Alumni Profiles
Our aim is to create a long-lasting database of Laurier Music alumni - especially composers and performers, but any and all music alumni biography submissions are welcome - to help facilitate collaboration between alumni who may not otherwise know each other. This page will also function as a resource for anyone outside the Laurier Music community who wishes to consult it to find composers, performers, etc. who have graduated from Laurier's music program.
If you are a Laurier Music alumnus interested in having your biography posted on this page, please send us an email containing the following:
- a 100-word biography
- any links you wish to have posted along with your biography (website, SoundCloud, etc.)
If you are a Laurier Music alumnus interested in having your biography posted on this page, please send us an email containing the following:
- a 100-word biography
- any links you wish to have posted along with your biography (website, SoundCloud, etc.)
1980
Jana Skarecky was born in the Czech Republic and grew up in Waterloo. She studied composition at Wilfrid Laurier University (B.Mus) with Barrie Cabena, and later at the University of Sydney, Australia (M.Mus.) with Peter Sculthorpe. She has written music for instruments, from solo to orchestra, and voices including choir and opera. Her music has been performed in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. She is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre and a faculty member of the Royal Conservatory of Music. Jana Skarecky is also a visual artist.
Web: www.JanaSkarecky.com, www.musiccentre.ca/node/37429/showcase
1984
Praised for his “masterful command of instrumental colour” (Georgia Straight) and “superb attention to rhythm” (Audio Ideas Guide), and recipient of SOCAN’s 2014 Jan V. Matejcek New Classical Music Award for career achievement, Vancouver-based Jeffrey Ryan writes music that runs the gamut from opera, art song, and choral music to chamber and orchestral work. With awards and recognition including four JUNO nominations, his music has been commissioned, performed and recorded by orchestras, ensembles and soloists worldwide. His portrait CD Fugitive Colours (Vancouver Symphony/Gryphon Trio) launched the Naxos Canadian Classics series and won the 2012 Western Canadian Music Award for Classical Recording of the Year.
Web: jeffreyryan.com
Stephanie Martin’s choral symphony “BABEL” for orchestra, choir and soloists premieres at Wilfrid Laurier University April 2nd and 3rd, 2016.
At York University’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design, Martin teaches history, composition, harpsichord, organ and ensembles.
Recent performances include her cantata Winter Nights with the Grand Philharmonic of Kitchener-Waterloo, The Portinari Nativity commissioned by Ex Cathedra, UK, three new choral works for Christ Church Cathedral, Victoria B.C., a string quartet “From a distant island” and works performed by Voces Capituli, Antwerp; Canadian Men’s Chorus; St. John’s Cathedral, Albuquerque; and Ely Cathedral, UK.
Web: www.stephaniemartinmusic.com
1985
William Peltier studied composition at Wilfrid Laurier with Mariano Etkin and at McGill with John Rea. His music has been performed in Canada and abroad: cities include Toronto, Kitchener-Waterloo, Ottawa, Guelph, Quebec, Montreal, Victoria, New York, Amsterdam, Berlin, Prishtina, Havana, and Buenos Aires. Organizations and ensembles include Gaudeamus International Music Week, Havana Contemporary Music Festival, Remusica Festival, CBC Radio, NOS-radio, Arraymusic, NUMUS, The New Art Quartet, The Blue Rider Ensemble, Les Evenement du Neuf, New York Miniaturist Ensemble, Aventa Ensemble, Continuum Ensemble, and the Pierrot Lunaire Ensemble Wien®.
Adam Batstone premiered a new guitar work in December 2015.
Web: williamjpeltier.50webs.com/index.html
SoundCloud: william-j-peltier
1988
Sarah J. Coles is active in the Kitchener-Waterloo area as a saxophonist, flutist, teacher, writer, and composer. At Laurier, she studied with Boyd MacDonald, Peter Hatch, and Glenn Buhr, graduating in 1988 as one of the first women to receive a composition degree. She studied with Pat Carrabre in Brandon, and completed her M.Mus. at Western. Sarah’s music has been performed in England, the US, and Canada, including premieres by saxophonists at Central Washington University, and by the University of Waterloo Chamber Choir. She is the author of a teaching method for fife and publishes through her own company, Choral Seas Press.
Web: www.choralseaspress.com
1989
JUNO nominated composer John Estacio has composed music for several ensembles and his compositions are frequently recorded, performed and broadcast on international radio and television. He has composed three operas, one of which, Filumena, was filmed for television and broadcast on the CBC and PBS. He recently completed a full length orchestral score for the new ballet King Arthur's Camelot, commissioned by the Cincinnati Ballet.
