Keynote Speakers

Ger­man com­pos­er and direc­tor Hein­er Goebbels, will deliv­er the first keynote address in Vic­to­ri­av­ille. Pro­fes­sor Goebbels belongs to the most impor­tant expo­nents of the con­tem­po­rary music and the­atre scene. In addi­tion to com­po­si­tions for large orches­tra, he cre­at­ed sev­er­al prize-win­ning radio plays, staged con­certs, instal­la­tions and since the ear­ly 90’s also music the­atre works, which are pro­duced at the most impor­tant the­atre- and music fes­ti­vals worldwide.

Prize-win­ning Mon­tre­al-based chore­o­g­ra­ph­er, researcher and inter­dis­ci­pli­nary col­lab­o­ra­tor, Isabelle Van Grimde will present a keynote in Mon­tre­al. Her work is char­ac­ter­ized by the qual­i­ty of dia­logue between the musi­cal and dance ele­ments, which often inte­grate many new tech­nolo­gies. She reg­u­lar­ly takes her work beyond the con­cert stage into gal­leries, pub­lic spaces and on the web. Pho­to Michael Slobodian.

Canadian Guests

More pho­tos and links com­ing shortly!

Of Cree descent, Win­nipeg based com­pos­er Andrew Bal­four is an inno­v­a­tive composer/conductor/singer/sound design­er with a large body of choral, instru­men­tal, elec­tro-acoustic and orches­tral works. Andrew is also the founder and Artis­tic Direc­tor of the adven­tur­ous vocal group Cam­er­a­ta Nova, now in its 22nd year, that spe­cial­izes in new works, arrange­ments and auda­cious inter-genre and inter­dis­ci­pli­nary collaborations.

Sandeep Bhag­wati Indi­an-Ger­man-Cana­di­an com­pos­er of most­ly stage, cham­ber and mul­ti­me­dia works that are rou­tine­ly being per­formed world­wide; he is also active as a con­duc­tor, the­atre direc­tor, uni­ver­si­ty researcher, cura­tor, per­former, visu­al artist and writer. His cur­rent research-cre­ation cen­ters on com­pro­vi­sa­tion, inter-tra­di­tion­al aes­thet­ics, the aes­thet­ics of inter­dis­ci­pli­nar­i­ty, ges­tur­al the­atre, son­ic the­atre and inter­ac­tive visu­al and non-visu­al scores. Since 2007, he directs the matralab, a lab for research-cre­ation in inter‑x per­form­ing arts at Con­cor­dia Uni­ver­si­ty Montréal.

Mykalle Bielin­s­ki is ded­i­cat­ed to singing, music com­po­si­tion, poet­ry and scenic writ­ting. Her work con­sists of mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary per­for­mances (Glo­ria, Mythes intérieurs), where the voice leads the way to the sacred, inter­wined with phi­los­o­phy and tech­nol­o­gy. As a com­pos­er and an actress, she col­lab­o­rates with sev­er­al direc­tors for the­atre and dance.

Kiran Bhum­ber is a media artist, com­pos­er, expe­ri­en­tial design­er and per­former based in Van­cou­ver, Cana­da. Kiran con­structs inter­ac­tive instal­la­tions and per­for­mance sys­tems engag­ing in themes relat­ing to cul­tur­al mem­o­ry, embod­i­ment and nos­tal­gia. She has per­formed and pre­sent­ed her works around the world and is cur­rent­ly com­plet­ing an MA in Media Arts at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michigan.

Lin­da Bouchard is a com­pos­er, orches­tra­tor, con­duc­tor, teacher, and pro­duc­er. Based in San Fran­cis­co since 1997, Lin­da has con­tin­ued to be active on the Cana­di­an music scene. For the last ten years, she has been explor­ing the inter­sec­tion of tra­di­tion­al artis­tic prac­tices and new tech­nolo­gies through col­lab­o­ra­tion with dance, live video, text, writ­ten music, and impro­vised music. Her lat­est works — All Caps No Space and Iden­ti­ty Theft — are win­dows into polit­i­cal­ly charged subjects.

