Archives: Board Members |

Hillary Jean Young is a musi­cian, vocal­ist, and impro­vis­er work­ing in exper­i­men­tal music, new opera, and con­tem­po­rary cham­ber music. Hillary has per­formed with numer­ous ensem­bles and col­lec­tives, such as kallisti cham­ber opera, Oper­aQ, red fish blue fish, Quin­ta­gious!, FAWN Cham­ber Cre­ative, Din of Shad­ows, and The Hap­pen­stancers. In 2019, Hillary earned their Doc­tor of Musi­cal Arts in Con­tem­po­rary Music Per­for­mance from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San Diego (UCSD), where they stud­ied with Gram­my award-win­ning sopra­no Susan Naruc­ki. In addi­tion to their work as a per­former, Hillary has held cura­to­r­i­al and admin­is­tra­tive roles with Con­tin­u­um Con­tem­po­rary Music, Paper Bag Records, and Oxin­gale Music.

I am absolute­ly thrilled to be rep­re­sent­ing Ontario on the CNMN board of direc­tors. I believe whole-heart­ed­ly in CNM­N’s mis­sion, and I look for­ward to help­ing to shape the future of this orga­ni­za­tion. I have a deep admi­ra­tion for the ways in which CNMN encour­ages col­lab­o­ra­tion and con­nec­tion through music and sound while still pri­or­i­tiz­ing acces­si­bil­i­ty, and I am excit­ed to have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to both con­tin­ue and build upon that invalu­able work.

As a Fran­co-ontar­i­an liv­ing in Ger­many for more than ten years, I ter­ri­bly miss the two soli­tudes that make up my lin­guis­tic and cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty. For this rea­son, I‘m extreme­ly hap­py to be a part of the CNMN board and to con­nect with ded­i­cat­ed artists from sea to sea. Fur­ther­more, I look for­ward to shar­ing knowl­edge from my expe­ri­ences work­ing in a pre­dom­i­nant­ly Euro­pean con­text and from my areas of exper­tise, works for the stage and for younger audi­ences (ages 3 to 16). 

Thier­ry Tidrow (*1986, Ottawa) is an award-win­ning Cana­di­an com­pos­er of instru­men­tal and vocal music, with a predilec­tion for opera. His music has been described as “embrac­ing many musi­cal worlds, in which explo­rations of noise, expres­sion­ist lyri­cism, pas­tiche and par­o­dy form a dis­cur­sive and rich­ly detailed whole.” (ECM+ Gen­er­a­tions Jury 2018) This auda­cious syn­the­sis of styles gives rise to a chiaroscuro of mean­ing, often play­ful, but where the humourous can quick­ly turn to the hor­rif­ic or trag­ic and back. His stud­ied approach to text and sound reveals hid­den mean­ings and erects new ones, and his dra­mat­ic instinct leads to an intrin­si­cal­ly nar­ra­tive mode of expres­sion packed with sur­prise and intrigue.

Thier­ry has col­lab­o­rat­ed with many per­form­ers across Europe and North Amer­i­ca, includ­ing the Asko-Schön­berg Ensem­ble, Ensem­ble Mod­ern, Klang­fo­rum Wien, the Quatuor Bozzi­ni, Con­tin­u­um, Ensem­ble Paramirabo, Sarah Maria Sun, Thomas Hamp­son, Johannes Fis­ch­er, Heather Roche and many oth­ers. Their most recent Cana­di­an pre­miere, Entre Nous, for Quasar and four actors, is a con­cert-length music the­atre that explores what the Que­bec/Fran­co-ontar­i­an lan­guage does and does­n’t say about our past, our val­ues, our trau­mas, our prej­u­dices, our need to belong and  to laugh.

Thier­ry has writ­ten more than ten operas, includ­ing many for younger audi­ences and ama­teur per­form­ers. From 2019 to 2022 they were com­pos­er-in-res­i­dence at Oper Dort­mund, and their oper­at­ic works have also been played in many opera hous­es in Ger­many and Aus­tria, includ­ing Bonn, Cologne, Dres­den, Darm­stadt, Düs­sel­dorf and the Vien­na State Opera. Thier­ry has received many dis­tinc­tions, includ­ing the 1st prize of the inau­gur­al Gra­ham Som­mer Com­pe­ti­tion for his string quin­tet Quick­sil­ver (2018), and the Cana­da Coun­cil for the Arts’ Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al’s award, the Jules-Léger Prize for Au fond du Cloître Humide (2014).

