mia susan amir

mia susan amir works at the intersection of creative and community practice as an educator, cultural organizer, writer, and theatre artist creating immersive, interdisciplinary, and site-specific works. mia’s writing has appeared on SpiderWebShow, Lemon Hound, Digging Through the Fat, and in Sustenance: An Anthology of Writers from B.C. and Beyond on the Subject of Food, Anvil Press. mia is the Creative Director of The Story We Be, the Associate Dramaturg at PTC, and a Dramaturg with the Virago Play Series. She lives and works on the unceded and occupied territories of the x?m?θkw?y??m (Musqueam), Skwxwu?7mesh (Squamish), and S?l?i?lw?ta?/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

Patrick McGraw

Toronto-based composer Patrick McGraw was born in the United States but has made Canada his home since 2001. An early interest in the sciences led him to a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the California Institute of Technology, but the pull of his other great love, music, proved irresistible and he returned to school to study composition with David Mott and Gary Kulesha. He was awarded the Karen Kieser Prize in Canadian Music for his string quartet Glass in 2014. Although music is now his primary focus, he remains active in the sciences as a teacher.

Kagan Goh

Kagan Goh is an award-winning filmmaker, published author, spoken word poet, and mental health advocate and activist. Kagan has been published in numerous anthologies, periodicals and magazines. Select Books in Singapore published his first book, Who Let in the Sky? Goh is also an award-winning documentary filmmaker with a number of releases, including the award-winning Mind Fuck (1996) and Stolen Memories (2012). His films have been broadcast on national television and gained entry into respected film festivals across Canada. His personal mission is to educate people about mental health issues and fight the stigma against the mentally ill.

Steven Webb

Steven Webb is a Toronto based performer, composer, and audio engineer, who recently completed his Masters in Composition at the University of Toronto under the direction of Dr. Christos Hatzis. Steven has written music for a variety of films and commercials, as well as for contemporary dance and classical performance. His compositions and arrangements have been performed across North America and Europe, and include performances by: The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, The UofT Symphony Orchestra, The University of Guelph Symphonic Choir, Prairie Voices Choir, Exultate Chamber Choir, and at the Conservatory of Music Giuseppe Tartini in Trieste, Italy. As a film composer, Steven has worked on a variety of projects including ‘Chopin’s Heart’ for The National Screen Institute, which played at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, ‘Period Piece’, winner of the best Canadian Short Film at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival, and ‘Scheduled Violence’ for MTS On Demand. He currently works as a full time composer, audio engineer and collaborative pianist.

Arturo Fernandez

Arturo Fernandez is a native of Miami, Florida. He has had his compositions performed by groups such as the Ludovico Ensemble, the Fifth Floor Collective, and the Boston Conservatory orchestra under the direction of Yoichi Udagawa. He has also had compositions premiered at various summer music festivals, including the New York Summer Music Festival, the Atlantic Music Festival, Sienna Summer Music in Italy, and ASL 2014. He is a graduate of the Boston Conservatory and the Cleveland Institute of Music, and is a recent doctoral graudate of the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati.

Cory Philley

Cory is a writer, performer, director and producer and has worked as a theatre artist for more than 30 years. Cory’s writing credits include Peaches & Scream (co-written with Mercedes Baines), the award winning Marking Time, Faith, Bob, Contrary, Sorry, Scarlet, Late, Slippage, and Fever Cabaret. As a performer, favourite acting credits include Mud & Men Inside (Ruby Slippers Productions), Bad Dollies (Women in View Festival) Her Big Break (These 4 Walls Productions), By Choice (Twelve Minutes Max), Faith and Bob (La Luna Productions) and Slippage (Wild Filly Productions).

Cory is the Theatre and Events Services Coordinator at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts in Burnaby where she is the Artistic Director for the Shadbolt’s theatre season, directs the Artist-in-Residency program and manages Special events and concerts in Deer Lake Park. Cory was one of the founding members and co-artistic director of La Luna Productions (1998-2007).

Cory is a graduate of the Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts and she has just completed her MA in Graduate Liberal Studies program at SFU. Her thesis project was her play, Hoarding Paradise, about a woman with Compulsive Hoarding Disorder.