His music has been performed at Carnegie Hall by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the ESO. He is the recipient of the NAC Award for Composers and his music was performed by Pinchas Zukerman and the National Arts Centre Orchestra during their 2013 tour of China and again during their UK tour in 2014. The Richard Eaton Singers toured Europe in the summer of 2013 with his choral work branche. Baritone Russell Braun and violinist James Ehnes premiered a new song cycle in the spring of 2013. His orchestral works have been performed by all the major orchestras throughout Canada, as well as several orchestras in the USA and Europe.
Web: www.johnestacio.com
1991
Richard Windeyer is a composer, sound designer, researcher, and percussionist currently pursuing doctoral studies at the University of Toronto through a collaboration between the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies and the Knowledge Media Design Institute. His research focuses on applications of data in designing interactive/participatory and sound-based performance environments. He currently works as a Research Assistant in the Digital Dramaturgy Lab (University of Toronto). Previously, he taught courses and workshops in music technology and electroacoustic composition at Wilfrid Laurier University. Since 2000, he has served as a creative artist for a variety of companies including bluemouth inc and Vertical City Performance. In 1996 he was a co-founder of the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology. He also produces and performs electronic music under various aliases.
Web: www.richardwindeyer.com
1993
Todd Harrop (1989–93) studied composition with Gary Kulesha and Peter Hatch, percussion with Carol Bauman and Dave Campion, and theatre with Leslie O'Dell. After WLU he obtained a master's degree at the University of Victoria, played timpani with the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, taught percussion at Lakehead University, accompanied for Dancetheatre David Earle, acted at The Grand Theatre (London), among others, and freelanced in Montreal in theatre and music. Presently he is pursuing a Dr.Sc.Mus. at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, specializing in microtonality. His music has been played in Germany, Italy, Slovenia, New Zealand and North America.
Web: thmuses.wordpress.com
1994
D. Andrew Stewart is a composer, pianist and digital musical instrumentalist, pursing a career in live electronics and gesture-controlled performance. His practise centres around two areas: combining acoustic and digital instrument composition; establishing performance practises for new digital instruments. Stewart’s music has been featured by: the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Esprit Orchestra, Penderecki Quartet, Toronto New Music Concerts, Ensemble contemporain de Montréal +, musikFabrik, orkest de ereprijs, Ensamble 3 and ROSA Ensemble. In addition, he has contributed to the field of music technology research through his participation at: NIME, ICMC, ACM SIGCHI, EMS, TES, SMT, ACFAS, ICASP-IPLAI.
Web: dandrewstewart.ca
1996
The 2015 season marked Ben’s 16th season with the Stratford Festival, where he plays for live musical productions and has recorded incidental music for dozens of stage plays.
Ben performs with the Factory Arts Quartet. He was the featured performer on a disc of new works entitled “Notes Towards” which was nominated in 2009 for a Juno Award. As a solo performer, his focus is on works for solo cello written for him or by him, often involving electronically “looped” material and spanning a multitude of genres and traditions. You can also hear Ben in February with the Wellington Winds performing Oskar Morawetz's Memorial to Martin Luther King, a Canadian masterwork for cello and wind ensemble.
Ben teaches cello and chamber music at the University of Waterloo and is Principal Conductor of the Waterloo Chamber Players. He lives in Kitchener with his wife Liz and three cats.
1998
Joanne Bender (B.MUS Composition WLU '98, M.Mus Composition U of T '01) is an active piano, theory and composition teacher in her private Waterloo studio. Joanne has had several of her commissioned cantata and choral pieces performed by local choirs. She is a member of Red Leaf Pianoworks, a collective of Canadian composers. Joanne’s piano pieces have been published in the 2015 Royal Conservatory Piano series. She received the WLU Community Music School award in 2011.
Owen Bloomfield is an active Cambridge, Ontario based community musician and composer. He has written for a variety of ensembles and soloists. His works have been performed in locales as far-flung as Amsterdam, Boston, Whitehorse and Honolulu. Wanderer, written for Bohlen-Pierce tuned clarinet duet is one of the original works written for that instrument and has been performed in festivals around the world. While at WLU, Owen studied composition with Peter Hatch, Glenn Buhr and James Harley. He then completed his Masters in Composition at UBC studying with Kieth Hamel.
1999
Jennifer Butler’s music has been described as intimate, resonant, and sonorous.
Recent projects include: Stolen Materials Stolen Time, commissioned by Standing Wave; The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls, commissioned by Vancouver New Music; Under Bleak Skies, commissioned by Redshift for Aventa at the Vancouver Aquatic Centre; and Unvanishing, a collaboration with video artist Terry Billings and the Saskatoon Symphony. Currently she is working on a commission for the Vancouver Inter-cultural Orchestra and a new song cycle for Vancouver’s Onyx Trio.
