Evolution: Classical Faculty and Participant Concerts

Celebrating its 30th season, the Gryphon Trio is one of the world’s preeminent piano trios, garnering acclaim and impressing international audiences with its highly refined, dynamic and memorable performances.

With a repertoire that ranges from traditional to contemporary and from European classicism to modern-day multimedia, the Gryphons are committed to redefining chamber music for the 21st century.

Creative innovators with an appetite for discovery and new directions, the Gryphon Trio has commissioned over 100 new works, and frequently collaborates on projects that push the boundaries of chamber music. The trio tours regularly throughout North America and Europe, and their 22 recordings are an encyclopedia of works for the genre. Honours include three Juno Awards for Classical Album of the Year – most recently, that of 2019 – and the prestigious 2013 Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts from the Canada Council.

Deeply committed to music education and audience development, the Gryphons conduct master classes and workshops at universities and conservatories, and are artists-in-residence at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music and Trinity College. Dr. Jamie Parker is the Rupert E. Edwards Chair in Piano Performance and Annalee Patipatanakoon is Associate Professor of Violin and Head of Strings at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music.

Since 2010, the trio’s multi-faceted arts creation program Listen Up! has engaged elementary school students, teachers and parents in 16 Canadian communities and provided them with the experience and knowledge required to participate actively in the arts.

The Gryphon Trio has had a long association with the Ottawa Chamberfest – Roman Borys served as Artistic Director between 2007-2015, as Artistic and Executive Director between 2015-2021 and Patipatanakoon and Parker served as Artistic Advisors between 2008-2021. The Trio are currently Directors of Classical Music Summer programs at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

Åstrand is a renowned Swedish mallet specialist, a unique voice of both the marimba and the vibraphone. He is a sought after soloist, regularly performing and giving master classes internationally. Since 2017, Åstrand heads the contemporary music and improvisation class at Orford Music Summer Academy. Also commissioned as a composer, compositions include works for percussion and chamber ensembles, brass quintets, saxophone quartet, choirs, and big band. A more spectacular side features compositions for ice instruments for percussion ensemble, as well as using fighter aircrafts, snow trucks, and buildings as instruments to be played on. Åstrand’s music can also be found in multimedia performances including dance, video projections, ice instruments, and fire sculptures. Anders Åstrand regularly collaborates with various ensembles and groups. He plays vibraphone in both Soundscape Orchestra and Firm roots. Åstrand also plays the vibes in the big band Ann-Sofie Söderqvist Jazz Orchestra, and can be heard on the albums Move. The duo Vibes and Bass (Mikael Berglund, bass and Anders Åstrand, mallets) has released two albums with original music, Seven Thoughts and Frantelunia. His own groups include WÅG (Mattias Wager, church organ; Anders Åstrand, mallets and percussion, and Gary Graden, vocals), Åstrand-Erlandsson Duo (Robert Erlandsson, double bass and Anders Åstrand mallets), and his percussion ensemble, Global Percussion Network, with which he has toured extensively in Sweden, Europe, the United States, and South Korea. Anders Åstrand regularly performs at Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC). He functions as International Education Orchestral Consultant for Zildjian since 2008. Anders Åstrand plays Yamaha instruments, Zildjian cymbals, Vic Firth mallets, and Evans drumheads.