Mon­tre­al-based Louise Camp­bell’s hats range from clar­inet­tist to con­duc­tor, com­mu­ni­ty arts facil­i­ta­tor to musi­cians’ health ther­a­pist. As a per­former, impro­vis­er and com­pos­er, Louise inter­ro­gates and renews the ways we make music by cre­at­ing new works with every­one, regard­less of age, abil­i­ty, or pri­or expe­ri­ence. She has toured impro­vised and com­posed musics across Cana­da, the US, France, Ger­many, and Brazil.
Guil­laume Cam­pi­on is a com­pos­er and sound artist. Bring­ing music, speech and field record­ings togeth­er, his works are at the cross­roads of elec­troa­coustic music and son­ic doc­u­men­tary. He is the co-founder of Trames, a com­pa­ny ded­i­cat­ed to dig­i­tal audio cre­ation and the democ­ra­ti­za­tion of sound art.

JP Carter (Destroy­er, Fond of Tigers, Inhab­i­tants) is a Juno award-win­ning musi­cian from Van­cou­ver, Cana­da. Carter’s sin­gu­lar approach to the trum­pet and ver­sa­til­i­ty as an impro­vi­sor and com­pos­er make him a vital con­trib­u­tor to the Van­cou­ver music com­mu­ni­ty. JP incor­po­rates a vari­ety of tech­niques into his trum­pet play­ing, uti­liz­ing and exper­i­ment­ing with acoustic (tra­di­tion­al, extend­ed) and elec­tron­ic (effect­ed, ampli­fied) meth­ods to cre­ate a wide spec­trum of sound.

Kate­lyn Clark is a musi­cian who spe­cial­izes in ear­ly and exper­i­men­tal reper­toire on his­tor­i­cal key­board instru­ments. She works through informed play­ing, impro­vi­sa­tion, and inno­v­a­tive per­for­mance prac­tice on the pianoforte, organet­to, and harpsichord.

Influ­enced by his sur­round­ings, the elec­troa­coustic com­pos­er Guil­laume Côté explores the ter­ri­to­r­i­al, lin­guis­tic and social dynam­ics in Que­bec through a mix of con­crete, syn­thet­ic and vocal mate­ri­als. His eclec­tic artis­tic research resides not only on a meet­ing with the oth­er through musi­cal dis­course that aims to be nar­ra­tive or infor­ma­tive, but also on the abstrac­tion brought on through mod­u­lar systems.

Gabriel Dhar­moo is a com­pos­er, vocal­ist, impro­vis­er and researcher. His works have been per­formed in Cana­da, the U.S.A, Europe, Aus­tralia, Sin­ga­pore and South Africa. He was award­ed the Cana­da Coun­cil for the Arts Jules Léger Prize (2017) and Robert Flem­ing Prize (2011), the Mus­Can Stu­dent Com­pos­er Com­pe­ti­tion (2017), the Prix d’Eu­rope com­po­si­tion prize (2011), as well as awards from the SOCAN. Pho­to Car­o­line Tabah

Gold­jian is a fem­i­nist trans­dis­ci­pli­nary researcher hack­tivist and earth­i­an artist who likes to make vis­i­ble, read­able and mal­leable the process­es of co-con­struc­tion of knowl­edge. They intro­duces rela­tion­al prac­tices between humans, earth, tech­nolo­gies and cre­ates inti­mate spaces for mutu­al learn­ing and process deepening.

Ruth Howard is the found­ing Artis­tic Direc­tor of Toron­to-based Jum­blies The­atre, which makes art with, for and about diverse peo­ple and places. She has cre­at­ed a series of mul­ti-year res­i­den­cies result­ing in large-scale per­for­mances and last­ing lega­cies, and many oth­er projects that com­bine visu­al imagery, per­for­mance, music, move­ment, oral his­to­ry and com­mu­ni­ty arts practice.