Jennifer was President of the Canadian League of Composers from 2011-14, has been a member of Murray Schafer’s Wolf Project since 2000, and is an associate composer with the Canadian Music Centre.
SoundCloud: jaebutler
Dr. Nicole Marchesseau’s award-winning creative projects have been showcased in Canada and abroad, and represent a blend of styles and media. She has lectured on a wide range of twentieth and twenty-first century topics ranging from the works of Milton Babbitt to Op Magazine. Dr. Marchesseau has published on and performed with Jandek, the central focus of her doctoral research. Present research interests include the sonic and cultural analysis of popular music, late 1970s and early 1980s DIY movements, and music and disability. She has taught at York University in Toronto, the Department of Music Research and Composition at the Don Wright Faculty of Music at Western University, and has guest lectured at Ryerson University.
Web: nicolemarchesseau.com
2000
Marci Rabe's (M.Mus.) compositions have enjoyed performances across Canada, in the Unitied States, Denmark, and Japan. The following words by Danish composer Klaus Jørgensen describe her work beautifully..."I can picture [her] wandering about a landscape of sound with a basket hanging over [her] arm, picking up and keeping for later every single rare moment [she] stumble[s] upon, attentive, never resting and yet ever so patient... I hear harmony gathering as crystals in a string, molecules building on and on and on... Time is [her] friend, and [she] create[s] a space decorated in style with it..."
Web: marcirabe.com
SoundCloud: marci-rabe
2001
Kristy Farkas is the Concert and Publicity Manager at the University of Victoria’s School of Music. She is also a composer, performer, fibre artist and award-winning photographer.
Her musical collaborations extend across Canada and Japan, and she frequently performs at A Place to Listen in Victoria. Composing mainly for solo instruments and chamber ensembles—with a penchant for collaborative, improvisational and site-specific projects—Kristy’s works have been presented by Redshift, Continuum, Vancouver New Music, The Music Gallery, and Open Space, among others.
As a fibre artisan, her project warble & plink is dedicated to her handmade knit and crochet works.
Web: kristyfarkas.net
William Brent is a computer musician and Assistant Professor of Audio Technology at American University in Washington DC. His creative work is spread across the areas of experimental music performance, sound art, and instrument design, and involves various combinations of human- robotic- and computer-realized sound. His current lines of research include new methods for physical control of synthesized audio, signal analysis techniques for quantifying timbre, and various aspects of human timbre perception.
Brent studied piano performance and composition at Wilfrid Laurier University, earned an MA at Mills College and holds a Ph.D in Music from the University of California, San Diego.
Web: williambrent.com
2002
Born in 1980 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Daryl Jamieson studied at Wilfrid Laurier University
under Glenn Buhr and Linda Catlin Smith, at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama under
Diana Burrell and under Nicola LeFanu at the University of York. He spent a post-doctoral year
in Tokyo studying with Jo Kondo.
Daryl writes for both Japanese and western instruments. Major compositions include an opera
Matsumushi, three string quartets, and many chamber pieces. His music has been performed by
the Quatuor Bozzini, Orchestre National de Lorraine, and Satoko Inoue, among others. His
plaintive belling was recorded by Nobutaka Yoshizawa.
Web: www.daryljamieson.com
SoundCloud: daryl-jamieson-1
David Cecchetto is Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities at York University (Toronto); he was previously Assistant Professor at OCAD University. David has published widely, including a 2013 monograph — Humanesis: Sound and Technological Posthumanism — with the University of Minnesota Press.
David is a member of The Occulture, a Toronto-based collective investigating the esoteric imbrications of sound, affect, and hyperstition. Their collectively authored book — titled Ludic Dreaming: How to listen away from contemporary technoculture — is under review for publication.
As an artist working with sound, David has presented work in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Russia.
Web: www.davidcecchetto.net
Blog: www.theocculture.net
Jascha Narveson was raised in a concert hall in KW and put to sleep as a child with an old vinyl copy of the Bell Labratories mainframe computer singing "Bicycle Built for Two." He now lives in Brooklyn and makes music for people, machines, and interesting combinations of people and machines.
Web: www.jaschanarveson.com
Naomi Williams (BMus – Voice Performance, 2002) is a voice teacher and performer based in Calgary, Alberta. She teaches 50 vocalists of all ages, ranging from beginner to advanced, specializing in pop, rock, musical theatre and classical. She is also the Musical Director for a popular Gilbert & Sullivan youth program, the lead vocalist for Calgary cover band Forty-Five, and the new Director of the Kids & Music program with the Youth Singers of Calgary.
