the avant-garde towards sublimation of the visceral and brutalist. Through merzbau of sound art installation, input reactive live coding, circumventive scoring and performance techniques, Salnikowski plunders and corrupts the technicality he has honed through years as a music educator for decidedly anti-academic results. A diptych of the absurd and accessible, Salnikowski’s work is equally at home performed in local bars as it is art galleries.

Gaining notoriety on various new outlets by performing and recording every instrument of symphonic works entirely solo as a ‘one-man orchestra’, Salnikowski’s primary output has been focused on live sound art installation and performance. As half the duocollective Savant Flâneur, Salnikowski uses audio programming languages, acoustic sound sculpture, and experimental compositional means to produce and perform works for various new music and arts festivals, and touring composers. Notably, Salnikowski’s work under the project has been visited by over 40,000 people through repeat sound art installations in various Nuit Blanche festivals.

Gage Salinowski was generously supported by the Banff Centre Endowment.

Rachel Lewindon is an award-winning, interdisciplinary composer and sound designer working in the diverse array of mediums of theatre, dance and live performance. After gaining her Bachelor of Fine Arts (Hons) at the VCA in Interactive Composition, she has firmly established her voice in the Australian live performing arts scene, her passion for the immersive experience of sound within a live performance setting, particularly the electro-acoustic boundaries of composition and sound design using voice, piano and synthesis garnering her much critical acclaim.

She has been hailed “one of Melbourne theatre’s best composers working to date..” by the Australian Book Review and was awarded a 2022 Green Room Award for Best Composition/Sound Design for her work on ‘The Gospel According to Jesus Queen of Heaven’. Her own work Orlando: A New Musical premiered to critical acclaim in 2023, being described as ‘(a) beautifully wrought chamber opera’, ‘Profoundly formative in a risk-averse industry… Stephen Sondheim meets Brian Eno’. She has had work developed and premiered internationally with So Percussion (USA), BRAZZA Artists Residency Program (France), CPH Hit Copenhagen (Denmark), Wuzhen Theatre Festival (China), BIRCA Climate Residency (Denmark) and nationally with Speak Percussion, Melbourne Theatre Company, FortyFive Downstairs, Darwin Festival, Adelaide Fringe Festival and other local music venues.

Rachel Lewindon was generously supported by the Banff Centre Endowment.

Oliver Hanane is a percussionist, composer and artist from Melbourne, Australia. His creative practice takes a multidisciplinary lens to the creation of music, blending performance, composition and visual art, using this approach to illustrate his artistic intention. His work is rooted in experimental composition and performance seeking to explore textures and sonic possibilities.
Originally from a contemporary jazz background, his musical style blends pointillistic, repetitious, and metallic textures influenced by contemporary classical percussion. Oliver has been an active figure within Melbourne’s contemporary jazz music scene, playing at venues such as Jazzlab, Federation Square, The Croxton, and such festivals as Moomba, White Night, Strawberry Fields and Rainbow Serpent. Throughout his career he has collaborated with a diverse range of ensembles and individuals that have shaped his musical style including collaborations with ex-Egypt 80 member Olugbade Okunade and Melbourne based pianist Katarzyna Witorski.
During his studies in Indeterminate composition methodologies, Oliver developed a particular interest in fusing graphic scores and storytelling components inherent within music, investigating how when combined these elements can enhance the experience as a performer and as a viewer. This exploration reflects his broader impetus to test the boundaries of traditional methods of music making and performance. 

Oliver Hanane was generously supported by the Banff Centre Endowment.

To an ever-growing circle of fans and collaborators, SAMWOY represents a thrilling force in Canada’s music scene, smashing genre boundaries with fearless creativity. Led by Sam Woywitka, the Montreal-based project blends elements of ambient, electronic, classical, and rap, often within the same track. As Québécoise alt-pop artist Virginie B puts it: “Sam’s basically an all-encompassing hard-working music intuitive genius.”

Woywitka’s sound defies easy categorization; lush orchestration gives way to distorted drums and buzzsaw synths, while haunting lyrics explore chaos, regret, and redemption. His album, Even Sad Boys Like To Have Fun, dives even deeper into emotional extremes, featuring everything from baroque instrumentation to a blend of Montreal’s finest musicians.