Mar­celle Hudon is a pup­peteer. She is inter­est­ed in the sym­bol­ic pow­er of the manip­u­la­tor and the object. A shad­ow the­ater and live video spe­cial­ist, she works with artist in new music, writ­ing, the­ater, dance and visu­al arts to com­pose her per­for­mances and installations.

Pianist Megu­mi Masa­ki is ded­i­cat­ed to per­form­ing and cre­at­ing inter­ac­tive mul­ti­me­dia works inte­grat­ing sound, image, text, move­ment and tech­nol­o­gy in col­lab­o­ra­tion with artis­tic inno­va­tors. Megu­mi has pre­miered over 80 works across Cana­da, USA, Europe and Asia. Megu­mi is Pro­fes­sor of Piano, New Music Ensem­ble and Fes­ti­val direc­tor at Bran­don Uni­ver­si­ty. Pho­to Anna Murray

Inte­grat­ing the­atre, per­for­mance art and tech­nol­o­gy, Émi­lie Mon­net’s artis­tic prac­tice revolves around ques­tions of iden­ti­ty, mem­o­ry, his­to­ry and trans­for­ma­tion. Her per­for­mances draw on the sym­bol­ic of dreams and mythology—personal and collective—to tell sto­ries that ques­tion today’s world. She is the founder of Indige­nous Con­tem­po­rary Scene (ICS), a crit­i­cal and artis­tic man­i­fes­ta­tion of Indige­nous live-arts. A new edi­tion of ISC will be pre­sent­ed in Mon­tréal in June 2018. Émilie’s her­itage is Anish­naabe and French, and she lives in Mon­tre­al. Pho­to Meena Murugesan

New Her­mitage is a col­lec­tion Hal­i­fax impro­vis­ers who can list Jer­ry Granel­li, the Upstream Orches­tra, Gyp­sophil­ia, and Sym­pho­ny Nova Sco­tia on their resumes. Their music is an expres­sion of ten­der­ness, joy, sor­row, and mind­ful­ness; it is a plea to slow down and gath­er aware­ness of space and time.

Luke Nick­el is an award-win­ning Man­i­to­ban artist and researcher cur­rent­ly resid­ing in Bris­tol, UK. His work inves­ti­gates notions of mem­o­ry, col­lab­o­ra­tion, and musi­cal bor­row­ing. He has worked with ensem­bles such as EXAUDI, the Bozzi­ni Quar­tet, the Man­i­to­ba Cham­ber Orches­tra, and the Win­nipeg Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra. Luke also cur­rent­ly co-directs the Clus­ter: New Music + Inte­grat­ed Arts Fes­ti­val in Win­nipeg, MB, Canada.

L’orchestre d’hommes-orchestres is a col­lec­tive of undis­ci­plined artist found­ed in Québec City in 2002. Unclas­si­fi­able, on the bound­aries of sev­er­al artis­tic dis­ci­plines, the ODHO defines itself as a per­ma­nent work in progress in the liv­ing arts. Pho­to Jacyn­the Carrier

Con­stant­ly seek­ing new means of expres­sion and eager to cre­ate, the flutist-impro­vis­er-com­pos­er Cléo Pala­cio-Quintin (1971) takes part in many pre­mieres as well as impro­vi­sa­tion­al mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary per­for­mances, and com­pos­es instru­men­tal and elec­tro-acoustic music for var­i­ous ensem­bles and media works. Since 1999, she has devel­op­ing hyper-flutes.She is the first women to own a Doc­tor­ate in Elec­tro-Acoustic Com­po­si­tion from the Uni­ver­sité de Mon­tréal (2012).

Jer­ry Per­gole­si is the found­ing artis­tic direc­tor and per­cus­sion­ist for Con­tact Con­tem­po­rary Music in Toron­to and a found­ing mem­ber of the Queer Per­cus­sion Research Group. Jer­ry also cre­at­ed the exper­i­men­tal music fes­ti­val Inter­sec­tion and Music From Scratch, a music cre­ation work­shop for exclud­ed youth.