Web: www.aviddiva.ca
Richard Burrows has had an active career throughout North America, Europe, Mexico, Australia, and Asia. Having earned two Master’s degrees from the University of Toronto, Richard has honed his craft to create a unique approach in both education and performance. As an educator, he has adjudicated and facilitated masterclasses in percussion and music business. As an active freelance musician, he has organized numerous events under the auspices of Open Ears Festival, and performed with famed bass clarinetist Kathryn Ladano in “Stealth,” as a principle cast member of ScrapArtsMusic and is a founding member of TorQ Percussion Quartet.
2003
Danielle Beck earned her Bachelor of Music Performance from WLU in 2003, majoring on the saxophone. She has since built a career as a performer, clinician, accompanist, and private instructor for woodwinds and piano. Danielle started her own music school, Beck Music, in September 2010. Beck Music has grown to include a teaching staff of Laurier Alumni who are all excited to share their passion for music education with the Kitchener/Waterloo community. Danielle is currently performing with The Crazy Diamonds Band, Stealing Dan, Wellington Winds Symphony, The Royal City Saxophone Quartet, and has played reeds for a number of musical productions in KW and Guelph.
Web: www.beckmusic.ca
2004
Oboist Elizabeth Eccleston’s passion for new music developed during her time at Laurier where as an undergraduate she performed for WLU’s Student Composers Concert Series and Improvisation Concerts Ensemble. During graduate studies in Cincinnati, Liz premiered new music at the MusicX Festival, and was also featured as a soloist for Lutosławski’s Concerto for Oboe and Harp with the Café Momus Ensemble. Music has taken her many places including China, Italy, the US and Canada. In addition to traditional symphonic performances, Liz plays with Thin Edge New Music Collective and Blythwood Winds, premiering music with these professional chamber ensembles in Toronto.
Jason White is active at the forefront of musical and interdisciplinary art-making in Waterloo Region. In 2004, his WLU graduation year, he received a K-W Leading Edge Arts Award after earning his BMus (composition). He later earned a MMus (contemporary performance) from the Manhattan School of Music, where he was the contemporary opera coach for two years. He is a regular guest with the K-W Symphony. Jason will make his European debut as a concerto pianist in 2017.
Jason is in high demand as a festival adjudicator & as a teacher, with a busy private studio.
Web: www.TheJasonWhite.com
2005
Brandon Miguel Valdivia is a drummer, percussionist, flautist, improviser and composer based in Toronto. He is active in musical and interdisciplinary work that is innovative, inclusive and which enables cross cultural dialogue and understanding. His current musical projects are improv duo Not the Wind, Not the Flag, solo experimental dance music project Mas Aya, emerging Hip Hop/Dancehall band Above Top Secret and electronic-dance singer Lido Pimienta. He is also active in the theatre and dance world in where he has worked on live music accompaniment and soundscape work with Clay and Paper Theatre, Red Snow Collective and multiple works by Aluna Theatre.
Ilana Waniuk is a versatile violinist and contemporary chamber music addict with interests ranging from improvisation to visual arts. She has been a fellow at the Bang On A Can Summer Music Festival and Norfolk New Music Workshop as well as guest artist in residence at the SoundSCAPE festival of contemporary music in Italy. Ilana is a founding member and co-artistic director of the Thin Edge New Music Collective. In addition to presenting a Toronto-based concert series, TENMC has performed on concert stages across Canada and most recently in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Ilana is a winner of the 2014 Orford String Quartet Award.
Web: www.thethinedgenewmusiccollective.com
Kyle Brenders is a composer-performer whose music deftly synthesizes composition and improvisation. His work tends to be reluctantly labeled under the Avant-Jazz category by exploring a mix of freedom and structure infused with a probing energy and a touch of wit.
Brenders maintains a number of active groups that perform his work. He has worked with Ab Baars, Anthony Braxton, Lori Freedman, David Mott and Alvin Lucier, creating a unique compositional voice and improvisational vocabulary. Brenders also maintains extremely active administrative and organizational roles as Soundstreams’ Artistic Associate, President of the Canadian New Music Network and leader of the Massey Hall Band.
Web: www.kylebrenders.ca, kylebrenders.bandcamp.com
YouTube: kbrenders
Nick Storring is a Toronto-based composer and musician active within various aesthetics. Winner of the Canadian Music Centre's 2011 Toronto Emerging Composer Award, he also placed first in the 2008 Jeux De Temps competition for electroacoustic composition. Recent commissions include a piece for Arraymusic, Montréal's AKOUSMA Festival, and a solo piano work, Byland, for Eve Egoyan. His music has been presented by the Esprit Orchestra, Quatuor Bozzini, Cecilia String Quartet, Beijing's Musicacoustica Festival, Soundstreams, and Vancouver New Music's Nomadic Streams Festival. His two 2014 solo recordings Gardens (Scissor Tail Editions) and Endless Conjecture (Orange Milk Records) were released to considerable acclaim in publications like Exclaim!, Tiny Mix Tapes, Decoder and the Boston Hassle.
