A Dominican-American improviser, pianist and composer from Chicago, Julián´s journey started with the Caribbean rhythms of their childhood. A classically trained artist, their work found a home in jazz performance, improvisation, and collaboration. Julián is a recent Jazz Performance graduate of the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, where they studied with Warren Wolf as a recipient of the Merit School of Music's Alice S. Pfaelzer Tuition-Free Conservatory Blue Ribbon Scholarship. As a solo pianist they have studied at the Aspen Music Festival, Gijón Piano Festival, Brevard Music Festival and Colburn Piano Festival.  As a founding member of the Peabody Improvisers Collective, Julián developed experimental collaborative programs and has been creating and performing improvisational music for ballet, modern and West-African dance programs in Baltimore as an accompanist at Peabody, and in Chicago as an accompanist at Ruth Page and Visceral Dance Centers.  

Julián is the Director of the Julián and Friends Concert Series, a monthly composer platform highlighting new music stemming from the many traditions of Black American Music now in its third year at the Jazz Showcase in Chicago; and is the founder of Mamey, a musical group and project that delves into the influence that Caribbean arts have had in their musical creative journey, and honors beautiful Dominico-Haitian traditions and cultural resilience, while promoting new and vibrant art. Julián is a member of the piano faculty at The Music Offering in Evanston, Illinois, and just released the single Rothko; Tlaloc and Totec featuring Levi Lu and Lorin Benedict, on the New York artist label Carrier Records. They are one of five Chicago artists recently chosen to participate in the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Event’s Center for Creative Entrepreneurship 2024 Cohort, to cultivate and advance their professional practice, and is the recipient of a South Arts Jazz Tour Grant for their Spring Mamey tour of the East Coast. 

Julián Pujols Quall was generously supported by Banff Centre Artists' Awards and the George Brough Memorial Endowment.

Sam Fournier is a Métis multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter, composer, performer and arranger based in Winnipeg. As a bassist, Fournier has performed throughout the province and Canada with a wide variety of groups, and holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Manitoba Jazz Studies program. While he is known as a versatile sideman, Sam is also developing a personal sound as a solo artist. Through his rich exposure to varying types of music, as well as having abilities on many instruments, Sam hopes to express himself and connect with others through his music. As a composer, Fournier has a deep understanding of harmony, all while delivering melodies that are simple, yet memorable. He explores elements of grief, love, hope, and community through his work. Sam believes that music should be accessible to all, regardless of education or economic status, with the goal of decolonizing the art form while maintaining his personal artistic voice.

Sam Fournier was generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Matt Smith is a trumpet player and composer hailing from Perth, Western Australia. Matt is a keen contributor to Perth’s vibrant music scene, performing regularly with Brass Party, Mace Francis Orchestra, PROOF, Odette Mercy and her Soul Atomics, Crucial Rockers, Steve Hensby Band, Perth Cabaret Collective, De Cuba Son, Pete Jeavons Nonet amongst others. In 2023 Matt released his debut album, Driftwood, a collection of eleven compositions for large and small ensembles inspired by the landscapes and memories of growing up in the South West region of Western Australia.

Matt Smith was generously supported by the John W. Kieley Endowment for Emerging Musicians.

MAYSUN is a composer and sound artist known for his unique blend of drumming expertise and sound design, creating immersive atmospheric soundscapes. With a focus on the use of physical space to shape and manipulate sounds, he crafts compositions that serve as soundtracks to his life events.

MAYSUN's work is characterized by an innovative approach that transforms real-life sounds into musical tones, skillfully interweaving the dimensions of time and space within its compositions. His artistic journey is driven by a deep passion for exploring spatial audio and a desire to create meaningful emotional connections through his music. MAYSUN’s latest release, 'Timelines,' represents his ongoing commitment to the craft of sound artistry, inviting listeners on a deep ambient introspective journey.

In addition to his artistic pursuits, MAYSUN has been serving on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Electroacoustic Community (CEC) since 2023, he is also a proud member of the international artist collective Inland Ocean and has been selected for the prestigious 2024 ITP/IMA Fellowship at New York University.

MAYSUN [Etienne Mason] was generously supported by Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Michael J Brady (he/him) is a Sydney-based musician who traverses jazz, folk and indie music making. Working primarily a guitarist; he draws on effects, voice, and multiple instruments as a means of exploring and sharing sound. 

Since 2016 he has led the Michael J Brady Trio, exploring shifting textures within the improvised trio format. The group have toured the Australian East Coast four times, collaborating with artists including Sandy Evans, Sasha Gavlek, and Flora Carbo. Michael released his debut album ‘Brady//Donkin//Phipps’ with the group in late 2023. He is also a founding member in indie-rock outfit Jackie Brown Jr, working as a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and songwriter. He has completed four tours with the group, releasing two Eps.

Michael holds a Bachelor of Music (honours)/Bachelor of Education having studied at the University of New South Wales (2018) and completed an exchange semester at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University (2015). Since his studies he has taken part in the Australian Art Orchestra’s 2021 Creative Music Intensive and the 2023 Siena Jazz University International Jazz Workshop. In 2023 Michael and his trio were artists in residence at the University of New South Wales Creative Practice lab.

