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.

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.

Originally from Bloomington, Illinois, Miguel Velasco is a fifth-year student at the Lawrence Conservatory of Music in Appleton, Wisconsin, pursuing both a BM in Clarinet Performance and a BA in Computer Science. During his undergraduate career, Miguel studied under Dr. Andy Hudson and David Bell, along with masterclasses with Michael Lowenstern, Alica Lee, Zachary Good, and Eric Mandat. Miguel is a part of multiple highly regarded chamber ensembles, one of which was previously invited to play a recital at the International Clarinet Association Lowfest in Glendale, AZ, in January 2025.

Along with his musical endeavors, Miguel also works year-round at State Farm Insurance as a Senior Software Engineer Intern, working on the MyAccounts page of the statefarm.com website. When not working or practicing, Miguel enjoys cooking, competing in fighting game tournaments, collecting retro consoles, and weightlifting.

Miguel Velasco was generously supported by the Richard and Sidney Killmer Oboe Endowment Fund.

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.

Theresa Thordarson’s boundless creative drive springs from a lifetime of musical risk-taking. Growing up in rural Manitoba, Theresa experienced an environment where the classical canon was just one of many influences. Her curiosity has led her to explore unexpected connections across disparate musical worlds. Her creations embrace playful pastoral poetry, subtle and surprising harmonies, and memorable melodies.

Theresa performs traditional, contemporary, and original music as a pianist/keyboardist, collaborator, and vocalist. Highlight performances include concerts for Westben’s Performer-Composer Residency in Campbellford ON, Winnipeg Baroque Festival, Send and Receive, Winterruption, Nuit Blanche Winnipeg, and Lethbridge’s Centric Festival. She also sings, synths, and writes adventurous pop music as one half of the duo Bicycle Face with guitarist Ava Glendinning, and released a solo chamber-folk album entitled ‘revery’ in 2024 under the name theresa thor.

A passionate educator, Theresa instructs with a flexible, student-centred approach. She has served as a sessional instructor and collaborative pianist at Brandon University and the State University of New York, Fredonia.

Theresa makes her home in Winnipeg where she hosts a lively teaching studio, many plants, and a blossoming house show series: “Closer Concerts”.

Theresa Thordarson was generously supported by the Banff Centre Endowment.

Praised by La Libre Belgique as an “expressive, fine chamber musician,” pianist Charlotte Tang actively performs across North America. Named a laureate of the Musica Antiqua Competition in Bruges (2024), Charlotte’s passion for early 19th-century music is well-recognized. Her recent highlights include residencies at the Banff Centre and Orford Musique, fellowship at the Gilmore Piano Festival, and performances at the Historical Keyboard Society of North America and Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards. She is looking forward to the Emerging Artist Showcase at the Early Music America Summit (Oct 2025).

Charlotte believes that music and art are integral to our development as a society, and are particularly crucial to the growth of the younger generation. She values opportunities to contribute to their artistic and pedagogical development through her work as a scholar–performer and teacher. Her research focuses on instrumental affordances as reflected in early 19th-century piano compositions, which she has passionately shared in conferences. As a pedagogue, she is a regular guest for masterclasses at universities and music communities in Ontario.

Charlotte has been mentored by Elisabeth Wright and David Breitman on the historical piano, and James Parker, Roberto Plano, and the late Marietta Orlov on the modern piano.

Charlotte Tang was generously supported by the Banff Centre Endowment.

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.

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.

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.

Mikołaj Rytowski is a versatile instrumentalist and sound artist rooted in percussion, diverging from conventional norms to explore sound and creativity organically. His pracice spans improvisation, composition, and collaboration, moving beyond interpretation to actively engage with the creative process. As both creator and improviser, he pushes the boundaries of percussion and electronic instruments, constantly experimenting with new combinations and sonic innovations. His work challenges traditional perceptions of percussion, reflecting a commitment to exploration and artistic expression. Since 2019, Mikołaj has been living and working primarily in Basel, Switzerland.

Mikolaj Rytowski was generously supported by the Banff Centre Endowment.