Web: www.nickstorring.ca
2006
Cheryl Duvall is an active pianist, teacher and adjudicator and has toured extensively throughout Canada, Europe, Argentina and the U.S. Especially passionate about contemporary music, she co-founded the Thin Edge New Music Collective with violinist Ilana Waniuk, now in their fifth season. Cheryl accompanies the Oakville Children’s Choir, to which she has competed internationally with gold standings. She maintains a full piano studio and adjudicates across Canada. Cheryl completed an HonBMus in Piano Performance/Theory and a Chamber Diploma from WLU as well as a Master’s of Piano Performance and Pedagogy at UofT. Her influences include Guy Few, Chris Foley, Midori Koga, and Anya Alexeyev.
Web: www.cherylduvall.com, www.thethinedgenewmusiccollective.com
Christopher Reiche is a performer, composer, and instructor living in Victoria, British Columbia. His compositions range from pieces for solo performer to works for larger ensembles and have been performed by Quatuor Bozzini, Emily Carr String Quartet, Thin Edge New Music Collective, Pembroke Symphony Orchestra, 7090, and orkest de ereprijs.
In Victoria, he performs frequently at A Place to Listen. He can also be heard performing on Lodge no1 recorded by the Glass Tables. In 2013 he gave a solo performance of Erik Satie’s Vexations, completing all 840 repetitions in just under 24 hours.
Web: christopherreiche.tumblr.com
Chris Thornborrow, whose work has been described as "complex and clear, with subtle playfulness" (Musical Toronto), and "a percussive, evocative pleasure" (Indiewire), is a composer of film-score, opera, and concert music. In addition to being nominated for a Dora Award, he is the winner of multiple SOCAN awards for Audio/Visual Composers, was the Toronto Emerging Composer Award Honourable Mention, and won the Karen Keiser Prize in Canadian Composition. He is the cofounder and artistic director of the Toy Piano Composers, and his passion for education has led him to collaborations with the TDSB, Continuum Ensemble, and the Canadian Opera Company.
Web: www.christhornborrow.com, www.toypianocomposers.com
Olaf Szester is a Toronto based percussionist and composer. Olaf graduated with an Honours Bachelor of Music from Wilfrid Laurier University in 2006 specializing in Orchestral Performance and Composition. In addition, he graduated from Koninklijk Conservatorium with a second Bachelor Degree in Percussion in 2008.
Olaf focuses his energies on freelancing, teaching and a variety of diverse projects. In addition to the Thin Edge New Music Collective, he plays drums and percussion with Lazybones, a roots-folk-reggae band that have had notable success opening for artists such as Tom Cochrane, Skydiggers, Great Big Sea, and Hey Rosetta. Olaf is also currently the drummer backing the solo project of Dylan Reisch.
Equally uncomfortable across a wide musical spectrum, Pete Lamont’s music has been heard in concert halls, schools, churches, Irish pubs, theatre stages and international film festivals.
In his growing family’s home of Waterloo, Pete is active as a composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist while dabbling in technical theatre.
Sally Norris is a composer/pianist who likes to walk in the woods. For her, the magic of music making is in the connection to others. Sally’s favourite musical experiences include collaborative projects such as those with Sarah Albu and Jeffrey Stonehouse, Upstart Theatre collective, and the glass tables.
Sally earned both a Bachelor of Music (Wilfrid Laurier University) and a Master of Arts (Wesleyan University) in composition. Her influences include: Linda Catlin Smith, Terence Kroetsch, and Anthony Braxton. Currently, she is further investigating the nature and importance of sound in a combined MClSc/PhD in audiology and hearing science (Western University).
2007
Daniel Brophy is a composer of orchestral, chamber, and solo concert works, and a performer of extreme metal and noise. Often combing these styles into a single grotesquery, he presents a liminal experience blurring the edges of art and perception. Much of Daniel’s work revolves around the combination of urban and academic musics, and the development of Reflexive Electronic Instruments that react to movement. He has performed internationally with these instruments and is a recipient of multiple composition and academic awards. Daniel currently resides in Burlington, Ontario with his wife and son where he is pursuing a Doctorate of Music degree in composition and teaches music.