Katerina Gimon

Katerina Gimon is an award-winning and emerging Canadian composer, improvisor, and experimental vocalist based in Vancouver. Recently named as one of Canada's hot 30 classical musicians under 30 by CBC, her compositions have been broadcast and presented across Canada, the United States (most notably at Carnegie Hall), and Europe. Katerina currently serves on the board of The Association of Canadian Women Composers and is an Associate Composer at the Canadian Music Centre (currently the youngest associate). She continues to performs regularly as part of experimental mixed-media ensemble Chroma of which she is a founding member (vocals, extended vocals, and electronics).

Contralto, Lynne McMurtry

Described as “a force of nature” (Toronto Star) and “an actress of immense talent” (Opera Canada), contralto Lynne McMurtry is happiest when rehearsing powerful words set to evocative music, which is why she loves Art Song Lab.  Recent opera performances include Mistress Quickly in Verdi’s Falstaff with Calgary Opera and Marcellina in Le Nozze di Figaro with Opera Lyra.  In the concert realm she dreams of singing more of Das Lied von der Erde (Mahler) and the Alto Rhapsody by Brahms, both of which she performed with orchestra recently.  She teaches at the State University of New York College at Fredonia and is a Founding Faculty Artist of the Vancouver International Song Institute.

Pianist, Rachel Iwaasa

Hailed in the press as a "keyboard virtuoso and avant-garde muse" (Georgia Straight) with the “emotional intensity” to take a piece “from notes on a page to a stunning work of art” (Victoria Times Colonist), pianist Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa has performed as soloist and chamber musician in Canada, the United States, the Netherlands and Germany. Known for bold and innovative concerts, Rachel combines her warmth and curiosity to touch the hearts and minds of audiences, whether she is playing Beethoven and Schumann or Ligeti and Saariaho.

One half of the flute/piano duo Tiresias with Mark McGregor, Rachel has also performed with Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Judith Forst, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw and Richard Reed Parry of Arcade Fire. Rachel has appeared for Muziekweek Gaudeamus, Music TORONTO, Vancouver New Music, Music on Main, Redshift, the Western Front, the Victoria Symphony, the Aventa Ensemble (Victoria), CONTACT contemporary music (Toronto), New Works Calgary, Groundswell New Music (Winnipeg), and Vancouver Pro Musica. Rachel has a shameless passion for contemporary music, and has performed numerous premières, including pieces written especially for her by Rodney Sharman, Jeffrey Ryan, Jocelyn Morlock, Emily Doolittle, Alexander Pechenyuk, and many other Canadian composers. Rachel’s debut solo CD, Cosmophony, piano music inspired by the cosmos, was released in 2010 on Redshift Records. Praised by the Vancouver Sun as “brilliant” and “unforgettable” and nominated for a Western Canadian Music Award, Cosmophony features the Canadian premiere recording of George Crumb’s Makrokosmos, Volume II and no less than nine commissioned works by Canadian composers.

Rachel is one half of the flute/piano duo Tiresias with Mark McGregor. Their debut CD, Delicate Fires, was nominated for a 2008 Western Canadian Music Award. Delicate Fires was produced with the generous assistance of the Barbara Pentland fund, and features the first commercially released recordings of her Sonata Fantasy for solo piano and Trance for flute and piano. It also presents the premiere recordings of works commissioned by Tiresias from Canadian composers Rodney Sharman, Jennifer Butler, and Jocelyn Morlock. Tiresias’s sophomore recording was double CD released in 2013: Trade Winds, showcasing the works of BC composers Jean Coulthard, Paul Douglas and Christopher Kovarik, paired with Halos of the Moon, exploring Japanese-Canadian hybridity in music with works by Toru Takemitsu, Jo Kondo, Eliot Weisgarber, Anthony Genge, Derek Charke, Hiroki Tsuromoto and Kara Gibbs.

Rachel’s major teachers were Jane Coop, Menahem Pressler, and Robin Wood. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of British Columbia, a Master of Music from Indiana University, and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Victoria, where she earned the Victoria Medal as the top graduating student in Fine Arts. She was also a two-time recipient of the prestigious Annual Grant from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) for graduate studies at the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" Berlin. Other awards include numerous grants from the Canada Council, the BC Arts Council, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Alberta Heritage Foundation. Rachel is a founder of the Queer Arts Festival, regarded as one of the top 5 festivals of its kind worldwide.