I share with CNMN a per­son­al com­mit­ment to devel­op­ing and sup­port­ing new music works and exper­i­men­ta­tion in music and sound across Cana­da. As a nation­al com­mu­ni­ty of artists, we all ben­e­fit when we have more oppor­tu­ni­ties to con­nect and learn about one anoth­er’s work. A new music net­work is an excit­ing and grow­ing concept. 

Anju Singh is a com­pos­er, mul­ti-instru­men­tal­ist, noise/sound artist and video artist based in Van­cou­ver. Her sound and image-based works focus on tex­ture, den­si­ty, and extreme dynam­ics. She uses tra­di­tion­al instru­ments, extend­ed or exper­i­men­tal tech­niques, elec­tron­ic pro­cess­ing, non-musi­cal mate­ri­als and objects, and cus­tom built tools and instru­ments to exper­i­ment and devel­op her works. A core aspect of her prac­tice is to use meth­ods of decon­struc­tion and rean­i­ma­tion to repur­pose and con­tex­tu­al­ize mate­ri­als in new com­po­si­tion­al environments. 

Anju is an active tour­ing artist and has pre­sent­ed and per­formed her work across Cana­da, in Europe, Brazil, Mex­i­co, and the Unit­ed States in a vari­ety of spaces includ­ing at Fylkin­gen in Stock­holm, Swe­den; Send + Receive Fes­ti­val in Win­nipeg; Van­cou­ver Jazz Fes­ti­val; Poly­gon Gallery; New Forms Fes­ti­val; and most recent­ly on tour in Japan.

I’m delight­ed to join the CNMN board of direc­tors to serve as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the West Coast. The vision and mis­sion of the CNMN are very much in align­ment with my prac­tices as artist and arts admin­is­tra­tor. I believe we can always do bet­ter when it comes to rais­ing the bar for equi­ty in arts orga­ni­za­tions and I’m here to fur­ther that con­ver­sa­tion at the CNMN. I’m a great admir­er of the work that CNMN does on the ground and have par­tic­i­pat­ed in the PCM Hub. I hope to work with oth­er mem­bers of the board to expand on such ini­tia­tives and build new and excit­ing adven­tures for our grow­ing new music community. 

JUNO and WCMA award-win­ning vio­lin­ist and com­pos­er Mered­ith Bates has thor­ough­ly embed­ded her­self in the Cana­di­an musi­cal land­scape, both as a gen­er­ous col­lab­o­ra­tor and increas­ing­ly as a pow­er­ful and idio­syn­crat­ic solo artist.

Grate­ful­ly bas­ing her­self on unced­ed Coast Sal­ish ter­ri­to­ry in “Van­cou­ver”, the mul­ti­ple-award win­ner has devel­oped a rep­u­ta­tion for both refined intro­spec­tion and unfet­tered vir­tu­os­i­ty on her instru­ment. She has spent the past twen­ty years record­ing and per­form­ing around the world in ensem­bles such as JUNO and West­ern Cana­di­an Music win­ning instru­men­tal band Pugs and Crows, and the avant-cham­ber pop out­fit Gen­tle Par­ty. She’s also involved in projects led by Van­cou­ver scene stal­warts such as Peg­gy Lee, Tony Wil­son, Leah Abramson,Lan Tung, Ruby Singh, CR Avery, Joshua Zubot, and Ford Pier.

A big part of Bates’ endur­ing ver­sa­til­i­ty is her com­mit­ment to stay­ing artis­ti­cal­ly curi­ous. She has stud­ied pri­vate­ly with every­one from renowned clas­si­cal music ped­a­gogue Philippe Djo­kic to acclaimed exper­i­men­tal­ist Car­la Kihlst­edt, and has con­tin­ued to invest in the expan­sion of her sound through oppor­tu­ni­ties such as the late Jer­ry Granel­li’s leg­endary Cre­ative Music Work­shop in Hal­i­fax, and res­i­den­cies in cru­cial cen­tres for cre­ative explo­ration includ­ing Stock­holm’s Fylkin­gen, West­ern Front (Van­cou­ver), and the Banff Centre.