Image by Anders Astrand

Aiyun Huang enjoys a musical life as soloist, chamber musician, researcher, teacher and producer. Globally recognized since winning the 2002 First Prize and Audience Prize of the Geneva International Music Competition. She is a champion of existing repertoire and a prominent voice in the collaborative creation of new works. Huang has commissioned and premiered over two hundred works in her two decades as a soloist and chamber musician. The Globe and Mail critic Robert Everett-Green describes Huang’s playing as “engrossing to hear and to watch” and her choice of repertoire as capable of “renovating our habits of listening.” Her past highlights include performances at the Victoria Hall in Geneva, Weill Recital Hall in New York, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra’s Green Umbrella Series, LACMA Concert Series, Holland Festival, Agora Festival in Paris, Banff Arts Festival, 7éme Biennale d’Art Contemporaine de Lyon, Vancouver New Music Festival, CBC Radio, La Jolla Summerfest, Scotia Festival, Cool Drummings, Montreal New Music Festival, Centro Nacional Di Las Artes in Mexico City, Cervantino Festival, and National Concert Hall and Theater in Taipei. Her recent highlights include performances with St. Lawrence String Quartet, L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Taipei Symphony Orchestra and San Diego Symphony Orchestra. Her recent premieres include works by Philippe Leroux, David Bithell, Nicole Lizée, George Lewis, and Eliot Britton.

Brandon Patrick George is a leading soloist and Grammy-nominated chamber musician whose repertoire extends from the Baroque era to today. He is the flutist of Imani Winds and has appeared as a soloist with the Atlanta, Baltimore, and Albany symphonies; the American Composers Orchestra; and Orchestra of St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, among others. He has been praised as “elegant” by The New York Times, as a “virtuoso” by The Washington Post, and as a “knockout musician with a gorgeous sound” by The Philadelphia Inquirer. His debut album was released by Haenssler Classics in September 2020. George has performed at Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Elbphilharmonie, the Kennedy Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Dresden Music Festival, and the Prague Spring Festival, among other venues. Before his solo career, George performed with many of the world’s leading ensembles, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the International Contemporary Ensemble. George trained at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the Conservatoire de Paris, and the Manhattan School of Music. He joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in 2021.

Caroline has spent the best part of 35 years in the arts, as stage manager, production and technical manager, education manager, project manager and producer in UK and Canada.

It has taken her into community arts and human circuses in South London; large parades with boats, cars and bicycles made of sticky tape; giant puppets in Portugal; too many events in soggy fields; touring round the Scottish Highlands; running two theatres for young people in Wales; enjoying fireworks and tugs (fortunately at the same time); Operas with elephants; Touring a multimedia theatre/opera production (Constantinople - Christos Hatzis + Gryphon Trio; What’s Classical? festival weekends; Producer with Luminato Festival over the years; Performances with 1000 performers (Apocalypsis - R Murray Schafer); Night time illuminated walks in Canadian National Parks (Banff and Rouge) (Illuminations); Multiple choirs on a pond (Maada’ooki Songlines – C Derksen) and Community presentations (Odaabanag-with music by Melody McKiver - Jumblies Theatre)

She has one simple, but passionate, aim - to introduce people, especially young people, to the live arts as creators and participants, as well as spectators.

David Harrington is the founder and artistic director of the Grammy-winning Kronos Quartet. For more than 40 years, the Kronos Quartet has pursued a singular artistic vision, combining a spirit of fearless exploration with a commitment to continually re imagining the string quartet experience. In the process, Kronos has become one of the most celebrated and influential groups of our time, performing thousands of concerts worldwide, releasing more than 50 recordings of extraordinary breadth and creativity, collaborating with many of the world's most intriguing and accomplished composers and performers, and commissioning more than 850 works and arrangements for string quartet.