Web: www.danbrophy.ca
Flutist Jeffrey Stonehouse is Artistic Director of Ensemble Paramirabo, a new music ensemble with whom he has performed across Canada and the USA. He holds a masters degree from McGill University and has appeared as a soloist with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra and l’Orchestre Métropolitain. As an orchestral freelancer, he regularly performs with the Sherbrooke, Laval, Trois-Rivieres and Drummondville Symphony Orchestras. Jeff has recorded film soundtracks for Louis Cyr and Hot Dog and can be heard on recordings on the Naxos and CentreDisc labels. A passionate pedagogue, Jeff operates a private home studio and conducts the Orchestre Symphonique du Conservatoire de la Montérégie.
Web: www.ensembleparamirabo.com, www.jeffreystonehouse.com
2008
Composer Afarin Mansouri Tehrani is the Artistic Director of Iranian- Canadian Composers of Toronto (ICOT), an associate composer of Canadian Music Centre, and an advisory committee member for North York Arts (an initiative of Toronto Arts Foundation). As a PhD candidate she is teaching music while researching on children’s opera at York University. She has presented her works at national and international music conferences. Winner of many local and international music awards, Afarin has collaborated with various Ensembles and Festivals such as Toronto Tirgan Festival, Toronto Nuit Blanche, KW Open Ears Festival, Windag Choir and Ensemble, TorQ Percussion Ensemble and St Augustine Duo. Afarin has studied composition with well-known Canadian composers including Christos Hatzis, Alexander Rapoport, Gary Kulesha, Peter Hatch, Linda Cathlin Smith, and Glenn Buhr. Her compositions cover variety of styles and genres from concert music and chamber works, to electronic music, multimedia and music for film and animations. Her music is like a bridge, linking her Iranian eastern background to her western academic training.
Colin Labadie is a Waterloo-based composer and performer whose output includes concert works, sound art, improvisation, and sound design for theatre. His wide range of influences inspires him to create music ranging from austere and pattern-oriented to spastic and loud. He often uses machines to realize his work, and has built or modified many electronic instruments that make odd noises.
Colin recently completed a Doctoral degree in Composition from the University of Alberta with support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Web: www.colinlabadie.com
SoundCloud: colinlabadie
A doctoral candidate in piano performance at the University of Alberta, Mathew Walton completed his undergraduate studies at WLU, where he studied with Anya Alexeyev and Heather Taves. Mathew’s doctoral research is focused on the piano music of Canadian composer John Burge. In addition to performing Burge’s "Prelude Variations" for piano and orchestra, Mathew is the dedicatee of the composer’s "Twenty-Four Preludes" (2015), and is currently recording the "Studies in Poetry." This year, Mathew is a sabbatical replacement instructor at Grande Prairie Regional College, where he is teaching courses in theory, aural skills, piano, women in music, and music appreciation.
Renée Huynh Barabash is the founder and artistic director of The Living Room Project, a house concert series in Burlington, Ontario. She completed a Masters Degree in Piano Performance and Pedagogy at the University of Toronto under the tutelage of Dr. Midori Koga. Previously, she studied piano and harpsichord at Wilfrid Laurier University and the Conservatorium of Music in Sydney, Australia. She is active as a teacher and performer, most recently performing in the inaugural Lowville Festival in July 2015.
Web: www.livingroomproject.ca
Ruth Guechtal is a composer and performer of avant-garde music and harsh noise whose process involves the invention of novel techniques and instruments in the acoustic and electronic mediums. Her works have been commissioned and performed in Edmonton and Toronto with artists such as Array Music, Stephanie Chua, TorQ and the Toy Piano Composers Collective. Ruth’s output is far-reaching and diverse and includes collaborations on sound installations and experimental improv and dance performances.
After completing her Master’s degree at the University of Victoria and her Bachelor’s degree at Wilfrid Laurier University, she is currently completing her doctoral thesis at the University of Alberta.
Web: www.ruthguechtal.com
Wendell Glick is a PhD candidate at Western University under the supervision of Peter Paul Koprowski and a choir director and music teacher at Countryside Christian School. He studied composition with Glenn Buhr at Wilfrid Laurier University and with Christos Hatzis, Alexander Rapoport and Chan Ka Nin at the University of Toronto, and has been an instructor at Western University, the University of Toronto Scarborough, Faith Builders Educational Programs, and Shenandoah Institute for Music and Art. While his compositions range from vocal and instrumental chamber works to orchestral and electroacoustic compositions, his particular interest is choral music. Wendell lives in Waterloo with his best friend Janelle and their three lively children.