This inquis­i­tive spir­it can also be wit­nessed in the con­sid­er­able range of Bates’ artis­tic projects. She is the founder and leader of Like the Mind, a sex­tet of cel­e­brat­ed female impro­vis­ers from Van­cou­ver and Stockholm—namely the afore­men­tioned Lee, Lisa Ullén, Lisen Rylan­der Löve, Elisa Thorn, and Emma Augustsson—and of Sound Migra­tions, a col­lab­o­ra­tive endeav­our com­bin­ing mul­ti-chan­nel elec­troa­coustic sound­scapes with processed pho­tog­ra­phy. In 2019, Bates found­ed the Impro­vised Arts Soci­ety which sup­ports process-based inter­dis­ci­pli­nary expe­ri­ences through­out the year and two mul­ti-day fes­ti­vals of per­form­ing arts: Lis­ten, Lis­ten Fes­ti­val and the West Coast String Sum­mit. Mered­ith also serves on the Sea­grass Music Soci­ety and Cana­di­an New Music Net­work board of direc­tors and is par­tic­i­pat­ing in the BC Arts Council’s Path­ways Program.

In 2019, Mered­ith released her ambi­tious solo debut, the 2‑disc If Not Now on Phonomet­ro­graph, which gar­nered both praise in the media and a Polaris Prize long-list men­tion. Her sim­i­lar­ly expan­sive follow-up,Tesseract, released in 2023, was also met with­ac­claim in notable press out­lets. Van­cou­ver Sun’s Stu­art Derdeyn called it “haunt­ing and com­plete­ly addic­tive” while vet­er­an crit­ic Marc Mas­ters list­ed it among The Best Exper­i­men­tal Music on Band­camp for June 2023. “Tesser­act is ulti­mate­ly mood music in the best sense,” Mas­ters not­ed. “It not only can alter your cur­rent mood but con­jure unfa­mil­iar ones. That’s espe­cial­ly true on the 46-minute title track, a mon­u­men­tal col­lage of hums and roars that could be revis­it­ed for­ev­er.” Tesser­act was nom­i­nat­ed for Best Instru­men­tal Album of the Year at the 2023 JUNO Awards.

www.meredithbates.com | www.improvisedarts.ca

Éric Nor­mand is on the board of direc­tors because he believes in net­work­ing and in the music com­mu­ni­ty’s abil­i­ty to pro­mote prac­tices of resource and skill-shar­ing to fos­ter equi­ty and eman­ci­pa­tion with­in the diver­si­ty of sound practices.

Éric Nor­mand is an impro­vis­er, bassist, com­pos­er, and print­er. He resides in the small town of Rimous­ki in East­ern Que­bec. He leads Tour de bras, an orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to impro­vised music, and engages in cul­tur­al activ­i­ties on both local and glob­al scales. He is one of the founders of the Grand groupe région­al d’improvisation libérée (GGRIL, 2007), an ensem­ble ded­i­cat­ed to the explo­ration of “com­po­si­tions for improvisers.”

Nor­mand has released over 30 albums on Cana­di­an and for­eign labels, and his music has been fea­tured in var­i­ous fes­ti­vals in more than 20 coun­tries. Through Tour de Bras, Nor­mand has been advo­cat­ing for impro­vi­sa­tion prac­tices for 20 years, cre­at­ing an impres­sive inter­na­tion­al net­work that inter­sects with impro­vi­sa­tion hubs world­wide and includes co-pro­duc­tions with coun­tries like Aus­tralia or Slovenia.

Like many, my first expe­ri­ence with the CNMN was at a Forum (2014 in Cal­gary, AB), which was such a won­der­ful expe­ri­ence of com­mu­ni­ty and knowl­edge-shar­ing. I am thrilled to be part of the board, amongst amaz­ing col­leagues, con­tribut­ing to the work of fos­ter­ing con­nec­tion, diver­si­ty, and activism.