Pianist, Alison d'Amato

Pianist Dr. Alison d'Amato is a dynamic and versatile musician, committed to performing and teaching in the full spectrum of collaborative musical genres. A valued colleague and innovative mentor, she is Artistic Co-Director of Florestan Recital Project (www.florestanproject.org), Assistant Professor of Vocal Coaching at Eastman School of Music, and Clinical Assistant Professor at University at Buffalo. In all these activities, Alison is dedicated to energizing the relationships and communication inherent in music.

As both a pianist and teacher, Alison has developed several projects that explore interdisciplinary collaborations and new approaches to the performer-audience relationship. She is Program Director of Art Song Lab (www.artsonglab.com), an intensive workshop that presents new works in collaboration with composers, poets, and performers. Alison has been a guest artist at The AmBul Festival (Sofia, Bulgaria), SOURCE Song Festival, University of Toronto, Tufts University, Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, SUNY Fredonia, University of Minnesota, and Boston Conservatory. In addition to traditional masterclasses, Alison has shared classes with musicologists, English professors, singers, and instrumentalist partners. She has pursued that interdisciplinary approach in performance, notably with a Florestan/Maine State Ballet collaboration of “The Poet’s Love,” a highly-acclaimed original presentation of Schumann’s Dichterliebe with original choreography. 

Recent recording projects include The Complete Songs of Virgil Thomson (New World Records) and Music for Violin and Piano by Joseph Achron with violinist Michael Ludwig (Naxos). Recent concert activities include programs at the Schubert Club (St. Paul, MN), premieres with Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP), Wordsong, and the Buffalo Chamber Players, and recitals with acclaimed soprano Tony Arnold.

Soprano, Dorothea Hayley

It's our pleasure to have Dorothea Hayley joining us for the first time this summer for #ASL2018.

www.artsonglab.com

Praised for her “very personal creative power” (Badener Zeitung) and her “amazing coloratura skills” (Opera Canada), Dorothea Hayley has been a soloist with the Vancouver Symphony, the Bourgas Symphony, the Allegra Chamber Orchestra, and Capriccio Basel, and has appeared in recital in Europe, Asia, and North and South America. She has performed in festivals such as Sonic Boom, the Happening Festival, Gulangyu Piano Festival, Performer’s Voice Symposium, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, and the Atempo Festival of Caracas, and with organizations like the SMCQ, Chants Libres, CIRMMT, Codes d’accès, Vancouver New Music, the Little Chamber Music Series That Could, and the Land’s End Ensemble. She is a member of the Erato Ensemble, the Broadwood Duo, Ensamble Atempo, and the Hayley-Laufer Duo.

An enthusiastic performer of contemporary music, Dory has worked with composers such as Helmut Lachenmann, Diógenes Rivas, Owen Underhill, Jordan Nobles, and Chris Paul Harman, and created roles in Mark Haney’s Omnis Temporalis and Michael James Park’s Diagnosis Diabetes. The Georgia Straight called her performance of Joelysa Pankanea’s The Fifth Stage one of “five transcendent arts moments” of 2015.A former Visiting Scholar at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute and Visiting Faculty Artist at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, she currently teaches at Vancouver Community College. She is the Artistic Co-Director of the Blueridge Chamber Music Festival.

Dory pursued vocal studies at McGill University, the University of British Columbia, and the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, and has received grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Koerner Foundation, the Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada, and the Conseil des arts et des letters du Québec. She holds a Doctor of Music degree from Université de Montréal.

Pianist, Marguerite Witvoet

It's our pleasure to announce that Marguerite Witvoet will be joining our performers for a second time at Art Song Lab 2018!

Don't miss the chance to work with Marguerite and all our amazing performers.

Apply today: www.artsonglab.com

With a rich musical palette and an adventurous spirit, Marguerite Witvoet lays claim to a diverse range of musical territories. As a pianist, vocalist, composer, sound designer, music director/conductor and vocal coach, Marguerite has gained a reputation across Canada as a versatile and creative musician.

An active player in the development of new opera and musical theatre, Marguerite has conducted the world premieres of several new Canadian operas and assisted in the development of numerous others, with companies such as Autumn Leaf Performance, The Banff Centre, Modern Baroque Opera Company, Pro Musica, Restless Productions, Tapestry New Music Theatre, The Vancouver Playhouse and Vancouver New Music. No stranger to theatre, she has also worked with the Arts Club, Belfry Theatre, Canadian Stage, Chemainus Theatre, Shaw Festival and Toronto Operetta Theatre.