2009
Andrzej is a recent graduate of the PhD program in Composition at Western University, where he studied primarily with Peter Paul Koprowski. His recent works include commissions for Toronto's Thin Edge New Music Collective (premiere is February 12th, 8pm at the Array Space in Toronto), and Montreal's Ensemble Paramirabo. Over the years he has worked with many premiere ensembles including the Aventa Ensemble, Ensemble Contemporain de Montreal, the Array Ensemble, the Penderecki String Quartet, and the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony. Andrzej's language hybridizes Spectral and late-romantic aesthetics, and is highly influenced by the poetry of Jan Zych. Andrzej lives in Waterloo, Ontario.
SoundCloud: andrzej-tereszkowski Video via Array: www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5QcQyZ9LcY
There are numerous places and things where he finds inspiration for his music, and the primary creative outlet for these ideas is through Lukas guitar. This is fitting, since the vast majority of his hands-on experience in music making is through this instrument.
Realizing this has led him to a conception of writing and playing as a unified act; an act which draws upon technique (in both disciplines) and welcomes intuitive creation.
Lukas currently resides in England, where he writes, performs, teaches, and arranges a variety of genres of music.
Tomas Bouda is one of the first class of graduates from WLU’s Bmus Contemporay Music: Composition Improvisation streams, and as such his influences and inspirations are diverse and receptive to new ideas, mediums, performance practices and venues. He is proud to have worked in collaboration with WLU alum Chris Reiche and Sally Norris, with whom his experimental-folk duo, the glass tables, received a nomination for ‘Album of the Year: Improvised or Experimental category’ from the Vancouver Island Music Awards in 2013 for a FACTOR funded album (Lodge No.1).
Tomas currently builds musical instruments and tube amplifiers in London ON.
Web: www.theglasstables.com
2011
Amanda Smith is a Toronto-based opera stage director who graduated from the University of Toronto Opera Diploma program as a stage director in Spring 2014. Beforehand, Amanda studied voice with Kimberly Barber at Wilfrid Laurier University and focused on opera stage directing. Last season, Amanda directed a new production of Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot by Peter Maxwell-Davies, presented by Opera Lyra Ottawa. In 2011, Amanda founded FAWN Chamber Creative, an interdisciplinary collective that commissions and produces new operas, including their most recent production of l’homme et le ciel by Adam Scime, and presents collaborative Synsthesia concerts that correlate new classical music with other contemporary art forms.
Web: www.fawnchambercreative.com
Ivana Jokic is a Serbian-Canadian composer and pianist. She composes music for solo musicians, chamber ensembles and theatre. She holds a MMus in Composition from the University of Victoria and a BMus in Composition from Wilfrid Laurier University. She studied composition with Linda Catlin Smith, Glenn Buhr, Christopher Butterfield and Daniel Peter Biro. She participated actively as a composer in various festivals around the world including the Arraymusic Young Composers Workshop, Orford Centre D’Arts Creation Workshop, SALT New Music Festival, Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival and the Upbeat Summer School in Croatia. As a pianist, she participated in the Traditional Summer Session at the Adamant Music School in Adamant, Vermont. In August 2013, she was the pianist for the world premiere of a brand new musical, Broadway Musical: The Broadway Musical by Ann Hascalovitz, a Wilfrid Laurier alumna. She also got the opportunity to co-produce music for the production of Margaret Atwood’s play The Penelopiad for the Langham Court Theatre’s spring 2014 season.
2012
Curtis Wright is an avid young Canadian composer, arranger, orchestrator, and performer. His music has been featured in professional concert series, short films, games, military parades, and beyond. Curtis received his Bachelor’s degree in contemporary music composition from Wilfrid Laurier University, where he performed and premiered many new works. In 2015, Curtis completed his Master of Music in scoring for film and multimedia at New York University - receiving the Elmer Bernstein Award for Film Scoring.
His first film credit as a composer, A Crack, premiered in the 2014 Brooklyn Film Festival.
Web: www.curtiswrightmusic.com
SoundCloud: curtis-wright-18
YouTube: TheCurtiswrightmusic
David Foley is a composer currently living and working in Winnipeg, MB. He received a special mention from the jury in the 2014 Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music, and was selected as a winner in the Turning Point Ensemble's What's the Score! Competition. He is a graduate of the Master of Music in Composition program at the University of Victoria (studying under Christopher Butterfield) and of the Honours Bachelor of Music in Contemporary Music: Composition program at Wilfrid Laurier University (studying under Linda Catlin Smith). David also frequently performs as a classical guitarist.
Web: www.davidjfoleycomposer.com
SoundCloud: david-j-foley
2014
Nathan Evans is a pianist, composer, and graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University, where he spent most of his compositional education studying and analyzing the components of timbre in acoustic sound. His music concentrates on the enrichment of timbre by carefully blending instruments of different volume and pitch in order to synthesize new acoustic sound. It is for this reason that he is mostly inspired by the works of Olivier Messiaen and Morton Feldman.
