Guest Speakers

Patri­cia Abbott

Patricia Abbott

Executive Director, Association of Canadian Choral Communities

www.choralcanada.org

Patri­cia Abbott is the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Cana­di­an Choral Com­mu­ni­ties (for­mer­ly the Asso­ci­a­tion of Cana­di­an Choral Con­duc­tors). She is a grad­u­ate of McGill Uni­ver­si­ty, where she obtained a master’s degree in vocal ped­a­gogy, and con­ducts sev­er­al choirs in and around Mon­tre­al. She has shared her knowl­edge and pas­sion of Cana­di­an choral music in work­shops, fes­ti­vals and con­fer­ences in Cana­da, the Unit­ed States, Europe and Argenti­na. Ms. Abbott is also a mem­ber of the artis­tic com­mit­tee of the Poly­fol­lia Inter­na­tion­al Choral Fes­ti­val in Nor­mandy, France, and a mem­ber of the edi­to­r­i­al board of The Choral Jour­nal, pub­lished by the Amer­i­can Choral Direc­tors Association.

Raf­fi Armenian

Raffi Armenian

Director, Conservatoire de musique de Montréal

www.conservatoire.gouv.qc.ca

In 1962, twen­ty-year-old Raf­fi Armen­ian grad­u­at­ed from the piano per­for­mances class of Bruno Sei­dl­hofer at the Acad­e­my of Music, Vien­na, Aus­tria. In 1965, he grad­u­at­ed from Impe­r­i­al Col­lege, Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don, Eng­land in Met­al­lur­gy. Going back to music and Vien­na, he com­plet­ed stud­ies at the Vien­na Acad­e­my of Music in Orches­tral Con­duct­ing (Hans Swarowsky 1968), Choral Con­duct­ing (Rhein­hold Schmid 1969) and Com­po­si­tion (Alfred Uhl 1969). In addi­tion, he took pri­vate voice lessons with Fer­di­nand Gross­mann. In 1969 he immi­grat­ed to Cana­da, where he became Artis­tic Direc­tor of the Kitch­en­er-Water­loo Sym­pho­ny (1971–1993). The Raf­fi Armen­ian The­atre in Kitch­en­er, which he helped to design, is con­sid­ered one of the best per­for­mance spaces in North Amer­i­ca, both for its acoustics and its design fea­tures. In 1974, as Music direc­tor of the Strat­ford Fes­ti­val, he found­ed the Cana­di­an Cham­ber Ensem­ble, which achieved inter­na­tion­al recog­ni­tion with tours in North and South Amer­i­ca, and Europe. Raf­fi Armen­ian has guest con­duct­ed all of the major orches­tras in Cana­da, as well as in Bel­gium, Italy, the USA, and the Jeuness­es Musi­cales World Youth Orches­tra. Mr. Armen­ian has long been active as a ped­a­gogue. In 1982 he became a Pro­fes­sor of the Orches­tral Con­duct­ing Class at the Con­ser­va­toire de Musique (Mon­tre­al), a posi­tion he con­tin­ues to hold. In 1997 he accept­ed a two-year post as Vis­it­ing Guest Pro­fes­sor at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstel­lende Kun­st, in Graz Aus­tria, and since Sep­tem­ber 1999 Mae­stro Armen­ian has been Direc­tor of Orches­tral Stud­ies at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto.

Allan Bell

Allan Bell

Composer / Professor, Calgary University

Allan Gor­don Bell has cre­at­ed works for solo instru­ments, cham­ber ensem­bles, orches­tra, band and elec­troa­coustic media. His works have been per­formed by the Nation­al Arts Cen­tre Orches­tra, l’Orchestre sym­phonique de Mon­tréal, Cal­gary Phil­har­mon­ic Orches­tra, Esprit Orches­tra, the Van­cou­ver Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra, the Win­nipeg Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra, the Edmon­ton Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra, the Orford String Quar­tet, and the ensem­bles of Toron­to New Music Con­certs, Array­mu­sic and the Soci­eté de musique con­tem­po­raine du Que­bec. Bell is Pro­fes­sor of Music at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­gary and a Fel­low of the Roy­al Soci­ety of Cana­da. From 1984 to 1988 and from 2007 to the present, he has been the Pres­i­dent of the nation­al board of the Cana­di­an Music Centre.