Flutist Chenoa Ander­son is a set­tler artist liv­ing and prac­tic­ing in amiskwaciy-wâskahikan/Ed­mon­ton. She has com­mis­sioned and pre­miered dozens of solo and ensem­ble pieces, and is an active impro­vis­er who has worked with musi­cians, dancers, and spo­ken word artists. Cur­rent projects include Ultra­Vi­o­let —  a mixed quar­tet spe­cial­iz­ing in new reper­toire; Gar­den – mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary works set in her per­ma­cul­ture gar­den; Mix­tur with com­pos­er Ian Crutch­ley, per­form­ing exper­i­men­tal reper­toire for flute(s) and found objects/instruments/electronics; and damn mag­pies, a free impro­vi­sa­tion sex­tet. She holds per­for­mance degrees from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to (B.Mus.) and the Uni­ver­si­ty of British Colum­bia (M.Mus.).  

Chenoa Anderson’s debut solo record­ing, Big Flutes: Cana­di­an Music for Alto and Bass Flutes was nom­i­nat­ed for a 2006 West­ern Cana­di­an Music Award. Krishna’s Flute (earsay music, 2013) fea­tures music for flute and inter­ac­tive elec­tron­ics.  Cur­rent releas­es include The Bel­low Project, a col­lab­o­ra­tion between spo­ken word artist Dwen­nim­men (Shi­ma Aisha Robin­son) and damn mag­pies (2021, Band­camp), and field stud­ies – cham­ber music of Emi­lie Cecil­ia LeBel (2023, Red­shift Records), fea­tur­ing UltraViolet.

In addi­tion to an active per­form­ing and teach­ing career, Chenoa has been the Gen­er­al Man­ag­er for New Music Edmon­ton since 2012, and in 2014 was nom­i­nat­ed for Syn­crude Award for Excel­lence in Arts Man­age­ment at the Mayor’s Awards for the Arts. When not play­ing flute, Chenoa can often be found gar­den­ing, knit­ting, cycling, cross-coun­try ski­ing, or read­ing with a cat on her lap.

I’m hap­py and excit­ed to play a part as CNMN board-mem­ber, as it is a valu­able cross-cana­di­an net­work builder. Gath­er­ing a wide vari­ety of artists: musi­cians, per­form­ers, impro­vis­ers, com­posers, inter­preters, cul­tur­al work­ers, bridge builders and beyond, is a moti­vat­ing mis­sion. The meet­ing of these var­i­ous prac­tices, through­out diverse cul­tur­al prac­tices and tra­di­tions, can and will most always hum­ble, enrich and lib­er­ate our indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ences. I’m look­ing for­ward to par­take in the work of the CNMN, aim­ing to exem­pli­fy and bol­ster the rich cul­tur­al diver­si­ty that makes up the Cana­di­an land­scape, and cater to the well-being of these inter­con­nect­ed communities. 

Lib­erté-Anne Lym­be­ri­ou is a com­pos­er, pianist and band­leader from Mon­tre­al. Her artis­tic process focus­es on a holis­tic vision of music, con­sid­er­ing the tra­di­tions, the envi­ron­ment, the physics, the move­ment, and the spir­i­tu­al­i­ty of the sounds with which she is engag­ing in the moment. Her work being prin­ci­pal­ly informed by jazz music, Lib­erté Anne pos­es a par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to impro­vi­sa­tion and rhyth­mic struc­tures from the African dias­po­ra, along with the con­cepts and philoso­phies that sur­round these practises. 

Lib­erté-Anne began her career in 2013 in New York City, found­ing her orches­tra the “Lib­erté Big Band”, per­form­ing her orig­i­nal works. She received men­tor­ship from com­pos­er and pianist Arturo O’Farrill who first encour­aged her to pur­sue a com­pos­ing and band­lead­ing path. It is through her stud­ies with per­cus­sion­ist Chief Baba Neil Clarke that she begins engag­ing more seri­ous­ly with pan-african per­cus­sion ensem­ble con­cepts and a holis­tic vision of art. 