Sri Lankan-born Dinuk Wijeratne is a JUNO, SOCAN, ECMA, and Masterworks-winning composer, conductor, and pianist, described by The New York Times as “exuberantly creative” and Toronto Star as “an artist who reflects a positive vision of our cultural future”. His work takes him to international venues as poles apart as the Berlin Philharmonie and the North Sea Jazz Festival. Dinuk made his Carnegie Hall debut in 2004 as composer, conductor, and pianist, performing with Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble and returned to Carnegie in 2009, alongside tabla legend Zakir Hussain. Dinuk has also appeared at the Kennedy Center, Opera Bastille, Lincoln Center, Teatro Colón, Sri Lanka, Japan, and across the Middle East. He was featured as a main character in What Would Beethoven Do?, the documentary about classical music innovation featuring Eric Whitacre, Bobby McFerrin, and Ben Zander. Growing up in Dubai, Dinuk studied composition at the Royal Northern College of Music and Juilliard, with Oscar-winner John Corigliano. Conducting studies followed at Mannes College under David Hayes, and doctoral studies with Christos Hatzis at the University of Toronto. Dinuk has conducted the orchestras of the National Arts Centre, Winnipeg, Thunder Bay, PEI, Scotia Festival, and Symphony Nova Scotia during his three-year appointment as Conductor-in-Residence. He is the recipient of the Canada Council Jean-Marie Beaudet award for orchestral conducting; the NS Established Artist Award; NS Masterworks nominations for his Tabla Concerto and piano trio Love Triangle; double Merritt Award nominations; Juilliard, Mannes and Countess of Munster scholarships; the Sema Jazz Improvisation Prize; the Soroptimist International Award for Composer-Conductors; and the Sir John Manduell Prize, the RNCM’s highest student honor. His music and collaborative work embrace the great diversity of his international background and influences.

Image by Raoul Manuel Schnell

Eliot Britton (b.1983) bridges sound worlds.  From the imperceptible rhythms of the natural environment to towering, digitally magnified timbres, his musical language uses the tools and techniques of the 21st century to build and share networks of music and meaning. Britton’s fiercely virtuosic and award-winning aesthetic brings together performers and technology, finding new modes of expression and collaboration. From soloists, drum machines and orchestras to augmented reality and machine learning, Britton seeks innovative ways of connecting and expressing Canada’s contemporary soundscape. As an Anglo-Metis from Manitoba, Britton is passionate about collaborating on narrative expanding indigenous projects. 

A graduate of the University of Manitoba (w. Michael Matthews) and McGill University (w. Sean Ferguson), Britton is now a teacher, researcher, and composer at the University of Toronto. There he is the Director of the newly rebuilt Electronic Music Studios (UTEMS) and splits his time between the Composition and Music Technology areas. Britton is currently the composer in residence at Red Sky Performance, as well as co-director of Cluster New Music + Integrated Arts Festival. His work at UofT seeks to expand the framework for research creation, opening new spaces for diversity in the creative applications of music technology.  

A versatile artist, whose talents transcend the boundaries of dance, music, opera and multi-media, Marie-Josée Chartier moves easily between her many roles as choreographer, performer, director, vocalist and teacher. Her dynamic choreography is influenced by contemporary music, literature and the visual arts as she explores and deconstructs the vulnerabilities of human beings.

Her acclaimed pieces have been presented at major festivals and by dance companies across Canada, Europe and Latin America. Her work was the subject of several documentary films. Since 2003, in addition to her activities as a performer and choreographer, Marie-Josée directs/stages contemporary opera and multi-media productions for: Gryphon Trio, Toca Loca, Queen of Puddings Music Theatre, Tapestry Opera, Theaturtle and l’Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal (ECM+).

Chartier receives the following awards: Jacqueline Lemieux Prize (2015); K.M. Hunter Artist Award (2001), 9 Dora Mavor Moore Award nominations; recipient of a Dora for fifty- one pieces of silver (2002) and shared two Doras with the collective URGE for And by the way Miss (2005).  Marie-Josée formed Chartier Danse in 2003 to support her projects and create a cornerstone for large scale productions and partnerships in Canada and abroad.

Megumi Masaki is a pianist, multimedia performing artist, educator and curator. She is recognized as an innovator that reimagines the piano, pianist and performance space. Her work pushes boundaries of interactivity between sound, image, text and movement in multimedia works through new technologies, including hand-gesture-motion tracking to generate and control live-electronics and live-video, AI, 3D visuals, keyboard-controlled computer game, e-textile sensors and active infra-red tracking. As a Japanese-Canadian artist, her work also explores how human rights and environmental issues can intersect and be communicated through music. Over 70 compositions have been created with/for Megumi and she has premiered 150 works worldwide. Megumi was appointed to the Order of Manitoba and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
www.megumimasaki.com