Eliz­a­beth Bihl

Elizabeth Bihl

Executive Director, Canadian Music Centre

www.musiccentre.ca

Elis­a­beth Bihl is the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Cana­di­an Music Cen­tre and its five region­al cen­ters across Cana­da, rep­re­sent­ing and serv­ing over 700 Cana­di­an Com­posers. Since 2000 Ms. Bihl has been lead­ing the CMC in an orga­ni­za­tion­al realign­ment, updat­ing the entire Centre’s IT infra­struc­ture as well as music dig­i­ti­za­tion. Refo­cus­ing the Centre’s ser­vices and pro­grams to bet­ter pro­mote and mar­ket Canada’s com­posers’ music to orches­tras, per­form­ers and many oth­er clients inter­na­tion­al­ly. Elis­a­beth Bihl is a sea­soned cul­tur­al man­ag­er and renew­al strate­gist with over 20 years of expe­ri­ence. Ms. Bihl’s career back­ground includes man­age­ment posi­tions at the Nation­al Arts Cen­tre of Cana­da, the Cana­da Coun­cil for the Arts and the Nation­al Gallery of Cana­da. Elis­a­beth serves on numer­ous boards includ­ing Vice Pres­i­dent of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Inter­na­tion­al Music Infor­ma­tion Cen­tres (IAMIC), the Cana­di­an Music Pub­lish­ers Asso­ci­a­tion (CMPA); the Asso­ci­a­tion of Cul­tur­al Exec­u­tives (ACE), is a found­ing mem­ber of the Senior Artists Research Steer­ing Com­mit­tee, the Cre­ators Copy­right Coali­tions, and she is a fre­quent pub­lic speak­er on music and cul­tur­al issues in Cana­da and around the world.

Blue Yeti

Blue Yeti

Magnolya Roy & Jean-Michel Couturier

Blue Yeti: www.blueyeti.fr | Jean-Michel Cou­turi­er: www.jmc.blueyeti.fr

Jean-Michel Cou­turi­er is both sci­en­tist and musi­cian: in addi­tion to being an engi­neer and spe­cial­ist in the design of inter­ac­tive sys­tems and dig­i­tal instru­ments, he is also a com­pos­er of elec­troa­coustic music. His work is relat­ed to the pluridis­ci­pli­nary fields of com­put­er music and human-com­put­er inter­ac­tion. Mag­nolya Roy is a visu­al artist and engi­neer. Found­ed in 2007, Blue Yeti designs inter­ac­tive mul­ti­me­dia sys­tems ded­i­cat­ed to cul­tur­al, educa­tive and artis­tic uses.

Félix Boisvert

Composer

Orig­i­nal­ly an elec­troa­coustic com­pos­er, Félix Boisvert is also a mul­ti-instru­men­tal­ist who shows par­tic­u­lar inter­est in rhyth­mic lan­guages. He has ded­i­cat­ed recent years to devel­op­ing a project in which phys­i­cal play, music and video cre­ates a uni­fied lan­guage. His cre­ativ­i­ty takes him fur­ther to film, cir­cus, dance and mar­i­on­nette. Pas­sion­ate about ped­a­gogy, Boisvert teach­es sound art to chil­dren through Musi­co­la­teur, a pro­gram he helped to develop.

René Bosc

Composer / Head of Music, Radio-France

www.radiofrance.fr

Fol­low­ing his 1993 con­duct­ing debut in Mont­pel­li­er, René Bosc was appoint­ed by René Koer­ing to over­see the con­tem­po­rary music con­certs of the Radio France and Mont­pel­li­er Fes­ti­val. He has con­duct­ed the Ensem­ble Diag­o­nales, Orchestre Nation­al de Mont­pel­li­er, ECM2, Les Per­cus­sions de Stras­bourg, Moscow Soloists, Orchestre Nation­al de Jazz (France), “Tam­bu­co” per­cus­sion­ists from Mex­i­co, the bal­let Ocean with the Mer­ce Cun­ning­ham Dance Com­pa­ny, as well as soloists like Fazil Say, Didi­er Lock­wood and François-René Duchâble. Numer­ous com­posers have ded­i­cat­ed their works to him includ­ing Philippe Her­sant (Con­cer­to de vio­lon) and Hans Wern­er Hen­ze (Upu­pa, pre­miered in Salzburg in 2003). In 2001 he became Direc­tor of New Music at Radio France and Artis­tic Direc­tor of Fes­ti­val Présences. Dur­ing the 2007–2008 sea­son, del­e­gates of radio sta­tions from around the world joined togeth­er to give him the Prix Italia for his work as a pro­duc­er in Verona in Sep­tem­ber 2007, fol­low­ing which the Inter­na­tion­al Tri­bune of Com­posers award­ed him with two prizes in Dublin in June 2008. Nev­er before has a con­tem­po­rary music pro­duc­er been hon­oured with these three awards in the same year.

Katherine Carleton

Executive Director, Orchestras Canada

www.oc.ca

Kather­ine Car­leton has been Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Orches­tras Cana­da since July 2005. She has more than twen­ty years’ expe­ri­ence work­ing as a teacher, per­former, grant­i­ng offi­cer, orches­tra man­ag­er and con­sul­tant in Toron­to, Kitch­en­er, Mis­sis­sauga, Kingston and Hal­i­fax. Kather­ine holds a Bach­e­lor of Music degree in Per­for­mance from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to and a Master’s degree in Man­age­ment from McGill Uni­ver­si­ty through the inno­v­a­tive McGill-McConnell Pro­gram for Nation­al Vol­un­tary Sec­tor Lead­ers. In June 2006, she com­plet­ed the first-ever Exec­u­tive Direc­tors’ Insti­tute, a joint pro­gram of the Maytree Foun­da­tion and York University’s Schulich School of Business.

