Mado Christie

Mado Christie is a pianist and writer living in St. John's, Newfoundland. Originally from Toronto, Mado completed their Bachelor's in Piano Performance at the University of Toronto and their Masters in Vocal Accompanying at the Manhattan School of Music. They currently co-teach the Opera Workshop at Memorial University’s School of Music, on top of collaborating with students, colleagues, and other arts organizations around St. John’s and beyond. Their writing appears in Riddle Fence and Acta Victoriana, and they were a founding editor of Augur Magazine.

between-the-keys.ghost.io

Amber Beauchamp

Amber Beauchamp (she/they) is a composer from Ambler, Pennsylvania who currently studies composition at SUNY Fredonia. She studies piano as her primary instrument, but also has experience as a percussionist and vocalist. Her musical language is rooted in jazz, but contains influences as far-ranging as minimalism, the Renaissance, fusion, hip-hop, and whatever other odd and strange music she’s heard that week. Recent accomplishments include Dawn for voice and piano, which won the 2024 Fredonia Composition Competition, as well as the premiere of Orion Dead, for choir, by the Fredonia University Chorus in December 2025.

Winston Lê

Winston Lê is a Vietnamese diaspora poet, interdisciplinary artist, and cultural worker who resides on the unceded and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples. His writing has been featured in, filling Station, ROOted Rhythms, Composed: anthology of poetry 2024, Poetry Pause, periodicities, Sparkling Tongue Press, Ekphrasis Magazine, and pagefiftyone. He is the author of four poetry chapbooks, translanguaging, hybrid utterance, Thhhhh, Tôiblazon. His debut chapbook, translanguaging was shortlisted for the 2018 Broken Pencil Zine Awards. Winston also has worked on various interdisciplinary collaborations with other artists, including multi-instrumentalist composer, Cameron Catalano, botanical artist, Katrina Vera Wong, and choreographer, Rob Kitsos. In April 2025, Lê was the poet-in-residence at Greywood Arts, an artist residency located in Cork, Ireland.

www.winstonle.com

Gregory Borton

Gregory Borton (b. 2002) is an emerging young composer from Hamilton, Ontario. He started piano lessons at age 4 but, much to the dismay of his teacher, he was more interested in rearranging the exercises than following them. His subsequent compositions were light and simple, yet smart and enjoyable. He soon immersed himself in classical scores and his career as a composer began. Beginning with developing pieces for trios and chamber groups, by the age of 15 Gregory composed his first symphony. He has been building his catalogue since then, adding concertos and other orchestral and chamber works. His work, Sinfonia Fantasia, was performed by the Brott Music Festival in 2019. He composed a Violin Sonata for Isabella D’Eloize Perron, and was performed in 2021. Recent works include Concerto A5 performed by the Gallo Chamber Players in 2025 as part of Early Music Vancouver’s summer festival.

Taylor Burns

Taylor Burns is a soprano from Kingston, ON currently pursuing her Master’s Degree at the University of Manitoba. She recently earned her Bachelor of Music (Honours in Voice Performance) with distinction from the University of Western Ontario. Upon graduating, she was awarded the UWO Gold Medal for receiving the highest academic standing in her program. In 2024, she placed 2nd in the Rose Bowl Competition for the Winnipeg Music Festival. In 2022, she placed 1st in her category in the NATS Vocal Showcase. An avid choral singer, has performed with professional Winnipeg based ensembles Polycoro and Dead of Winter. As a lover of Renaissance music, she is a frequent participant of The Canadian Renaissance Music Summer School.

www.taylorburnssoprano.ca

Melanie Hiepler

Melanie Hiepler is a soprano from Surrey, BC. She holds a MMus from the University of British Columbia’s opera program, where she studied under Marisa Gaetanne. 

Recent performance credits include Joseph Canteloube’s Chants d’Auvergne (First Series), Cendrillon (Dorothée), The Cunning Little Vixen (Rooster, Owl, Cricket), The Florentine Straw Hat (La Modista), and Shadow Catch, among others. 

Melanie is an alumna of NUOVA Vocal Arts and holds a BA Honours in World Literature from Simon Fraser University. Melanie gratefully acknowledges the Coast Salish peoples as the traditional and continued keepers of the lands on which she studies, works, and sings.

Click here for more info.

Caroline Barata

Caroline Barata is a rising third year undergraduate studying Vocal Performance at the Eastman School of Music. There she studies under Professor Kiera Duffy. Caroline was featured in the 2024 Eastman Queer Alliance's concert celebrating queer composers, as well as the 2023 Eastman Composer's Concert where she debuted 'The Coming of Old Age' by Payton Brown. In addition to singing, Caroline plays the piano and the guitar. 

Katherine Petersen

Katherine Petersen specializes in the performance of 21st Century repertoire for Voice and Saxophone. Her collaborations with Decho Ensemble include a residency at Ohio University and University of Idaho, performances at the International Congress of Voice Teachers in Vienna and the International Saxophone Symposium. Based in Chicago, Katherine performs with Folks Operetta, Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, Chicago Opera Theater, and Transgressive Theatre-Opera. Recent roles include Rose Maybud, Ruddigore; Margot, Die Kathrin; Bessie Throckmorton, Merrie England; Brigitta, Iolanta; Contessa, Marriage of Figaro; Sylva Varescu, Csardas Princess; Musetta, La bohème; Valencienne, The Merry Widow; Francesca, Rachmaninoff’s Francesca di Rimini.

K.I. Press

K.I. Press's four books of poetry are Exquisite Monsters (Turnstone), Types of Canadian Women (Gaspereau), Spine (Gaspereau), and Pale Red Footprints (Pedlar). She is originally from Treaty 8 lands in northern Alberta and now lives in St. Vital in Winnipeg, Treaty 1 territory and National Homeland of the Red River Métis. Karen has an MA in English Literature from the University of Ottawa and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. She teaches writing at Red River College Polytechnic at its Exchange District Campus in Winnipeg.