Jacques Poulin-Denis is a com­pos­er, chore­o­g­ra­ph­er, direc­tor and per­former. Under­tak­ing projects that blur the bound­aries between dance, music and the­ater, he cre­ates human­is­tic and uncan­ny works that are both sen­so­r­i­al and thought pro­vok­ing. To gen­tly knock the spec­ta­tor off cen­ter, he puts forth the strength with­in the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of the char­ac­ters he brings to life. Pho­to Hugo B. Lefort

Orig­i­nal­ly from Cuba, Evelin Ramón obtained a Mas­ters in Com­po­si­tion at the Uni­ver­sité de Mon­tréal, study­ing with Ana Sokolovic, and is con­tin­u­ing her doc­tor­al stud­ies there under the direc­tion of Pierre Michaud. She also stud­ied in Havana with the Cuban com­posers Juan Piñera and Louis Aguirre. Her pro­fes­sion­al work includes per­for­mance, impro­vi­sa­tion, com­po­si­tion and teaching.

William Robin­son is a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary artist that cre­ates instal­la­tions com­bin­ing sculp­ture, sound, video, per­for­mance, musi­cal com­po­si­tion and print­ed mat­ter. Influ­enced and direct­ed by his inter­est in sound, per­for­mance art, musi­col­o­gy, archi­tec­ture and met­al­lur­gy, Robin­son engages col­lab­o­ra­tive and poet­ic process­es that divulge the unex­pect­ed log­ic, design and his­to­ry of spe­cif­ic sites and locations.

Lou Shep­pard is Cana­di­an artist work­ing in video, audio and instal­la­tion prac­tices. Of set­tler ances­try, Shep­pard was raised on unced­ed Mi’K­maq ter­ri­to­ry, and cur­rent­ly lives in K’jiputuk (Hal­i­fax.) Shep­pard was a par­tic­i­pant in the first Antarc­tic Bien­nale, the Antarc­tic Pavil­ion at the 57th Venice Bien­nale, and was select­ed for the 2017 Emerg­ing Atlantic Artist Award. Pho­to Rita Tay­lor, Banff Cen­tre, 2017

Patrick Saint-Denis is a com­pos­er work­ing main­ly in sound art and inter­ac­tive scenog­ra­phy. His works range from video instal­la­tion to large scale robo­t­ized machin­ery. He per­forms reg­u­lar­ly in Mon­tre­al and abroad either in con­cert, exhi­bi­tion or dance for­mat. He his course lec­tur­er of audio­vi­su­al com­po­si­tion and phys­i­cal com­put­ing at Uni­ver­si­ty of Mon­tre­al since 2010.

Isabel­la Ste­fanes­cu is an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary artist, direc­tor, and pro­duc­er based in Kitch­en­er-Water­loo, Ontario. Orig­i­nal­ly from Roma­nia, Ste­fanes­cu immi­grat­ed to Cana­da and con­tin­ued her edu­ca­tion in math­e­mat­ics and fine arts at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Water­loo. In col­lab­o­ra­tion with machine design­er Klaus Engel, Isabel­la Ste­fanes­cu cre­at­ed the Euphonopen, an inter­face for the live per­for­mance of draw­ing. The Euphonopen maps the hand move­ments of the per­son who draws to sound, and has been used to cre­ate sev­er­al interdisciplinary/new music per­for­mances, a cham­ber opera, and instal­la­tions with user cre­at­ed con­tent. Ste­fanes­cu is a recip­i­ent of the Ontario Arts Coun­cil K.M. Hunter Artist Award for inter­dis­ci­pli­nary art. Cur­rent­ly she is the artis­tic direc­tor of Inter Arts Matrix, an orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to the pro­duc­tion of inter­dis­ci­pli­nary works of art.

Roozbeh Taban­deh is an Iran­ian musi­cian and archi­tect. Hav­ing a Master’s degree in archi­tec­ture, he is also known as a com­pos­er, con­duc­tor, vio­lin­ist and Iran­ian San­tur play­er. He stud­ied music com­po­si­tion at Con­cor­dia Uni­ver­si­ty under the super­vi­sion of Sandeep Bhag­wati and Georges Dim­itrov and extend­ed his vio­lin tech­nique by Clemens Merkel. Before that, he stud­ied per­for­mance, music com­po­si­tion and con­duct­ing with some of the most well-known Iran­ian musicians.