Ms. Witvoet regularly performs as a solo and chamber artist, and has made numerous recordings with CBC, frequently interpreting works by established contemporary composers such as John Cage and Georges Aperghis, commissioning new works by Canadian and international composers and performing works of her own composition.

In 2002, Marguerite was nominated for a Jessie Richardson Theatre Award for Significant Artistic Achievement for musical composition and arrangement. Her first venture into sound design was deemed "outstanding" by critics and audiences alike, and was nominated for a Jessie Award in 2003 for Best Sound Design. Since then, artists of all disciplines have sought her out for creative collaborations.

Marguerite lends a compassionate approach and a critical ear to her work as a vocal coach and piano teacher for both professionals and amateurs. Working with a combination of intuition, keen observation, years of musical training and a wealth of performance experience, she inspires students to develop their own unique voice as artists and creators.

Recent projects include conducting a 2016 production of White Wines, Radio Play in 3 Acts, composed by Dorothy Chang, and composing and music directing for Th'Owxiya: The Hungry Feast Dish, for Axis Theatre in June 2017. Upcoming projects include music directing a December 2017 workshop of Leslie Uyeda's Your Breath, My Breath: Dialogue for a Mother and Daughter and playing in the Arts Club remount of Onegin, by Veda Hille and Amiel Gladstone.

Marguerite is a member of AFM, SOCAN, CMRRA and SCGC, and currently teaches in the Bachelor of Performing Arts program as well as conducting Beginning Choral Ensemble at Douglas College. She also teaches individual voice and choir at Studio 58, Langara College. For over ten years, Marguerite was faculty vocal coach at the International Advanced Voice Workshops at the Banff Centre.

Singer, Will George

We're thrilled to have Will George coming back for another year at Art Song Lab. This will be the 7th installment of #ArtSongLab, and this will be Will's 6th time!

Don't miss the chance to work with Willl, and all our amazing performers...

Apply today: www.artsonglab.com

Will George is a versatile performer, equally at home in the world of classical, musical theatre, and pop music.

He has performed leading roles with many international musical organizations, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City Operas, and festivals and concerts in Canada, Hong Kong, Finland, England, Sweden, Germany, the Philippines, and Carnegie Hall.

An active recitalist, Will is co-founder and Artistic Director for Erato Ensemble, and has been featured in a solo recital for Japan’s NHK network television. His CD, “Dew-drops on a Lotus Leaf”, a collection of songs by composer Marga Richter, was released on the Redshift label in 2014. “EAST,” with guitarist Michael Strutt, followed in 2017. Other recordings include “Geometrics” by L.Warde and Brent Michael David's “Viola Jokes”, with acclaimed violist Melia Watras.

A specialist in contemporary music, Will has worked closely with many respected composers, including Michael Tippett, Barry Truax and Marga Richter. He recently received rave reviews for his performance in Peter Maxwell Davies’ “Eight Songs for a Mad King” with Nu:BC Ensemble.
In addition to his classical work, Will also has years of experience singing popular music - rock, jazz, soul and country. He is well known in town as a singer-songwriter, and is the lead singer of the roots-rock band Horse Opera. The band released their debut album in November 2017.
Will received his Masters of Music degree from the University of Southern California, where he was honored as Outstanding Graduate from the School of Music. He currently lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Also a composer, Will's songs and vocal chamber works have been performed and commissioned by such organizations as New Music New York, Erato Ensemble, Vancouver International Song Institute, Holy Rosary Cathedral, and The Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies. His cantata "The Virtues" was nominated for a 2005 Pulitzer Prize in Music. Mr. George is the recipient of multiple ASCAPlus Awards, and is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre.

Guest Poet, Jordan Abel

It delights us to no end to see our ASL Alumni going on to do amazing things.  In 2012, Jordan Abel attended Art Song Lab as a poet participant. His work in erasure poetry, unknown to the composers present, gave his collaborative partner a whole new way of seeing the way a poem could influence their music, and set the precedent for many innovative collaborative approaches to follow. It was for his most recent book of poetry, Injun, that he received the 2017 Griffin Poetry Prize.