Coat Cooke

Coat Cooke

Artistic Director, New Orchestra Workshop Society (Vancouver)

www.coatcooke.com | www.noworchestra.com

Coat Cooke is the founder and leader of the renowned NOW Orches­tra, and with them he has toured Cana­da, Europe and the USA. He is one of Canada’s most lyri­cal and inven­tive sax­o­phon­ists, com­posers and impro­vi­sors, and his projects include col­lab­o­ra­tion with mul­ti-media, dance, elec­tron­ics, video and film. His cred­its include work with inter­na­tion­al artists George Lewis, Wada­da Leo Smith, Roscoe Mitchell, Mar­i­lyn Crispell and with fel­low Cana­di­ans Paul Plim­ley, Diane Labrosse, Pierre Tan­guay, Mar­tin Tétreault, and John Oswald.

Con­cer­to Del­la Donna

Concerto Della Donna

www.concertodelladonna.ca

Con­cer­to Del­la Don­na (CDD) is a dynam­ic group of young singers based in Mon­tre­al under the direc­tion of Mae­stro Iwan Edwards. CDD per­forms a wide spec­trum of tra­di­tion­al, clas­si­cal and con­tem­po­rary reper­toire, with a strong empha­sis on Cana­di­an com­po­si­tions and works by female com­posers. The ensemble’s goal is to pro­duce vibrant per­for­mances of both seri­ous and light-heart­ed reper­toire, while demon­strat­ing the strength and beau­ty of young women’s voic­es through tech­ni­cal pre­ci­sion and emo­tion­al depth. Win­ning numer­ous awards nation­al­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly and col­lab­o­rat­ing with such notable names as Kent Nagano and the MSO, the St. Lawrence Choir, the CBC, and the Euro­pean Broad­cast­ing Union, they have kept busy since their begin­nings in 2002. Their sec­ond full-length album, “Sis­ters,” was released in 2006. In addi­tion to their reg­u­lar con­cert sea­son in Mon­tre­al, CDD has toured East­ern Cana­da, Ottawa, Wales and, this June, will tour Ser­bia and Croatia.

Claude de Grandpré

Claude de Grandpré

General Manager and Artistic Director, Corporation Hector-Charland

www.hector-charland.com

Artis­tic direc­tor and gen­er­al man­ag­er of Cor­po­ra­tion Hec­tor-Char­land since 1996, Claude de Grand­pré is one of the orches­tral con­duc­tors ded­i­cat­ed to build­ing and devel­op­ing a pluridis­ci­pli­nary the­atre. This 664-seat hall cur­rent­ly pro­duces 350 events a year, includ­ing co-pro­duc­tions of sum­mer the­atre and a fes­ti­val ded­i­cat­ed to new the­atre, as well as a num­ber of sig­nif­i­cant ini­tia­tives in music, con­tem­po­rary dance, song and edu­ca­tion­al out­reach. Two Felix awards and a Bourse RIDEAU for “pre­sen­ter of the year”, 2006, have acknowl­edged de Grandpré’s out­stand­ing work with Théâtre Hec­tor-Char­land. In addi­tion to hold­ing a Bachelor’s degree in music, de Grand­pré is also pres­i­dent of Danse sur les routes du Québec and a mem­ber of the admin­is­tra­tive coun­cil of CAPACOA. His exper­tise and diverse cul­tur­al knowl­edge con­tribute to the suc­cess of an endeav­our that con­tin­ues to grow and flour­ish over the years.

Mary Dinn

Mary Dinn

President, Canadian Music Educator’s Association (CMEA)

www.cmea.ca

Mary Dinn, is a vet­er­an music edu­ca­tor who has deliv­ered New­found­land and Labrador’s provin­cial K‑12 music cur­ricu­lum in class­room, choral, band and strings set­tings. Span­ning the past 20 years, Mary has been active­ly involved in the music com­mu­ni­ty in mul­ti­ple capac­i­ties on region­al and nation­al scales. She has served in mul­ti­ple exec­u­tive posi­tions on both region­al and provin­cial NLTA Music Spe­cial Inter­est coun­cils, as well as on the nation­al board of the Cana­di­an Music Edu­ca­tors Asso­ci­a­tion, where she is cur­rent­ly serv­ing as pres­i­dent. Present day, Ms. Dinn works at the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion of New­found­land and Labrador as a Pro­gram Devel­op­ment Spe­cial­ist for Music/Fine Arts and mem­ber/­co-chair of the man­age­ment team for the province’s K‑12 Arts and Cul­tur­al Strategy.

Nicole Doucet

Director, Arts Disciplines Division — Canada Council for the arts

www.canadacouncil.ca

Nicole Doucet has devot­ed her entire pro­fes­sion­al life to the arts. As Direc­tor of Arts Dis­ci­plines since Feb­ru­ary 11, 2008, she is respon­si­ble for man­ag­ing the devel­op­ment and oper­a­tion of the Cana­da Council’s grant pro­grams, which pro­vide sup­port to Cana­di­an artists and arts orga­ni­za­tions. Between 2005 and 2008, she was the Direc­tor of Music and Dance at the Con­seil des arts et des let­ter du Québec (CALQ) and between 2002 and 2005, she also served a CALQ post as the Direc­tor of The­atre, Mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary Arts and Cir­cus Arts. Before arriv­ing at the CALQ in 2002, Ms. Doucet, who holds a Bach­e­lor degree in visu­al arts from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ottawa, was the admin­is­tra­tor for sev­er­al the­atre com­pa­nies, includ­ing Théâtre-Action in Ottawa and Théâtre de Quat’Sous in Mon­tre­al and spent near­ly 10 years man­ag­ing La Mai­son Théâtre, a Mon­tre­al-based asso­ci­a­tion aimed at pre­sent­ing and pro­mot­ing the­atre for young audiences.