Erhu per­former, com­pos­er, impro­vis­er, vocal­ist, and pro­duc­er, Lan Tung is the artis­tic direc­tor of Sound of Drag­on Music Fes­ti­val, Orchid Ensem­ble, and Pro­lif­erasian, and per­forms with numer­ous cross-cul­tur­al projects in the New Music and World Music scenes. Orig­i­nal­ly from Tai­wan, her works often encom­pass unex­pect­ed com­bi­na­tions of ele­ments from dif­fer­ent genres.

Christo­pher Willes is an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary artist, com­pos­er, and dra­maturg based in Toron­to. He makes per­for­mances, music, exhi­bi­tions, pub­li­ca­tions, cura­to­r­i­al projects, and often works in con­tem­po­rary dance con­texts. He is an asso­ciate artist with the Toron­to col­lec­tive Pub­lic Record­ings. Christo­pher received an MFA in music/sound from Bard Col­lege (NY, USA), stud­ied music at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, Dance Dra­matur­gy at Dance­mak­ers Cen­tre For Cre­ation, and was a 2016 Mac­Dow­ell Colony Fel­low (NH, USA). Pho­to Emma Jones

Gayle Young has designed instru­ments and sound instal­la­tions as well as com­pos­ing for orches­tral and elec­tron­ic instru­ments. Visu­al artists have invit­ed her to pro­vide sound for gallery exhi­bi­tions in which she inte­grat­ed her work in tun­ing and sound­scape in a cross-dis­ci­pli­nary con­text. She has writ­ten exten­sive­ly about sound inno­va­tion, writ­ing the biog­ra­phy of Hugh Le Caine and edit­ing  Music­works for many years.

International Guests

Matthias Engler is co-founder, gen­er­al man­ag­er and per­cus­sion­ist of Berlin based ‘Ensem­ble Adapter’ and has spe­cial­ized in con­tem­po­rary cham­ber music prac­tices since 2004. Next to per­form­ing as a soloist, ensem­ble play­er and guest musi­cian in var­i­ous con­texts his spe­cial exper­tise lies in con­tin­u­ous­ly cre­at­ing and pro­duc­ing new music formats.

Ona Kamu (Fin­land) has sev­er­al titles; singer, musi­cian, com­pos­er, actor, per­for­mance artist, artis­tic direc­tor of Ona Kamu Col­lec­tive, music pro­duc­er and head of her own record label Pakara Records. Ona is the epit­o­me of the uncat­e­go­rized.  Just like her art, her work is ambi­tious, relent­less and fol­lows her own paths.

Elke Moltrecht (Ger­many) is a musi­col­o­gist, cura­tor and ini­tia­tor of inter­na­tion­al and inter­dis­ci­pli­nary fes­ti­vals and annu­al pro­grams that link forms of music through uncom­mon the­mat­ic asso­ci­a­tions. She pub­lish­es jour­nal arti­cles about exper­i­men­tal and con­tem­po­rary music and has been a mem­ber of not­ed nation­al and inter­na­tion­al juries and boards. Since March 2014, she has been Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Acad­e­my of the Arts of the World in Köln.

Niilo Tar­na­nen (Fin­land) is a Finnish com­pos­er, music the­o­ry teacher, bas­soon­ist, and the chair­per­son of the young com­posers’ asso­ci­a­tion Kor­vat auki. Alum­nus of Sibelius Acad­e­my, Uni­ver­si­ty of the Arts Helsin­ki, Tarnanen’s recent focus­es include games and flow charts as form, har­mo­ny inspired by psy­choa­coustics and pho­net­ics, and every­day sounds. Pho­to Arto Rusanen

Check back here, the list keeps grow­ing. (Sub­ject to change with­out pri­or noti­fi­ca­tion — Feb­ru­ary 28, 2018).