We're thrilled to announce that Jordan Abel will be the Guest Poet for Art Song Lab 2018. He will present a public workshop designed to speak equally to poets and composers, and participants will have several opportunities to connect personally with Jordan throughout ASL.

Find out more about Jordan at www.jordanabel.ca, and listen to his ASL 2012 collaboration with composer Emilie LeBel, "the place of scraps..." on our recordings page.

Jordan Abel is a Nisga'a writer from BC. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD at Simon Fraser University where his research concentrates on the intersection between Digital Humanities and Indigenous Literary Studies. Abel’s creative work has recently been anthologized in Best Canadian Poetry (Tightrope), The Land We Are: Artists and Writers Unsettle the Politics of Reconciliation (Arbiter Ring), and The New Concrete: Visual Poetry in the 21st Century (Hayword).  Abel is the author of The Place of Scraps (winner of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize), Un/inhabited, and Injun (winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize).
 

Guest Composer, Rodney Sharman

We're so fortunate to have a wonderful community of composers and poets who value and support the work Art Song Lab is doing. Throughout ASL's history, Rodney has been an active and engaging member of the art-song community. A renowned Canadian composer with an international career, he's attended many of our concerts and open rehearsals, and taken part in our community discussions on the state of art song in our contemporary culture.

We're thrilled to announce that Rodney Sharman will be the Guest Composer for Art Song Lab 2018. He will present a public workshop on collaboration and his own experiences writing art song, and participants will have several opportunities to connect personally with Rodney throughout ASL.

Find out more about Rodney at www.rodneysharman.com, and listen to his interview on our "How To 'Art Song'" page.

Rodney Sharman is Composer-in-Residence of Early Music Vancouver’s “New Music for Old Instruments”. He has been Composer-in-Residence of the Victoria Symphony, the National Youth Orchestra of Canada and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, as well as Composer-Host of the Calgary Philharmonic’s New Music Festival, "Hear and Now". In addition to concert music, Rodney Sharman writes music for cabaret, opera and dance. He works regularly with choreographer James Kudelka, for whom he has written scores for Oregon Ballet Theatre, San Francisco Ballet and Coleman Lemieux Compagnie (Toronto). Sharman was awarded First Prize in the 1984 CBC Competition for Young Composers and the 1990 Kranichsteiner Prize in Music, Darmstadt, Germany. His score for the dance-opera From The House Of Mirth won the 2013 Dora Mavor Moore Award for outstanding sound design/composition (choreography by James Kudelka, text by Alex Poch Goldin after Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth). 

Zoe Dagneault

Zoe J. Dagneault currently studies English Literature at Simon Fraser University. She is also enrolled in SFU's The Writer's Studio. Zoe's work explores wordscapes varying from Buddhist robot romances to emo-techno-pastoral portraits. Most recently, her altru-eco-feminist contemplations have refocussed with the birth of her daughter, Violetta. Zoe lives and writes in East Vancouver.

Dubravko Pajalic

Dubravko Pajalic graduated from the Music Academy, Department of Musicology and Music Journalism, University of Zagreb, Croatia. He also studied Archival Studies and Informatics in Croatia, Austria and in Canada. He music studies include: the flute, guitar, choral conducting (Emil Cossetto, Jon Washburn) and composition (Stanko Horvat). Since arriving to Canada he has been conducting community and church choirs, and regularly attends music workshops. Dubravko’s compositions take on the format of a “bricolage" - works influenced by a diverse range of things and themes available (for example: a current mood or a mind-set ; or, simply a subconscious reflex to melodic material).

Karen Garry

Karen Garry is a Visual Artist and Storyteller who moonlights as a poet when no one's paying attention. She began self-publishing at the age of 14 and has since carried many a title from the mundane to the remarkable and has marvelled at the destinations one can arrive should they continue to put one foot in front of the other.  She has made 'zines, panned pizzas, illustrated books, drawn comics, sold groceries, taught Art and English, had international art shows,  pre-visualized animated scenes in 3D, storyboarded sequences for cartoon movies and is currently in the process of writing her first picture book.  She's fluent in three languages, has travelled a fair bit of the world and wants humans to help save the bees and keep the polar bears afloat.  When's she not trying to convince people to stay up past their bedtimes, she can usually be found on her bicycle, at the beach or strumming the strings on her classical guitar. She currently resides in Vancouver, BC, and thinks it'd be great if there were never another tanker blocking the view.