Angela Drainville-Ashick

Director, CAPACOA / General Manager, Classic Theatre

www.capacoa.ca | www.classictheatre.net

Angela Drainville-Ashick is a mem­ber of the Board of Direc­tors of the Cana­di­an Arts Pre­sent­ing Orga­ni­za­tion CAPACOA. Active­ly pre­sent­ing all gen­res of music in a rur­al area since 2000, Drainville-Ashick has a strong inter­est in fur­ther­ing Can­di­an Artists and arts activ­i­ties through the con­cepts of edu­ca­tion and expo­sure. She is cur­rent­ly the Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of the Clas­sic The­atre in Cobalt.

Iwan Edwards

Iwan Edwards

Conductor, Concerto Della Donna

www.concertodelladonna.ca

Iwan Edwards has spe­cial­ized in choral con­duct­ing since he came to Cana­da from his native Wales in 1965. Since then, he has gained an inter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion as a pres­ti­gious con­duc­tor, adju­di­ca­tor, clin­i­cian and teacher. Mae­stro Edwards found­ed and direct­ed the 110-voice St. Lawrence choir, the F.A.C.E. Tre­ble Choir, Con­cer­to Del­la Don­na, Chœur des enfants de Mon­tréal, and the Cana­di­an Cham­ber Choir, an inter­na­tion­al­ly reput­ed pro­fes­sion­al mixed cho­rus. Many col­lab­o­ra­tions with oth­er pres­ti­gious Cana­di­an cho­rus­es have led him to work with a a great num­ber of renowned orches­tras and con­duc­tors. The choirs and ensem­bles that he directs have trav­elled to Cana­da, the Unit­ed States and Europe. In 2001, Mae­stro Edwards retired from his posi­tion at McGill Uni­ver­si­ty as an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor and Chair of the Choral Depart­ment in order to devote him­self to his many choral ensem­bles. After 21 years at the helm, Mae­stro Edwards retired as direc­tor of the Cho­rus of the Mon­tre­al Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra in 2007. Among oth­er awards, Mae­stro Edwards received the Queen’s Gold­en Jubilee Medal in 2002 and, most notably, the Order of Cana­da for out­stand­ing achieve­ments in the arts in 1995. Today he con­tin­ues his jour­ney, guid­ing and inspir­ing future gen­er­a­tions of Cana­di­an musicians.

Nan­cy Evans

Nancy Evans

Education Manager, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group

www.bcmg.org.uk

Nan­cy Evans is Edu­ca­tion Man­ag­er for Birm­ing­ham Con­tem­po­rary Music Group and a musi­cian work­ing in ear­ly years edu­ca­tion. She has an MA in Com­mu­ni­ty Music from the Uni­ver­si­ty of York. Nan­cy was appoint­ed BCMG’s first Edu­ca­tion Man­ag­er in 2000 and has devel­oped an exten­sive learn­ing pro­gramme designed to engage peo­ple of all ages and abil­i­ties in the cre­ation and per­for­mance of new music. Nan­cy has con­ceived and led ear­ly years music train­ing pro­grammes across the UK includ­ing for The Lon­don Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra and The Roy­al Liv­er­pool Phil­har­mon­ic Orches­tra. She is the author of Tun­ing in to Chil­dren, a train­ing hand­book pub­lished by Youth Music sup­port­ing the work of orches­tras in Children’s Centres.

Dou­glas Friesen

Douglas Friesen

Music Instructor, Rosedale Heights School of the Arts

www.creative-ed.ca

After fin­ish­ing music and edu­ca­tion degrees at Bran­don Uni­ver­si­ty, Doug Friesen moved to Toron­to. There, he took a posi­tion at Rosedale Heights School of the Arts where he con­tin­ues to work, employ­ing teach­ing mod­els inspired by the work of R. Mur­ray Schafer and John Zorn. As a musi­cian, he has played for Dave Bidi­ni and Ron Sex­smith, among oth­ers. In 2008, Doug fin­ished a Mas­ters in Music Edu­ca­tion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to with study focus­ing on impro­vi­sa­tion, cre­ativ­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ty. He has led work­shops on impro­vi­sa­tion ped­a­gogy for sec­ondary, under­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate students.

Mireille Gag­né

Mireille Gagné

Director, CMC Quebec

www.cmcquebec.ca

Mireille Gag­né has a Licence in Law and a Master’s degree in musi­col­o­gy, spe­cial­iz­ing in Cana­di­an con­tem­po­rary music. She has been the Direc­tor of the Cana­di­an Music Cen­tre, Que­bec region, since 1981. The CMC reg­u­lar­ly pro­duces spe­cial events such as musi­cal dis­cov­er­ies, exhi­bi­tions, and thematic/anniversary con­certs — both autonomous­ly and in part­ner­ship with organ­i­sa­tions that are direct­ly or indi­rect­ly con­nect­ed with music — with the main goal of grow­ing the public’s aware­ness of new music. Also, Mireille Gag­né reg­u­lar­ly lec­tures on Cana­di­an music in Cana­da and abroad. Final­ly, as a vol­un­teer, she is the Pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tion­al Net­work for Cul­tur­al Diver­si­ty, an organ­i­sa­tion she helped estab­lish in 2000.