Violinist Parmela Attariwala interweaves life as a performer-creator, researcher, equity advocate and educator. Parmela pursued her fascination with sound and unworded music through studies in performance (Indiana University and Bern Conservatory), electroacoustic and jazz composition, and ethnomusicology (School of Oriental and African Studies, and the University of Toronto). Her creative work explores the liminal space between musical genres, artistic disciplines, and identities, often using improvisation as a point of departure. Parmela has recorded three critically acclaimed Attar Project albums featuring works for violin and tabla. She has also collaborated extensively with choreographers (bharata-natyam, butoh and contact) as composer and movement artist.

More recently, Parmela has been working with visual artists, creating musical responses to installations by Jeffrey Gibson, Nep Sidhu, Luciana Santos, Peter Morin and Ayumi Goto. She is currently developing a series of soundscores for bharata-natyam dancer Sujit Vaidya; and is co-creating music for the Indigenous-led opera Namwayut (Calgary Opera) as well as for Re:Naissance Opera’s virtual opera, Live from the Underworld.

Parmela uses her academic chops to advocate for a radical reimagining of the Canadian musical ecosystem centred around equity, access, decolonization and ethical practice. She recently developed an anti-racist, anti-oppressive music curriculum for a Toronto community music school; and in 2021, she co-founded Understory an online multi-disciplinary creation platform for Canadian improvising artists.

Patricia O’Callaghan’s recording career spans six solo CDs and many interesting guest collaborations.  Her early recordings focused on European cabaret and she is considered a specialist in the music of Kurt Weill performing his Threepenny Opera, Seven Deadly Sins, and Kleine Mahagonny with Soulpepper Theatre Company, Edmonton Opera, and Vancouver Opera and others.

She has sung with some of the world's great ensembles and artists (Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Don Byron Quartet, Bryn Terfel), and has performed in venues that range from London's Royal Opera House to New York's Noho cabaret Le Poisson Rouge.

Patricia also writes and co-writes songs and has had the honor of premiering many new compositions, from both the classical and pop worlds working with many creators including R. Murray Schafer, Dennis Lee, Christos Hatzis, George Aperghis, Steve Reich, and Steven Page.

Patricia's film, theatre and television credits include her own Bravo! special, CBC produced Ken Finkleman series Foolish Heart, and the semi-autobiographical Rhombus / Westwind film Youkali Hotel, which has won several prizes, including a Golden Sheaf Award to Patricia for best female performance. 

Recent projects include a collaboration with The Gryphon Trio called Broken Hearts and Madmen and a new project Deepest December which will be her first Christmas CD featuring beautiful carols, haunting arrangements and unusual juxtapositions not found on typical recordings.

Paul Wiancko has led an exceptionally multifaceted musical life as a composer and cellist. An avid chamber musician, Paul has performed alongside Midori, Yo-Yo Ma, Richard Goode, Chick Corea, Mitsuko Uchida, Nico Muhly, Max Richter, and members of the Guarneri, Takács, JACK, Parker, Kronos, Orion, and Juilliard quartets. His performances with Musicians From Marlboro have been described as "utterly transparent" and "so full of earthy vitality and sheer sensual pleasure that it made you happy to be alive" (Washington Post).

Chosen as one of Kronos Quartet's "50 for the Future," Paul's own music has been described as "dazzling", "compelling" (Star Tribune) and "vital pieces that avoid the predictable" (Allan Kozinn, journalist). National Public Radio recently wrote, "If Haydn were alive to write a string quartet today, it may sound something like Paul Wiancko's LIFT​," a 26-minute work featured on the Aizuri Quartet's Grammy-nominated album Blueprinting, one of National Public Radio's top 10 classical albums of 2018. Paul is a recipient of the S&R Foundation's Washington Award for Composition and has been invited to be composer-in-residence at the Caramoor, Twickenham, Newburyport, Portland, and Methow Valley Festivals. This year, Paul's music will be premiered by Alexi Kenney at Wigmore Hall, the Eybler Quartet at Banff Centre, Tessa Lark, Marina Piccinnini, and Michael Thurber at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and the St. Lawrence String Quartet and James Austin Smith at Spoleto Festival USA, where he is the 2019 Bank of America Composer-in-Residence.