In 2017, she rebuilt the Lib­erté Big Band in Mon­tre­al and pur­sued var­i­ous self-pro­duced per­for­mances and col­lab­o­ra­tions across styles and for­ma­tions. Between 2017 and 2019, she trav­elled exten­sive­ly to Cuba to research and study under Iri­an Lopez, focus­ing on Batà drumming.

Lymberiou’s most recent works span across tra­di­tions and gen­res, and include a 50-minute opus for 20-piece jazz orches­tra, as well as reper­toire for sax­o­phone duos, choir, and mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary projects involv­ing dance, tex­tile art and film.

I have been prac­tis­ing var­i­ous kinds of music both new and old for 3 decades now and I’m look­ing for­ward to shar­ing and net­work­ing with the next generation.

Orig­i­nal­ly from New York, Andrew stud­ied in Ottawa and Toron­to and even­tu­al­ly toured with The Cana­di­an Opera Com­pa­ny, the Nation­al Arts Cen­tre Orches­tra and the Roy­al Win­nipeg Bal­let. Andrew has per­formed at many venues, includ­ing Open Ears Fes­ti­val (Kitch­en­er), New Music Cal­gary, Sound Sym­po­sium (New­found­land), the Sco­tia Fes­ti­val of Music, Ensem­ble Kore (Mon­tre­al) The Music Gallery (Toron­to), West­ern Front (Van­cou­ver),  and Ton­ic (New  York).  Miller has writ­ten music for orches­tra, dance, cham­ber music, film, tele­vi­sion, and theatre. 

“Miller is a superb play­er, a mas­ter and a cre­ative inven­tor……” ‑Stephen Ped­er­sen The Chron­i­cle Her­ald (Hal­i­fax) Jan 10, 2011

As a mem­ber of the fran­coph­o­ne com­mu­ni­ty in Que­bec, it is of inter­est to me to open my hori­zons to more glob­al ini­tia­tives whose scope and man­dates are just as inno­v­a­tive as the caus­es they sup­port. I am there­fore filled with impa­tience and curios­i­ty as I join the board of CNMN. 

Com­mit­ted musi­cian, com­pos­er and cul­tur­al work­er, Julie Richard has been active­ly involved in Mon­tre­al’s artis­tic and musi­cal scenes for near­ly 20 years. Three-time grad­u­ate in clas­si­cal music, she is also versed in vocal inter­pre­ta­tion, jazz, pop, exper­i­men­tal music as well as African, Gyp­sy, Jew­ish and Cre­ole music.

Hav­ing par­tic­i­pat­ed in numer­ous tours across Cana­da and the Unit­ed States, she par­tic­i­pat­ed in the SXSW fes­ti­val and per­formed inter­na­tion­al­ly in East­ern Europe, France and Colom­bia. Along­side her musi­cal prac­tice, Julie’s inter­dis­ci­pli­nary career led her to work in the areas of artis­tic man­age­ment, inter­ven­tion psy­chol­o­gy, and cul­tur­al research and ani­ma­tion. She is also known for her involve­ment in the pro­gram­ming of the Lux Magna fes­ti­val and the Suoni per il Popo­lo festival.

Her lat­est project, Black Ark Orches­tra, inspired her to work with frag­ments of musi­cal com­po­si­tions cre­at­ed by black musi­cians who pre­dom­i­nant­ly came up in the Unit­ed States in the 1920s. The Black Ark project aims to reha­bil­i­tate these mar­gin­al­ized works of clas­si­cal music pro­duced by African-Amer­i­can women. It is a ques­tion of find­ing, updat­ing and rec­og­niz­ing the val­ue of what remains of these com­po­si­tions so that they do not remain for­got­ten, so that they can final­ly enter into con­ver­sa­tion with the his­to­ry of con­tem­po­rary music. In com­pos­ing, she does not seek to accu­rate­ly recon­struct the con­tours of these com­po­si­tions, but aims to draw a liv­ing ges­ture that is non-lin­ear and simul­ta­ne­ous­ly heal­ing, trans­for­ma­tive and creative.