For more info: kipress.ca

Kayt (Lackie) Burgess

Kayt (Lackie) Burgess (they/she) is a writer, educator, musician, and researcher in multimodal storytelling. Their novel Heidegger Stairwell won the infamous 3 Day Novel Contest and was shortlisted for the ReLit Award for Fiction. Motel Pictures's feature film adaptation We Forgot to Break Up premiered at the 2024 London BFI Flare festival.  Kayt’s second novel Connection at Newcombe was published in 2021 by Latitude 46 Publishing. They create short fiction, poetry, drama, and popular song forms, as well as community story arts projects and experimental post-digital immersive experiences. This includes writing for the hit augmented reality game, Zombies, Run!

Kayt is a member of the Writers’ Union of Canada and the National Association of Teachers of Singing. They hold degrees from Western University and the University of Auckland, among others, as well as a PhD in digital creative writing (multimodal storytelling) from Bath Spa University. 

In addition to writing, Kayt runs a private music studio in Elliot Lake, Ontario (Robinson-Huron Treaty 61 territory). 

For more information: Kayt.ca

Celeste Nazeli Snowber

Celeste Nazeli Snowber, PhD is dancer, poet/writer and award-winning educator who is a Professor in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University. Celeste has written extensively and her books include, Embodied inquiry: Writing living and being through the body, three collections of poetry and her most recent book is Dance, poetics and place: Site-specific performance as a portal to knowing. Her last book of poetry, The marrow of longing explores her Armenian identity. Celeste creates site-specific performances in the natural world, including botanical gardens and sites between land and sea. Celeste lives outside Vancouver, B.C., Canada and is a mother of three amazing adult sons. She can be found at www.celestesnowber.com.

Sarah Mercer

Sarah Mercer -  I am a Winnipeg poet originally from the Greater Toronto Area.  As a transcultural adoptee, I have struggled with my identity.  Being a parent of a child with disabilities widens my perspective.  My dabbling in poetry, music composition and singing has intensified recently.

Jess Woolford

Jess Woolford is a writer, literary critic and editor whose poetry has been published in the museum of americana, Book of Matches, Text Power Telling Magazine, The Ecological Citizen, Prairie Fire Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, The Winnipeg Free Press and elsewhere.  Her poetry has also been exhibited in #BeHereWinnipeg, a garden of poetry in ice, and in the Poetry Society of Vermont’s Corporeal Poetry: Poetry in Art and Objects show.  Raised in Vermont, Woolford now lives and writes on Treaty 1 Territory in Winnipeg, Manitoba.    

JCCortens

JCCortens, poet & educator lives, writes & teaches on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ Nations (Vancouver, BC). JCCortens is driven by a passion for the written word, & a belief that the strengthening of personal voice & the articulation of our unique & commonly held histories serves the world as a model of hope, healing & inspiration. 

His poems have appeared in several journals including The Holy Male, The Maynard, Poetry Pause (League of Canadian Poets) and as well as Art & Poetry Anthology, an almost hand beckoning (with J. Swanson). His poem There is in me was selected for an honourable mention for the Delta Literary Arts Society spring contest (2024) Write On!  

As a poet, he seeks to respond to the world from a place of compassion and curiosity. Current obsessions include a series entitled Every Scar is a Story; Mapping the gaymale body a topography of the lives of gay men in fragmented times. Chapbook manuscripts (yet to be published) include Eros & Thanatos: Poems of Love and Death (2024)  and The Imaginary Lover (2019).

for more info: https://jccortens.ca

Gina Friedrich

Gina Friedrich is a fourth-year music major at Concordia University of Edmonton, with an emphasis in composition. She began singing in choir during her first degree, a Bachelor of Science in Biology, also at Concordia. Her enjoyment of choir, along with her newly-developed enjoyment of art song, and her passion for poetry, ultimately encouraged Gina to pursue this second degree. She currently studies composition with Matthew Emery, and also works as an administrative assistant for Choir Alberta, a Choral Scholar at Holy Trinity Anglican Church, and sings with the Concordia Concert Choir and Ariose Choir.

David Miltreiger

David Miltreiger is a drummer/percussionist and composer entering his fourth year of study in MacEwan University's Bachelor of Music Program. Inspired by dramatic and motivic scores from video games, film, and theatre, he is interested in the role of music as part of larger works of art; he seeks to incorporate such aspects of theme and storytelling into the longstanding tradition of Art Song.

Aaron Addorisio

Aaron Addorisio (he/him) is a percussionist, vocalist, composer, and conductor based in Amiskwaciwâskahikan / Edmonton. He is a recent graduate with honours from MacEwan University's composition degree and audio recording diploma programs, and Concordia University of Edmonton’s Church Music & Conducting Certificate. Aaron has strong ties to both the classical and contemporary music communities, and can often be found singing with and/or playing percussion for many choirs, theatre productions, orchestras, and jazz ensembles around the city, and acting as Music Director for Trinity Lutheran Church. Aaron was a 2022 SOCAN Young Composers Award winner for his electronics + drum set piece ‘i need you (to get back to me)’ and was commissioned in the same year by MacEwan University to compose a work for choir and big band to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the institution.

Nathan Wright Bueno de Mesquita

Nathan Wright Bueno de Mesquita is a composer born in Culiacán, Sinaloa in 2003. He is now based in Arlington, Virginia, and studies composition at SUNY Fredonia. He studies horn as a primary instrument but is also proficient on piano. His compositional style combines jazz chord voicings, and French-inspired harmony with modal melodies and scales often borrowed from Jewish folk music.