Michael Brady was generously supported by the Repsol Emerging Artists Award.

tUkU is a composer, singer, and performance artist, exploring the relationship between words and melody; voice as archive to sonically weave community. A Dora-nominated theatre composer and a poetic songwriter who excels at uniting text with complex harmonic songlines, tUkU honours the place singing takes in black woman culture. ‘I come to music through a powerful musical lineage, from the Bey family of artists, in Canada and the US, prominently rooted in jazz culture. ‘I have been singing with my mother and sister since I was a child.’ The recipient of a Chalmers Arts Fellowship, tUkU created a project titled diary of a salt. eater, to set to melody select poems from nayyirah waheed’s salt. for black woman chorus. In research into ways of being, tUkU recently participated in collective process work facilitated byphilosopher/writer/activist Bayo Akomolafe. tUkU is currently composing and recording her solo song set entitled luna’s re-. ‘More than anything, the experience of listening shapes my choices of expression as an artist and inspires my day-to-day movements as a human being.’ CATEGORY:WOMAN is tUkU’s debut as a film composer.

tUkU was generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards and the Denis Jackson Memorial Scholarship Endowment.

Harrison Argatoff is a Toronto-based saxophonist and composer. His music, described as “Somewhere between Bach, BL!NDMAN and Mark Turner” (Jazz Halo, 2020), strives to combine the study of free-improvised, jazz, and classical music to cultivate an enthusiastically eclectic, yet distinctly personal sound. Since graduating from the University of Toronto’s jazz program in 2018, Harrison has performed across Canada and released four innovative albums, most notably with intergenerational jazz quartet “Harrison Squared”, which features Canadian greats Mike Murley and Steve Wallace.

Harrison was raised a Doukhobour in the interior of British Columbia, surrounded by teachings of pacifism, communal music making, and a wide sweeping respect for life and nature. After years spent stubbornly resisting piano lessons to embrace long haired rock-and-roll guitar, at age ten he discovered, and was immediately captivated by, the saxophone.

At present, Harrison’s is primarily focused on musical development. He is currently a student of Wallace Halladay, studying classical saxophone; Sasha Rapoport, studying classical composition; and John Hollenbeck, studying contemporary composition. These mentorships, initiated in 2020 with support from the Canada Council for the Arts, have inspired a new sense of aliveness and curiosity in Harrison’s artistic practice, while continually challenging his patience and humility.

Harrison Argatoff was generously supported by the Lockwood Family Endowment Fund for Music.

Ethan Cohn is a bass player, composer, improvisor, and educator born and raised in New York City. Known for his versatility across genres and his love of musical cross-pollination, his work reflects his sponge-like capacity to absorb and integrate his many interests into one unified voice. Holding collaboration as a central tenet of his practice, he frequently fuses worlds of jazz and rock, composition and improvisation, acoustic and electric, tradition and invention, and is interested in the potential of electronics as both a compositional tool and an interface for live performers and improvisors.

Ethan is an alumnus of McGill University, and spent several years immersing himself in Montreal's rich music scene before moving to Switzerland to participate in Focusyear Basel, a year-long jazz residency. He returned to his home of New York in 2021 and completed his master's studies at The New School’s Performer-Composer program. 

Ethan Cohn was generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards and the John Linn Memorial Scholarship.

Born in Crete, Greece, I started playing the violin when I was six. At the age of 18, I moved to Athens, where I continued my studies of classical violin and got my bachelor's degree in Biology.  At the age of 25, my urge to discover more free and liberating ways to approach music, led me to relocate to Germany in order to study jazz violin at the HMT Leipzig. Since then, I've been trying to explore my desire to redefine the role of the violin in contemporary music, venturing beyond its traditional confines.

With my band Shejust_Left, an all-female band dedicated to musical experimentation and empowerment, we have toured through Europe, and recently released our first album. Beyond Shejust_Left, I co-founded the jazz and improvising string quartet “Aloú”, I am a member of the improvising orchestra “Ideal Orchester” and I am currently working on my solo project and my jazz quartet.

My inspiration comes from the avant-garde movements of the 20th century, as well as the aesthetics of pop and electronic music, which form a part of my musical background. At the same time, I have found, sometimes to my surprise, that traditional Greek music is often present, no matter how imperceptibly. With this eclectic mixture of sounds and cultures as part of my musical personality, I continually seek to untangle the constraints of the violin in jazz, and other forms of improvisational music.

Myrsini Bekakou was generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards and the Cyril and Elizabeth Challice Fund for Musicians.

Alex Chang is an electric acoustic harpist. She experiments with the diversity and sweep of resonances of the electric harp — from astral tones to wailing walls of distortion. Her musical practice finds its foundations in free jazz, indie rock, Celtic and new music, and her classical training. She explores entanglements and embodied practices through the concepts of free jazz and improvisation and the ways in which music moves through us and puts us in relation and dialogue with others. Her interest in interdisciplinary collaborative practices attends to how improvisation opens up our sentience, our emotional and empathic relations around us and beyond as intertwined beings for connection and healing. Within her interdisciplinary practice, she focuses on the arts and environment and centering BIPOC communities.

She is also the co-director of Improv Spaces and runs the Improv Spaces Music Festival with creative partner percussionist Adam Forman. Improv Spaces is based in upstate New York in Saratoga County and Capital Region, developing projects that can help to serve as a hub in the region and provide resources for new music with a community of interdisciplinary collaborators locally and beyond.

Alex Chang was generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards and the John W. Kieley Endowment for Emerging Musicians.