Pierrette Gingras

General Manager, Société de musique contemporaine du Québec

www.smcq.qc.ca

Pier­rette Gin­gras is the gen­er­al man­ag­er of the Société de Musique Con­tem­po­raine du Québec (SMCQ), the chief of con­tem­po­rary music asso­ci­a­tions and one of the most pow­er­ful non-gov­ern­men­tal insti­tu­tions devot­ed to new music in North Amer­i­ca. The SMCQ has four areas of activ­i­ty: a Mon­tre­al con­cert series, a young listener’s pro­gramme, Série Hom­mage (Trib­ute Series), and the Inter­na­tion­al Montreal/New Music Fes­ti­val. Since 1988, Pier­rette Gin­gras has worked close­ly with over one hun­dred fes­ti­vals and spe­cial­ized per­for­mance orga­niz­ers from all over the world. Between 1989 and 1999 Gin­gras served as gen­er­al man­ag­er for Nou­v­el Ensem­ble Mod­erne and is still inti­mate­ly involved with pro­mot­ing the group at the inter­na­tion­al lev­el. While over­see­ing net­work­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions for the Con­seil Québé­cois de la Musique (2000–2002), she also worked with Susan Buirge’s MaToMa dance com­pa­ny, in res­i­dence at the Fon­da­tion Roy­au­mont in France. Gin­gras has sat on var­i­ous juries and has deliv­ered papers on arts man­age­ment. She holds a master’s degree in music (voice) from the Uni­ver­sité de Montréal.

Matt Haimovitz (pho­to H Thomson)

Matt Haimovitz

Cellist / Professor, McGill University

www.oxingale.com

Through his vision­ary approach — cham­pi­oning new music and ini­ti­at­ing ground­break­ing col­lab­o­ra­tions, com­mis­sions and record­ings — Matt Haimovitz is redefin­ing what it means to be an artist for the 21st cen­tu­ry. He record­ed with Deutsche Gram­mophon for ten years, and on Oxin­gale Records since 2000, the label he co-found­ed with com­pos­er Luna Pearl Woolf. Haimovitz is Pro­fes­sor of Cel­lo at the Schulich School of Music at McGill Uni­ver­si­ty. Haimovitz stud­ied at the Col­le­giate School and at Juil­liard, in the final class of Leonard Rose, fol­lowed by stud­ies with Ronald Leonard and Yo-Yo Ma. In 1996, he received a B.A. magna cum laude with high­est hon­ors from Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty. Haimovitz made his debut in 1984 at the age of 13, as soloist with Zubin Mehta and the Israel Phil­har­mon­ic and has since gone on to per­form on the world’s most esteemed stages. Born in Israel, Haimovitz’s numer­ous hon­ours include the Avery Fish­er Career Grant (1986) and the Grand Prix du Disque (1991). He has been fea­tured in such pub­li­ca­tions as Newsweek, The New York­er and Peo­ple, as well as on PBS and ABC’s Night­line. Haimovitz plays a Venet­ian cel­lo, made in 1710 by Mat­teo Gofriller.

Hélène Lal­ib­erté

Hélène Laliberté

Conseillère à l’exécutif | Executive Advisor, FAMEQ

www.fameq.org

Hélène Lal­ib­erté com­plet­ed her stud­ies in music and ped­a­gogy at the Uni­ver­sité de Mon­tréal, the Uni­ver­sité Laval and the Uni­ver­sité du Québec in Mon­tre­al. Her pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties include:

• Teach­ing at Le Plateau
• Master’s train­ing at UQTR (depart­ment of music) and at the Uni­ver­sité de Mon­tréal (Edu­ca­tion Sciences)
• Host­ing the CEGEP de trios-Riv­ières radio station
• Teach­ing music to pri­ma­ry schools CS de la Riveraine, CS de Saint-Eustache, and CS Marie-Victorin
• Direc­tor for estab­lish­ing an arts pro­gramme (music) at the MEQ, Trois-Riv­ières (1982)
• Researcher for the Radio-Cana­da pro­gramme “À l’école de la musique” [at music school] (pro­duced by Michèle Patry and host­ed by Françoise Davoine)
• Music teacher at the inter­na­tion­al pri­ma­ry school of Green­field Park