Sigi Torinus creates new media works that include site-specific installation and improvisatory interactive live-video performance. Her work explores our perceptions of the migratory journey, through time and space, in physical, ephemeral and digital worlds. She holds an MFA from the Braunschweig Art Institute, Germany, and San Francisco State University in California. As a professor of Integrated Media at the University of Windsor in Ontario, she co-directs the Noiseborder Multimedia Performance Laboratory with composer and multimedia artist Brent Lee.
As a co-founder of the Noiseborder Ensemble, she has been exploring artistic and technical complexities in multimedia performance, including the integration of acoustic instruments and emerging sound processing technologies, the development of performance practice in real-time audio and video creation, and the potential for new relationships between sound and moving images. The ensemble includes Brent Lee (composer, sound designer, saxophonist, keyboardist, guitarist), Sigi Torinus (video artist, installation artist), Nicholas Papador (percussionist, composer, keyboardist), Chris McNamara (media artist, sound designer, visual artist), Trevor Pittman (clarinetist, composer), and Megumi Masaki (pianist). The ensemble has performed at various festivals and venues, including ClarinetFest Oostende, Belgium (2018); the Festival des Musiques de Création in Jonquière, Quebec (2015); Beyond The Keys, Laban Theatre, London UK (2015); Bangor University, Wales (2015); the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival (2013); the Sonorities Festival in Belfast (2013).
 

Allen is a passionate music lover, storyteller, accomplished trombonist, writer, and broadcaster. He brings a wealth of knowledge to CBC Music. Tom hosted Music and Company on CBC Music for ten years and then went on to host CBC Music Mornings. Prior to this, his weekly stories aired to a keen Ontario audience on CBC Radio One's Fresh Air and nationally on This Morning. He is the creator, along with the harpist Lori Gemmell, of a series of stage shows mixing storytelling, history, classical music, and original popular song. These shows include Bohemians in Brooklyn ("slickly written" and "beautifully punctuated," Now Magazine), The Judgment of Paris, From Weimar to Vaudeville, and The Missing Pages, all of which have received dozens of performances and tour the country on an ongoing basis. Tom has also authored three books, most recently The Gift of the Game, a reflection on hockey and the role the game plays in the life of a divorced parent. Allen studied at McGill University, graduated from Boston University and received his M.A. at Yale University. While looking for full-time work as a trombonist, he temped on Wall Street and cooked in a Mexican restaurant. In 1987, he began touring with the Great Lakes Brass until he joined CBC Radio in Halifax. Tom lives with his wife in Toronto with their son, hoping for visits from the other kids who aren't kids anymore. He is an avid cyclist and plays recreational hockey and basketball.

Pianist Yolanda Tapia and singer Camila Montefusco co-founded Obsidiana Duo with a clear mission: to celebrate the vibrant tapestry of Ibero-American musical culture and give voice to composers who have been historically overlooked. They take great pride in fostering a more inclusive and diverse industry through this transformative project. The duo has a reputation as an international prize-winning collaborative pair, having been featured at CollabFest 2020, Collabaret 2020, and the International Keyboard Collaborative Arts Society in 2021. Last year, they won First Prize at the 2022 Puerto Rico Collaborative Piano Competition, and joined Toronto Summer Music Festival as Art of Song fellows. 

This season they look forward to their upcoming tour with Prairie Debut. They will present a concert based on the folk music from Ibero-America and the premiere of a new commissioned piece by composer Alice Ho and writer Madeleine Thien. This collaboration will explore themes of immigration and belonging. Looking ahead to 2024-2025, they are excited to undertake a new curation for their second national tour with Debut Atlantic.

