Cassondra Murray (they/them) is a neurodivergent, 2SLGBTQ experimental vocal artist and community advocate based in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador (Ktaqmkuk). Their work explores extended vocal techniques and improvisational practices, creating immersive performances described as “haunting” and “anarchistic.” Murray has performed with ensembles including Vertrek and VocalX, and at festivals such as New Music Edmonton’s Now Hear This, Newfound Music Festival, Festival of New Dance, Hold Fast, Sound Symposium, as well as Audiopollination (Guelph) and Night Music (St. John’s). Their artistry is documented in Voices Found: Free Jazz & Singing (Chris Toneli).

A certified Peer Supporter and Restorative Justice practitioner, Murray applies a survivor-informed, anti-oppressive lens to community work, organizational governance, and systemic change. They serve as the Newfoundland & Labrador regional representative for Survivors for Justice Reform. Murray has held board and committee roles with Violence Prevention Avalon East, St. John’s Status of Women Council, Persistence Theatre, Peer Support Canada’s Advisory Committee, Equal Voice NL’s Leadership Committee, and the Social Justice Co-op NL’s Transformative Justice Committee. In recognition of their advocacy, they received the YWCA Social Justice and Advocacy Award (2025).

Murray’s practice centers equity, accessibility, volunteerism, and relational accountability, bridging art, advocacy, and transformative community engagement. They are committed to amplifying marginalized voices, fostering deep listening and mutual care, and exploring the potential of creative practice to build inclusive and vibrant musical communities.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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Eclectic and award-winning cellist Marina Hasselberg “has become a standout presence on Vancouver’s music scene” (Georgia Straight). Like her new Jesse Zubot-produced album Red, her performances are a provocative, deeply personal mix of classification-resistant written works and adventurous improvised excursions, with Hasselberg employing extended techniques, a variety of bows and accessories, and electronics to skirt the fine line between the known and the unknown.

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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.

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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

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