Live, SAMWOY delivers unpredictable energy, moving fluidly between explosive highs and tender introspection. Much of the music reflects on Woywitka’s near-fatal car crash in his Vancouver Island hometown, drawing from trauma while never wallowing in it. Instead, SAMWOY embraces contrast between post-punk and electronica, serenity and chaos, destruction and healing.

At its core, SAMWOY is about turning disaster into beauty. For Woywitka, it’s a lifeline; for listeners, it’s a cathartic journey through the depths and heights of human experience.

Sam Woywitka was generously supported by the Banff Centre Endowment.

Justin Wright is a composer, cellist, and multidisciplinary artist from Montreal. Wright’s music is characterized by a seamless blending of avant-garde approaches and timbral experimentation with the evocative and meditative spirit of folk and sacred music traditions. Classical concert halls, underground loft venues, art museums, pop music venues, planetariums, and the glaciers of the High Arctic have all comfortably been home to his performances, a reflection of his defiance of traditional categorization and wide-ranging artistic interests. Wright’s primary composition tools, for both electronic and acoustic music, are his cello, Ableton Live, a modular synthesizer, and a 4-track tape machine. His recent work aims to reengage with his scientific past as well as expand into other media such as film, photography, and DIY technology. Wright holds a BSc and MSc in molecular biology, and is currently a PhD candidate in music composition at Princeton University primarily studying under Tyondai Braxton and Donnach.

Justin Wright was generously supported by the Lewitt Family Foundation Artist Award.

Kyle Simpson, DMA, is a contemporary concert and film composer whose chamber, orchestral, and hybrid works fuse concert traditions with the expressive language of visual media.

His music has been performed by leading ensembles across the globe, including The Unheard-of//Ensemble, Hypercube, the Janáček Philharmonic, the Sofia Philharmonic, and most recently the Brazilian National Symphony. As a film composer, his scores have been featured at festivals both nationally and internationally, with his recent work for What’s in the Forest (2023, dir. Zoe Xandra) earning “Best Original Score” honors at the Madrid International Movie Awards and the Hollywood Blood Horror Festival.

Simpson currently serves as Assistant Professor and Director of the Media Composition Program at California State University, Northridge, where he mentors the next generation of composers in the heart of Los Angeles’ creative community.

Kyle Simpson was generously supported by the Banff Centre Endowment.

Rainbow Chan is an award-winning vocalist, producer and multi-disciplinary artist based in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia. Her practice bridges popular music and contemporary visual arts, exploring themes of cultural representation, (mis)translation, matrilineal histories and diasporic heritage. Central to her work is the research and reimagining of women’s oral traditions, particularly the fading bridal laments of Weitou women, Hong Kong’s first settlers, to whom she has deep ancestral ties. Through pop music, performance and immersive installations, she translates these endangered songs into contemporary art forms, preserving their subversive feminist voices while reflecting on loss, resilience and solidarity. She is particularly interested in the power of ritual, song and performance as both a means of reclaiming agency and a living archive.

Rainbow Chan was generously supported by the Banff Centre Endowment.

Johnny Tomasiello is a multidisciplinary artist and composer-researcher, with a deep interest in expanded conceptualizations of sound, visuals, and time. His work employs methodologies across media, and is informed by research into neuroscience, psychophysics and biofeedback.

Focused on the relationship between perception and the mechanics of physiology, his immersive works, compositions, and performances reveal otherwise invisible processes in physiological and technological systems. Drawing on custom-built instruments and software, his work references mechanisms of expression and experience through data sonification, biofeedback, and reciprocal physiological systems.

He holds an MS in Digital Imaging and Design from NYU and a BS in Psychophysics from Rutgers/UMDNJ, as well as the completion of the thesis program in Electronic Music composition and Production, and a fine arts foundation with emphasis in painting, from Maryland Institute, College of Art (MICA).

As a performer, Tomasiello has produced live immersive performances and lectures featuring his interactive computer-assisted compositional performance systems and Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) that create, manipulate, and deconstruct audio and visuals, as well as physiological responses. He has lectured on the subject, staged live performances, scored films, and shown works in galleries and at institutions in the US and abroad.

Johnny Tomasiello was generously supported by the Banff Centre Endowment.