Camila and Yolanda call Toronto home, where they explore profound and meaningful routes in their personal artistic ventures. Creating sincere and purposeful connections with their audiences is what drives them forward.

Obsidiana Duo are generously supported by the Boris Roubakine Memorial Endowment (Yolanda Tapia) and the Rebecca Levant Performing Artists' Scholarship (Camila Montefusco).

After living several years in Germany and the States, Claudia Do Minh Ramos currently makes her home in the city where she was born, Madrid. In May 2021, she completed her Masters's Degree in Viola Performance at the New England Conservatory, where she studied with Kim Kashkashian. Previously, Claudia studied viola with Tatjana Masurenko while completing her Bachelor's Degree at the Hochschule für Musik und Teather Felix Mendelssohn in Leipzig, Germany. She has followed masterclasses with important violists such as Nobuko Imai, Hartmut Rohde, Thomas Riebl, and Jean Sulem. Claudia has studied with renowned chamber musicians such as the Borromeo String Quartet, the Parker String Quartet, Talich Quartet, Vogler Quartet, and Quiroga String Quartet. Claudia was a member of the newly formed Boston-based Rasa String Quartet, and with them, she won first prize in the Chamber Music in Yellow Competition and MTNA Chamber Music Competition. Since 2013 she has received scholarships from the Humboldt Stiftung, the Community Madrid scholarship for musicians, and the DAAD- Infinitum Stiftung. When not performing and collaborating, Claudia enjoys teaching music as well. She holds a Masters's Degree in Pedagogy and is a faculty member of the Conservatorio Superior de Música de Castilla y León. 

Claudia is generously supported by the Cyril and Elizabeth Challice Fund for Musicians.
 

Noise Catalogue is a New York based contemporary music collective whose primary passion is creating universally engaging concert experiences. Their work draws upon on a diverse range of musical influences including minimalism, avant-garde classical, Hungarian and Romanian folk, and electro-acoustic ambient music. The core ensemble features violinist Madeline Hocking and percussionists Daniel Matei and Jon Collazo, all of whom performed together in the critically-acclaimed contemporary ensemble ‘Tactus’ during their studies at Manhattan School of Music. Since forming their collective in spring 2023, they have received a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and launched an active performance schedule throughout the Eastern United States. Recent projects have included performing newly-commissioned and original works on the Sō Laboratories series in Brooklyn, and producing an interdisciplinary concert program with visual artist Knox Peters. They are currently preparing for a featured performance at the Hungarian Consulate General of New York on the Emerging Artists concert series this fall.

Noise Catalogue is generously supported by the Jenny Belzberg Endowment (Madeline Hocking) and the John Linn Memorial Endowment (Daniel Matei).

Extended Music Collective (EMC) is a chamber music ensemble exploring the diverse spectrum of new music. EMC strives to incorporate new composers within an established contemporary concert experience. Setting aside the norm for what defines a performance, they seek out collaborations
wherein the musicians work closely alongside young composers as well as renowned names from all over the world. It is our mission to include and encourage diversity within the field and endeavor to bring socially relevant aspects within humanity to the stage.

EMC creates bonds that narrows down the distance between creator and performer to interdisciplinary relations and worldwide friendships. Including music from all around the world strengthens the vision of creating a globally informed audience. Previous projects resulted in collaborations with, among others, Anne Leileluha Lanzelotti, Vache Sharafyan, Anuj Bhutani, Frank Nuyts, Ward De Vleeschhouwer et al. In 2022 they were invited by the renowned Ensemble Modern where they performed the world premieres of works by Alireza Farhang and David Fennessy. In collaboration with Theater Transparant, they created L’acte de respirer by composer Siebe Thijs. Future projects include collaborations with composers Jason Eckardt, Elena Rykova and Baldwin Giang.