Nathan is currently living in Perpignan, France, where he is studying to obtain a C1 Diploma of French fluency.
2015
Dion Flores founded and directed the Reading Chamber Orchestra in 2014, which served as a lab orchestra for conducting practice. The ensemble evolved into a performing orchestra that hosted three concerts programs, one of which included Concerto for Korg Monotron, composed by Memorial University alumnus, Andrew Noseworthy. Dion has previously been a part of the Laurier Symphony Orchestra and the Laurier Singers Chamber Choir where he lead the choir in Igor Stravinsky’s Mass in C at WLU’s Stravinsky: Then and Now Festival.
Dion holds a Bachelor of Music Degree from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario where he studied conducting with Paul Pulford and Lee Willingham and piano performance with Anya Alexeyev and Elaine Lau. In 2014, he qualified as a finalist in the WLU Concerto Competition playing Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major.
Web: www.dionflores.com
Evan Pointner is a pianist, singer, improvisor, arranger, concert organizer, composer, music theorist and teacher who is based in Kitchener-Waterloo and Toronto. An eclectic musician, Evan’s musical interests range from minimalism and experimental noise music - to jazz, folk and art rock. He has studied songs and albums by a variety of artists and bands, and has performed some loose song arrangements in rock-fusion / improv band Acoustic Dirt with guitarist Alex Showdra and others. Evan has also been known for his solo performances as a pianist/singer, his “themed” concerts with large ensembles featuring detailed arrangements of songs by the same composer/band, his infamous sample-based electronic compositions, and his collaborations with other creative artists. Evan’s solo piano improvisations are deeply inspired by Keith Jarrett, La Monte Young, neo-shamanism, and contact improvisation (a style of dance).
Kasia began what has now been 11 years of flute playing with the Suzuki School of Music in her home town, Ottawa. Upon moving to Waterloo, she has taken to performing with various bands, including The Button Factory Band, and trying new things like UW's Gamelan orchestra. At Laurier, she studied privately with composers/improvisors Linda C. Smith, Glenn Buhr, Kathryn Ladano, and attended seminars led by Peter Hatch. She studied flute with Amy Hamilton and Kevin O'Donnell. She has played with artists including the above, Adam Tindale, Colin Labadie, Casey Sokol, and York+Laurier young improvisers. She is currently looking into masters programs of composition to pursue her aspirations.
SoundCloud: kasia-czarski-jachimowicz
Katerina Gimon (b. 1993) is a recent Laurier music graduate currently based in Vancouver where she is pursuing her MMus in Composition at the University of British Columbia. Katerina is a member of the UBC Laptop Orchestra, serves on the board of Vancouver Pro Musica, as well as on the executive of the UBC Composers' Collective. She was recently named a 2015-16 Arcady Young Artist, awarded 2nd prize in the Vancouver Chamber Choir's 12th biannual Young Composers' Competition (2015), as well as named a recipient of the Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Prize in the IAWM 2014 Search for New Music.
Web: www.katerinagimon.com
SoundCloud: katerinagimon
YouTube: tusiatusia
Matthew Ariaratnam is a composer/improvisor, guitarist, and teacher. His music focuses on texture, alternative and graphic scoring for generative purposes, electroacoustic music, and songwriting. A musician in a number of bands and projects, Matthew is currently creating an improvisation ensemble from musicians all over Vancouver. He has a bachelor degree in Music Composition from Wilfrid Laurier University and is currently a teaching assistant and studying at Simon Fraser University in the Master of Fine Arts Program.
Web: matthewariaratnam.wordpress.com
Nephenee Rose (1991) has been developing her skills as a composer and orchestrator at Wilfrid Laurier University, honing her craft under the tutelage of Linda Catlin Smith, Peter Hatch, Glenn Buhr, and Jessica Kun, and in May 2015 she graduated with both Honours and Distinction. Nephenee has taken a profound interest in the realm of music for visual media, and has worked tirelessly to prepare for a career in this field, cultivating a wide array of musical styles and skills. Her works are efficient, evocative, and carefully adapted to niches for which they were made, and she herself strives to be no different.
Web: nepheneerose.com
SoundCloud: nephenee-rose
Stephanie Orlando (b.1993) recently completed her BMus at Wilfrid Laurier University where she studied composition with Linda Catlin Smith and Glenn Buhr. Stephanie is a versitile musician with experience ranging from classical to jazz and free improvisation. She treasures her experiences playing such varied genres of music, and considers them her greatest influence when composing. She has had her works performed and read both at Wilfrid Laurier University and in the Waterloo community. Stephanie is currently pursuing her Masters of Music Composition at the University of Toronto, where she is studying with Christos Hatzis.