Magpie Duo (Lauren Conroy and Matthew Schultheis) is a violin-piano team celebrating the vibrant stylistic diversity of music from the 20th century to today, driven by the belief that contemporary music is a meaningful source of artistic expression and inspiration to communities. Named after the bird long known in Western folklore for its curious and obsessive trinket collecting, we weave together pieces from across generational and cultural lines, building programs around shared aesthetics and relationships between artistic voices. We design concerts to be experienced live as cohesive works, from programs involving sounds outside the typical violin-piano palette to Sunset Concerts—continuous programs that move from standard repertoire to rarely-heard contemporary offerings. Lauren is a graduate of The Juilliard School (MM ‘22) and Matthew is currently a doctoral candidate there. The duo’s 2024–25 season included performances with New Chamber Ballet in New York City and a recital at Toronto Summer Music’s season launch. Upcoming events in the 2025-26 season include the recording of the duo’s debut album in collaboration with composer/producer James Diaz, residencies at Avaloch Farm and the Banff Centre, and performances at Maine’s Mechanics’ Hall and Columbia University’s Sacred Music Series.

Matthew Schultheis was generously supported by the Banff Centre Endowment.

Violinist and arts administrator Lauren Conroy is a New York City-based musician who is passionate about performing, programming, and producing contemporary music in dynamic, multidisciplinary contexts. An avid performer of new music, she is a member of the BlackBox Ensemble and a co-founder of the Magpie Duo. She is currently the Company Manager for Ariel Rivka Dance.  
Lauren has been invited to several festivals and residencies including Toronto Summer Music Fellowship, Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra, Norfolk New Music Workshop, Bowdoin International Music Festival Fellowship, Avaloch Farm Music Institute, and The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Lauren is a graduate of The Juilliard School where she completed her Master of Music and was the Departmental Assistant at The Juilliard School’s Center for Innovation in the Arts. After graduating from Juilliard, she then attended NYU and completed her Master of Arts in Contemporary Musical Arts Performance and Administration as a Koppenaal Scholar. At NYU, she was granted the Dean’s Award for Summer Research where she was a resident scholar at The John Cage Trust at Bard College.

Lauren Conroy was generously supported by the Banff Centre Endowment.

Ben Senyk is a drummer, audio engineer, and electronic music producer based in Toronto, Ontario and Calgary, Alberta. Ben grew up in Calgary learning music, playing in both the Calgary Stampede Showband and the Calgary Youth Orchestra, playing percussion in both. During his post-secondary education, he turned to audio engineering, inspired by the electronic music artists Koan Sound and Mr. Bill. A recent graduate of Humber College in Toronto, Ben studied a combination of jazz drums, music production, and audio engineering. His final year was focused heavily on the Dolby Atmos audio format, where he explored developing new production and mixing techniques for the medium. As an audio engineer, Ben focuses on creating interesting sound design techniques for stereo and multichannel formats. Though currently working in music, Ben hopes to explore audio in other settings like film, live performance, or public installations.

My name is Elie and I’m a sound engineer working in both music and the narrative sound industry. I currently find myself transitioning between recording classical music and producing rap. All these different industries that I find myself in allow me to deepen my artistic thoughts and ideas, as well as my technical abilities, helping me see things in a different way. This led me to pursue a master’s degree in Image et Son Brest (ISB), where I studied sound recording for music as well as post-production for narrative sound in cinema and audio drama.

I’ve always tried to create my own projects or contribute to other’s by offering my help and support. I was fortunate to have one of my sound fictions produced in immersive audio, which was selected and broadcast by Radio France. I also had the opportunity to be part of the sound recording team at the 2025 Verbier Festival in Switzerland. It was an experience I’m truly grateful for.

Immersive sound and binaural in particular are especially important to me. I want to give the same experience to each person, whether they’re listening on a high-quality sound system or, for example, with casual earphones. 

Paulin ROMAN, is a master student in Sound Engineering at the Paris Conservatoire since 2022. Mostly interested in acoustic music recording and spatial audio creation, he also pursues musicology studies in his goal to become an informed artistic director. He still practices the saxophone, his instrument, from classical training to Balkan traditional music, across all genres and aesthetics, as he is firmly attached to the act of musicing as a universal way of communicating.

Born in Chamonix Mt-Blanc, France; he keeps a physical attachment to outdoor sports, mountain landscapes, and nature, in which he thrives, as triathlon training is his main hobby outside of his music interests.

Before entering the Paris Conservatoire, he studied contemporary music composition and analysis through electroacoustic music, in Annecy – France - which initiated his dedication to spatial and sensorial composition as he founds it to be a deep source of inspiration and a still not fully explored way to convey music and creation to the audience.