Extended Music Collective is generously supported by the Isobel and Tom Rolston Fellowships in Music Endowment (Nina Vanhoenacker), the Frederick Louis Crosby Memorial Endowment (Stef Van Vynckt) and the Benediktson Fellowship Fund for Icelandic Artists (Jaume Darbra Fa) in addition to funding from the Flanders Art Institute through Flanders State of the Art. 

Inland Ocean is an international cooperative of contemporary artists committed to crafting and sharing innovative, personal, and original interdisciplinary work. We are passionate about empowering performer agency, fostering collective creativity, and building community. Each of our projects is developed collaboratively, leveraging the varied backgrounds, experiences, and skills within our group. At the Banff Centre’s Evolution: Classical 2023 program five of Inland Ocean’s members (Marie Leveque - dance, Anuj Bhutani - voice and electronics, Nolan Ehlers - percussion, Martin Daigle - drum set, and Zoe Markle - bass) have come together to adapt the solo voice and electronics piece, “How Long” by Anuj Bhutani, to a multidisciplinary performance involving live instruments, dance, and visuals.

These Artists are generously supported by: Gladys and Merrill Muttart Foundation Endowment (Anuj Bhutani), Isobel and Tom Rolston Fellowships in Music Endowment (Marie Lévêque), Ken and Marie Madsen Endowment Scholarships (Nolan Ehlers), David and Peggy Leighton Endowment (Martin Daigle), N. Murray Edwards Family Fund (Zoe Markle) 

Interstitial Gestures is made up of musicians and composers Benjamin Portzen, Kalaisan Kalaichelvan and David Potvin. It was founded at the Banff Musicians in Residence (BMiR) program in January 2023 as a means of interrogating how our artistic practices can be more expansive and relational to the world around us - asking how we can be more deeply in dialogue with community and with one another across media, geography and culture. Our ensemble seeks to create and present performances shaped by diverse aesthetics and ethics nurtured through curiosity and collective inquiry.

Interstitial Gestures is generously supported by the Jenny Belzberg Endowment (Benjamin Portzen), the MacLachlan Ridge Family Awards (Kalaisan Kalaichelvan), and the Marek Jablonski Piano Endowment (David Potvin).

Iida-Vilhelmiina Sinivalo is a cellist who lives in Helsinki, Finland. She spent much of her childhood in a remote, rural environment filled with the sounds of nature. These sounds were so important to Iida’s family that when a new, multi-lane highway was proposed for the area, her grandfather intensely studied the land’s fauna until he found a local species whose survival would be threatened by the highway, and the project was moved. Iida is a classically-trained cellist with a gift for natural warmth and expression, and a collaborator who has commissioned new pieces from several composers. She works often with electronic instruments, and recently toured with a circus performer. Iida is earning a doctoral degree at the Sibelius-Academy, and has performed on many of Finland’s finest concert series as a soloist and chamber musician, as well as with the Finnish National Opera and Radio Symphony Orchestra. Her family is so full of cellists that her niece and nephew were approaching adolescence before they understood that not everyone in the world plays the cello.

Iida is generously supported by the John W. Kieley Endowment for Emerging Musicians.

Known for their “immensely colourful, lyrical and expressive playing” (Laura Snowden), Quartet Malamatina first converged around Leo Brouwer's Cuban Landscape with Rain for a performance with film at the 2021 UN Climate Conference.

Quartet Malamatina is comprised of members Tim Beattie (Canada), Finlay Hay (Scotland), Ross Morris (England), and Lenny Ranallo (United States). They are building upon the culturally diverse and longstanding traditions of guitar music through a wide range of commissioning, arranging, multidisciplinary collaboration, and community engagement activities.

Quartet Malamatina have recently performed for BBC Radio Scotland, The Worshipful Company of Musicians, Beacon Arts Centre, Carlisle Cathedral, among others. Amidst these performances, Malamatina gave world-premiere performances of newly-commissioned works by Marco Galvani and Erin Thomson, thanks to generous support from Creative Scotland and the PRS Foundation. The Quartet also worked with conductor-composer Martyn Brabbins (English National Opera) in a performance of his piece, Sometimes You Can Hear the Birds Sing – the work’s first outing since 1984. The Quartet’s season highlights include residencies at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Yellow Barn (VT) and concerts throughout Canada and the UK.