Ann La Plante

General Manager, Alliance for Canadian New Music Projects

www.acnmp.ca

Com­ing from a back­ground of man­u­fac­tur­ing and teach­ing at Col­lege lev­el, I came to the Arts after being the Chair of the Board for the Gryphon The­atre in Bar­rie, Ontario. Music has been in my back­ground from an ear­ly age. Grad­u­at­ing from High School at the age of fif­teen and not being able to go on to Uni­ver­si­ty until I was eigh­teen, I obtained a teach­ers’ cer­tifi­cate in vio­lin as an option. I accept­ed the admin­is­tra­tive posi­tion of Gen­er­al Man­ag­er for Alliance For Cana­di­an New Music Projects in 1998. ACNMP works dili­gent­ly to pro­mote the study, per­for­mance and com­po­si­tion of Cana­di­an con­tem­po­rary clas­si­cal music through its Con­tem­po­rary Show­case Fes­ti­vals. This fes­ti­val takes place the third week of Novem­ber every year dur­ing Cana­da Music Week. Cur­rent­ly we have grown to nine­teen cen­tres across Cana­da. Our pro­grammes also include Stu­dent Com­pos­er Work­shops, Choral Work­shop and Com­pos­ing in the Class­room, Opera in the Class­room and Com­pos­ing in the Classroom/Orchestral Work­shop. We have a syl­labus online at www.acnmp.ca in both Eng­lish and French that is used as a resource for teach­ers, stu­dents, uni­ver­si­ties, and schools.

Gilles Mot­tet

Gilles Mottet

Composer / Director, Pourquoi pas… co-incidence? (Nice)

www.pourquoipascoincidence.com

Win­ner of a first prize for flute, keen on ped­a­gogy and admit­ted into the “Cen­tre de For­ma­tion de Musi­ciens Inter­venants” at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Aix en Provence, where he grad­u­at­ed as a “Musi­cien Inter­venant.” Since 1990, he has been a teacher at the École Départe­men­tale de musique des Alpes Mar­itimes. Gilles Mot­tet stud­ied com­po­si­tion at the Nation­al Con­ser­va­to­ry of Mar­seille, where he was unan­i­mous­ly award­ed a first prize in com­po­si­tion. He was the first prize win­ner of an inter­na­tion­al com­po­si­tion com­pe­ti­tion organ­ised by the Cana­di­an Music Cen­ter, and he received a spe­cial men­tion in the Valenti­no Buc­chi foun­da­tion inter­na­tion­al com­po­si­tion com­pe­ti­tion and the SACEM Prize.

Tawnie Olson

Tawnie Olson

Composition Instructor, ACES Educational Center for the Arts (New Haven)

www.aces.org

The music of Cana­di­an com­pos­er Tawnie Olson has been per­formed by a wide range of ensem­bles and indi­vid­ual musi­cians, includ­ing the Cal­gary Phil­har­mon­ic Orches­tra, the Gem­i­ni Duo, the Satie Quar­tet, the Land’s End Ensem­ble, the Cana­di­an Cham­ber Choir, the Guelph Cham­ber Choir, the Yale Cam­er­a­ta and the Yale Pro Musi­ca, bas­soon­ist Nad­i­na Mack­ie Jack­son, and harp­si­chordist Kate­lyn Clark. She holds a Mas­ter of Music degree from the Yale School of Music, an Artist Diplo­ma from the Insti­tute of Sacred Music at Yale, and a Bach­e­lor of Music degree from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­gary. This spring, Ms. Olson plans to defend her doc­tor­al dis­ser­ta­tion in music com­po­si­tion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, where her prin­ci­pal teacher is Chan Ka Nin. Upcom­ing per­for­mances include her Sev­en Last Words from the Cross for cho­rus, soloists and orches­tra, to be pre­mièred by the Yale Cam­er­a­ta on April 5, and a new work com­mis­sioned by the Van­cou­ver Cham­ber Choir, to be per­formed on May 1. As a grad­u­ate stu­dent, Ms. Olson taught music com­po­si­tion and the­o­ry at the Yale School of Music and the Yale Depart­ment of Music. For the past four years, she has taught com­po­si­tion class­es at the Edu­ca­tion­al Cen­ter for the Arts in New Haven, Connecticut.

Face Cham­ber Orchestra

Face Chamber Orchestra

Theodora Stathopoulos, Conductor

www.csdm.qc.ca/osf

Found­ed in Sep­tem­ber, 1999 by its con­duc­tor, Theodo­ra Stathopou­los, The FACE Cham­ber Orches­tra (FCO) pro­vides the Fine Arts Core Edu­ca­tion (FACE) school’s most advanced string play­ers (10–16 year old) the oppor­tu­ni­ty to fur­ther devel­op their ensem­ble skills through the study of advanced cham­ber music reper­toire. The stu­dents’ expe­ri­ence is enhanced through com­mu­ni­ty con­certs, tours and fes­ti­val par­tic­i­pa­tion. In 2003 the Cana­di­an Music Edu­ca­tors’ Asso­ci­a­tion award­ed the FACE Cham­ber Orches­tra with the Wil­fred Har­vey Award for the Best Small Ensem­ble. In 2004 and 2008 the FCO per­formed at the ISME Con­fer­ence in Tener­ife and Bologna respec­tive­ly while in 2005 it was invit­ed by Unit­ed Nations to give a com­mem­o­ra­tive con­cert in mem­o­ry of the for­mer Exec­u­tive Sec­re­tary at the World Con­fer­ence on Cli­mate Change. Provin­cial and Nation­al gold medal­ist the FCO is also the recip­i­ent of a con­grat­u­la­to­ry let­ter from Canada’s for­mer Prime Min­is­ter for their out­stand­ing per­for­mance at the inau­gu­ra­tion of a new Cana­di­an stamp.