Quartet Malamatina is generously supported by the Michael Davies Scholarship Endowment Fund.
 

Instruction Manual is Ollie Hawker and Scott Morrison - two composers and performers based in Glasgow, Scotland. Their work explores digital nostalgia and pastoral visions of the information age. Their newest project, The Instruction Manual, is centred around synthesised vocals, evoking hazy memories of the early days of the internet. By combining elements of past and future, Instruction Manual investigate the similarities between folk traditions and online culture, capturing the latter's mixture of ironic absurdism and earnest emotion. 

Instruction Manual have performed at numerous venues and festivals across Scotland including Sound Thought, Cryptic, Permanent Holidays North, and the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art alongside artist Monster Chetwynd. Their 2020 work, The Owen Wilson Elegies, was nominated for a Scottish New Music Award. 

They are joined by Katie Muir, a multidisciplinary videographer and designer. In recent works, Katie has been using archive materials to create moving collages reflecting modern society’s nostalgic cultural tendencies. She graduated from The Glasgow School of Art in 2020 and has since had work featured in Sonica Festival, worked with pianist Megumi Masaki on her Hearing Ice project, and was named a Scottish Local Heroes Design One-to-Watch.

Instruction Manual and Katie Muir are generously supported by the Sir Mark Turner Memorial Scholarships Endowment.

“Play the Lute to the Cow,” a Chinese idiom that inspired two Toronto-based multidisciplinary percussionists Thomas Li and Nikki Huang on their contemporary music endeavors. A cow could never understand music played on a lute, unless the music becomes meaningful to the cow. The two percussionists aim to provide modern audiences a listening guide to complex contemporary music through incorporating theatrical elements and visual display into their work.  The pair also intend to employ musical performances as a medium for conveying social commentary, aiming to raise awareness about issues of social injustice among their audience.

The two are currently pursuing Masters degree in Music at the University of Toronto under the tutelage of Professor Aiyun Huang. Born and raised in Hong Kong, Thomas is interested in integrating visual media with his playing, and aspires to dedicate his artistic voice to expressing personal emotions and preserving the collective narratives of his home city. Taiwanese percussionist Nikki on the other hand is passionate about exploring the realm of story-telling and attempts to portray different characters through her performance. She actively engages different art forms like contemporary dancing in her art making practice. She has been involved in diverse performance settings, including original music, children musical theater, and interdisciplinary workshops.

In Case of Fire Play the Lute to the Cow is generously supported by the John W. Kieley Endowment for Emerging Musicians (Thomas Li) and the Susan and Graeme McDonald Music Endowment (Nikki Huang).

Seán Morgan-Rooney is currently one of Ireland’s leading young pianists. Winner of the Charles J. Brennan Prize at the 10th Dublin International Piano Competition, he has released a début album, performed with the country's top orchestras and concertized extensively around Europe as a solo recitalist.

Seán's early studies were with John O'Conor at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin. He went on to study with Professor Christopher Elton at the Royal Academy of Music in London and with David Kuyken at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. Winner of several prizes for his playing, as a teenager Seán was a piano finalist of the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition. He is a past winner of the Royal Academy of Music's Else Cross Prize for contemporary music and a past finalist of the Dutch Classical Talent Award.

Alongside traditional repertoire, Seán is involved in more explorative, interdisciplinary performances. He has worked on numerous occasions with silent film, dance and theatre, and was formerly the pianist for the Hard Rain Ensemble, one of the UK’s leading contemporary music ensembles. Seán also composes his own music, focusing on piano with electronics and song composition.

Seán is generously supported by the Maria Francisca Josepha Brouwer Fund for Dutch Artists.