Alex Pauk (pho­to: Bruce Zinger)

Alex Pauk

Composer / Music Director & Conductor, Esprit Orchestra

Alex Pauk was the 2007 win­ner of The Cana­da Coun­cil for the Arts Mol­son Prize. As com­pos­er, con­duc­tor, edu­ca­tor and entre­pre­neur, Alex Pauk had much to do with revi­tal­iz­ing Cana­di­an orches­tral musi­cal life for com­posers by found­ing Esprit Orches­tra in 1983 as Canada’s only orches­tra devot­ed to new music. Esprit, with a core of 50 of Canada’s best new music instru­men­tal­ists, and an annu­al sub­scrip­tion series in Toron­to, encour­ages com­posers from across Cana­da to take bold new direc­tions. Through build­ing and sus­tain­ing its high cal­i­bre per­for­mances, com­mis­sion­ing pro­gramme, inno­v­a­tive pro­gram­ming (80% Cana­di­an), record­ings, per­form­ing arts videos and DVDs, Toward a Liv­ing Art Edu­ca­tion Pro­gramme, Cre­ative Sparks men­tor­ing and cre­ative lead­er­ship pro­gramme, New Wave Com­posers Fes­ti­val, out­reach ini­tia­tives, Cana­di­an and Inter­na­tion­al tours and inter­dis­ci­pli­nary arts and mul­ti-media ven­tures, Pauk has made Esprit a major force for devel­op­ing and pro­mot­ing Cana­di­an music at home and abroad. Cur­rent­ly Pauk is com­pos­ing a work for large ensem­ble com­mis­sioned by La Société de musique con­tem­po­raine du Québec.

Jer­ry Pergolesi

Jerry Pergolesi

Artistic Director, Contact Contemporary Music

www.contactcontemporarymusic.ca | www.myspace.com/contactcontemporarymusic | Face­book: CONTACT con­tem­po­rary music, Music From Scratch

Jer­ry Per­gole­si is a found­ing mem­ber and artis­tic direc­tor of Con­tact Con­tem­po­rary Music. Jer­ry earned a Bach­e­lor of Music from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wind­sor where he stud­ied com­po­si­tion and advanced the­o­ry with Jens Han­son and per­cus­sion with Carl Har­ris. He received a Mas­ter of Music in Per­for­mance from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to where he stud­ied with Rus­sell Harten­berg­er. In addi­tion to spe­cial­iz­ing in con­tem­po­rary con­cert music, Jer­ry has stud­ied Mid­dle East­ern music and the­o­ry with George Sawa, African drum­ming and dance, Javanese Game­lan and per­forms with var­i­ous inde­pen­dent record­ing artists. As Contact’s per­cus­sion­ist, Jer­ry has com­mis­sioned and pre­miered works by Wende Bart­ley, John Burke, Alli­son Cameron, Jeff Her­riot, Theo Math­ien, Jor­dan Nobles, Deirdre Piper, Mar­ci Rabe, Ann Southam and Bar­ry Truax..

Valerie Peters

Valerie Peters

Professor of Music Educations, Université Laval

Valerie Peters is cur­rent­ly Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor of Music Edu­ca­tion at Uni­ver­sité Laval in Que­bec City where she is pri­mar­i­ly respon­si­ble for the sec­ondary ped­a­gogy class­es and is a mem­ber of the Cen­tre d’excellence en péd­a­gogie musi­cale (GRePIM). She holds Bach­e­lors degrees in Music and Edu­ca­tion from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­i­to­ba, a Mas­ters in Music Edu­ca­tion from the Uni­ver­si­ty of North­ern Col­orado, and a Ph.D. (2007) from North­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty. Valerie taught Band, Choir, Jazz Band, French, and Tech­nol­o­gy at Rose­mount High School in Mon­tre­al. Her research inter­ests include inter­cul­tur­al approach­es to music edu­ca­tion, musi­cal cre­ativ­i­ty, and iden­ti­ty con­struc­tion of music teachers.

Barbara Scales

Owner & Director, Latitude 45 Arts Promotion

www.latitude45arts.com

Founder and Direc­tor of Lat­i­tude 45/Arts Pro­mo­tion, an artist man­age­ment and agency that rep­re­sents artists in all fields of the per­form­ing arts. Lat­i­tude 45 works glob­al­ly with one-third of its activ­i­ties in Cana­da, one-third in the Unit­ed States and one third in Europe, Asia-Pacif­ic and South Amer­i­ca. Most of the work of Lat­i­tude 45 involves art on the lead­ing edge of today’s per­form­ing arts prac­tice in music. The mar­ket for this work is glob­al rather than local or nation­al and our expe­ri­ence has been in the inter­na­tion­al mar­ket­place of the new per­form­ing arts. Among the artists we have rep­re­sent­ed and/or man­aged: Nou­v­el Ensem­ble Mod­erne, Ardit­ti Quar­tet (UK), Les Per­cus­sions de Stras­bourg (Fr), Alain Trudel, Mark Few­er, Louise Bes­sette, Lucille Chung, Nad­i­na Mack­ie Jack­son, Boleslav Poliv­ka (Czech) and Pierre Hébert (film­mak­er).

R Mur­ray Schafer (pho­to: André Leduc)

R Murray Schafer

Composer & Music Educator

www.patria.org

Born in Sar­nia, Ontario in 1933, R Mur­ray Schafer has gained an inter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion not only for his work as a com­pos­er, but also as an edu­ca­tor, researcher, writer, ecol­o­gist, and visu­al artist. A high­ly pro­lif­ic com­pos­er, R Mur­ray Schafer has pro­duced works in every musi­cal genre, from opera to music the­atre, to cham­ber and orches­tral music, by way of pieces for choir and a vari­ety of soloists. The rich­ness and depth of works such as Lov­ing (1965), Lus­tro (1972), Music for Wilder­ness Lake (1979), Flute Con­cer­to (1984), the World Sound­scape Project, and the twelve-part work for music the­atre Patria, illus­trate the wide range of Schafer’s artis­tic inter­ests. His ten string quar­tets are among his most sig­nif­i­cant works.

The composer’s cel­e­brat­ed book, The Tun­ing of the World (1977), doc­u­ments the results of the World Sound­scape Project—research that brings togeth­er the social, sci­en­tif­ic, and artis­tic aspects of sound and which intro­duced the notion of son­ic ecol­o­gy. A num­ber of Schafer’s com­po­si­tions and writ­ings have become ref­er­ence points for the evo­lu­tion of music and musi­cal thought dur­ing this and the past cen­tu­ry. He has received com­mis­sions from count­less orga­ni­za­tions and has been rec­og­nized with a num­ber of pres­ti­gious prizes. Schafer was the first recip­i­ent of the Glenn Gould Prize, and was also award­ed the Mol­son Prize for his con­tri­bu­tion to the arts.

R Mur­ray Schafer holds six hon­ourary doc­tor­ates from uni­ver­si­ties in Cana­da, France, and Argenti­na. In Sep­tem­ber 2003, schol­ars paid hom­mage to Schafer with a con­fer­ence in Rome enti­tled The Tun­ing of Italy, L’influenca di R Mur­ray Schafer sul­la ricer­ca musi­cale in Italia. At the same time, Schafer con­duct­ed a major event fea­tur­ing over one thou­sand musi­cians enti­tled “Coim­bra Vibra” to cel­e­brate the city of Coim­bra as the cul­tur­al cap­i­tal of Por­tu­gal. In May 2004, Schafer was hon­oured for his con­tri­bu­tion to radio at the Quin­ta Bien­al Inter­na­tion­al de Radio in Mex­i­co City.

Theodo­ra Stathopoulos

Theodora Stathopoulos

President, Quebec Music Educators Association (QMEA), Head of String Department, FACE (Fine Arts Core Education) School

www.mels.gouv.qc.ca/sections/artEtCulture5/index.asp?page=portrait

Theodo­ra Stathopou­los is the recip­i­ent of the 2006 Prime Minister’s Award for Teach­ing Excel­lence (Achieve­ment) — one of two Cana­di­an music teach­ers to receive the award in 2006 and the only music teacher from the province of Que­bec. As well, in 2007, she was award­ed both the Annu­al Achieve­ment Award from the Busi­ness and Pro­fes­sion­al Women of Mon­tre­al and the Diplome d’Honneur from the Hel­lenic Com­mu­ni­ty of Mon­tre­al. Ms. Stathopou­los has been a music spe­cial­ist at FACE (Fine Arts Core Edu­ca­tion) School in Mon­tre­al, Que­bec since 1992. An active music edu­ca­tor since 1978, she col­lab­o­rates reg­u­lar­ly with the Music Edu­ca­tion Depart­ment of the Uni­ver­sité de Québec à Mon­tréal (UQAM) in their teacher train­ing Pro­gram. She has also been a review­er and arts pro­fes­sion­al pre­sen­ter for the Que­bec Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion, serves on var­i­ous nation­al and provin­cial music and art edu­ca­tion steer­ing com­mit­tees and is Pres­i­dent of the Que­bec Music Edu­ca­tors Asso­ci­a­tion. A reg­u­lar con­trib­u­tor to the Cana­di­an Music Edu­ca­tors’ Jour­nal, she has been an invit­ed pre­sen­ter for per­form­ing stu­dent ensem­bles at the Inter­na­tion­al Society’s for Music Edu­ca­tion (ISME) Con­fer­ence (Tener­ife, 2004/Bologna, 2008) and the Unit­ed Nations’ World Con­fer­ence on Cli­mate Change (Mon­tre­al, 2005) as well as pan­elist at the Greek Society’s for Music Edu­ca­tion Con­fer­ence (Lamia, 2005 & Thes­sa­loni­ka, 2007), UNESCO’s World Con­fer­ence on Art Edu­ca­tion (Lis­bon, 2006), Nation­al Arts & Learn­ing Sym­po­sium (Ottawa, 2007), Res­o­nant Learn­ing Sym­po­sium on Arts, Chil­dren & Youth in a Mul­ti­cul­tur­al Set­ting (Toron­to, 2007) and the Cana­di­an Arts and Learn­ing Sym­po­sium (Kingston, 2008).