BEATS: Banff Musicians in Residence Participant Concert 3

Andrew Li is an emerging multimedia artist, composer, musician, and developer whose work seamlessly bridges the worlds of music, technology, and visual storytelling. Originally from Hong Kong and now based in Toronto, Andrew has built a reputation for his innovative approach to creative media.

As the composer, sound designer, and co-developer for the game ‘Meow Tunes’, Andrew played a pivotal role in its Honourable Mention for Technical Innovation at the Toronto Level Up Showcase 2023. His sound design and compositions for animations include award-winning projects such ‘Red’, which won the Digital Creativity award for the 22nd DigiCon6 Asia Animation Competition, and ‘Exit’, which earned an Honourable Mention at the Taiwan International Student Design Competition and the film has amassed over 80,000 views on YouTube.

Beyond his accolades, Andrew’s versatility shines in his live performances, videography, and development. From performing for Thursday @ Three on All Classical Portland Radio to developing music educational platforms like ‘No Need to Vanish’, funded by Canada Council for the Arts, his expertise leaves an indelible mark on every project.

Graduated with a Master in Music Technology and Digital Media from the University of Toronto, Andrew is working on his second album that combines visual media and music.

Andrew Li is generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Indonesian-born pianist, composer, and producer Lifia Teguh captivates audiences with her inventive fusion of genres, intertwining traditional Indonesian sounds with blues, classical, and pop music. Known for her originality, Lifia’s work has garnered international attention. Her piano quartet, Liber Dangdut, was featured at the College Music Society's National Conference in New York, celebrating her artistry on an international platform.

Lifia’s talent earned her first place in the PSU Concerto Competition, which led to her debut with the Corvallis-OSU Symphony Orchestra in the U.S playing Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major. She has also performed live frequently for Thursdays @ Three on All Classical Portland Radio, where her vibrant personality and musicality shine. As a featured composer in Fear No Music’s Locally Sourced Sounds VII, she captivated audiences with Imagine Indonesia, a piece that reimagines piano sounds to mimic traditional Indonesian instruments like the gamelan and rindik as well as capturing the traditional kecak dance of Bali.

Having recently graduated in Music Technology and Digital Media from the University of Toronto, Lifia also holds Master’s degrees in Piano Performance & Collaborative Piano. Lifia is currently working on her second album, a genre-bending fusion of diverse musical styles.

Lifia Teguh is generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

I Agar Haineault,

Was born in Saskatoon, SK and raised in Clearwater River and La Loche, SK. This is where I spent the first 15 years of my life. Growing up post-colonization of our Dene Culture, the language was still strongly prevalent in the community. Despite such strong retention of our cultural values, we lacked the ceremony and teaching to heal spiritually and inherit our history thus creating a community consumed by crime, addiction and poverty. 

Despite all that surrounded me, I focused on school for most of my up-bringing. I often credit my mother for this, due to her being the only parent present at home. Despite having a strong role model such as my mother, I was still surrounded by the madness of my community. Often as a young child witnessing violence in the community from criminals and police, family members addictions, funerals of close relatives, as well as participating in the destruction of my community as a young teen.

At 15 years old, I decided to leave my community to pursue schooling in the city of Saskatoon. The culture shock was immense, taking me by surprise at the abundance of resources available to the students and citizens in the city. Having come from such poverty and crime-ridden circumstances, simply pouring myself a cup of clean water from the faucet baffled me. It was in the 11th Grade English Class, I discovered poetry. This was the start of a journey that would save my life. I began my first poem from a prompt that advised me to write about where I’m from. I was given lessons on writing with sensory details and structuring a poem. After spending 2 days on the piece, I handed it in and got a 95% on the assignment. It felt like the only thing I was truly skilled at, so I pursued it further through creative writing classes and college classes when I graduated. I observed and learned from poets I came in contact with, developing my style further and further until I began to play with the idea of pursuing music. I had always written my poetry pieces to instrumentals, to give them a sense of rhythm and structure.

It was October of 2021 I purchased a microphone and began to play around with recording programs on a old laptop of my close friend’s. Eventually after days of reading and researching how, I recorded my very first song “Dead Ends”. The process probably took 200 vocal takes to record and get right due to my lack of knowledge on my recording software. But finally I had finished it and had to come up with an artist name for myself.

I spent weeks and finally came up with K.$TONE, a backwards euphemism for Stonechild; as in Neil Stonechild, a teenager killed by police in the Saskatoon Starlight tours. The K standing for the initial of who will be my first child, and the $TONE parallel with Stone(child). Although the $ sign was intentional, meaning as big of a symbolic martyr as Neil Stonechild was, I am still human, I still fall short to the vices and temptation of human greed and consequence. The dollar sign representing my biggest shortcoming which was money. Having been around poverty my whole life, my view on money became distorted, putting it on a pedestal compared to other aspects of my life including family, love and connection.

Through every facet of the name K.$TONE, I chose the name as a symbol that it could have been any one of us, including myself. In the case that it is me, I also intended the name as a legacy for anyone who doesn’t know the story of Neil Stonechild. To say the name “K.$TONE” and inquire on the origin, then realize the deeper meaning behind the choice. To hold the name as a symbol of not only justice but Honesty, one of my biggest virtues. Although my music may not always consist of conscience social issues, it will always contain honest expression.

It was along the journey of finally releasing music and meeting like-minded artists, that I found it to be my true calling. It was only after dropping songs so dear to my heart and keeping my expression true, did I realize my impact on my community. I visited La Loche and Clearwater and was met with both positive and negative feedback. My younger relatives and relatives of my close friends celebrated my art and expression. I spoke with them and guided them in parts of their life they were struggling. Having been in the same circumstances, they felt inspired that I had come so far from the place they had been in, and witnessing first hand they can do the same. The negative feedback consisted of jealous comments and mocking my art, but I paid no mind. Having felt I made a difference to even 1 of my peers and relatives was all I needed to keep striving. Knowing they felt understood gave me the standard at which I hold myself today. Being honest and to aim at achieving the absolute best, I can to be an example and a source of pride for my family.

Since the release of my first song “Dead Ends” on December 17th 2021, I have opened up for big name artists such as Tony Yayo, Madchild, BBNO$ & Swae Lee, as well as performed at countless poetry events, festivals, open mics and various showcases. I have also co-founded my record label “Siren City Entertainment” with Nicholas Old Shoes AKA Donny Sage, my close friend and frequent collaborator in music. I have also composed a small EP under the name “FALLING SKY”, with my producer Alchemy the Linguist.

Agar Haineault is generously supported by the Alice and Betty Schultz Scholarships Endowment Fund for Dance and Music, and Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Aditya Ryan Bhat is a musician based in Narrm/Melbourne, Australia.

Aditya is active as a percussionist with a penchant for experimental music—regardless of whether precisely notated, freely improvised, or somewhere in-between! He has had the chance to work with leading musicians/groups in the field, including Anthony Braxton, ELISION Ensemble and Speak Percussion. A keen collaborator, he thrives on exploring new sonic territory in the company of friends, exchanging ideas and approaches. Accordingly, in composition, Aditya is preoccupied with finding non-prescriptive ways to communicate musical ideas, delighting in the chance emergence of fascinating sounds, moments of spontaneous discovery—whether hysterical or profound—and other ephemera.

Thematically, Aditya's work has a strong political and ecological focus, examining the many and varied effects of colonialism, as in recent pieces, including fixed/fleeting (commissioned by New North Music), …at war with oneself (with Todd J. Bennett) and Cerita Buat Dien Tamaela (after Chairil Anwar, for WHACKollective and Jeffry Liando). These concerns carry across to his interests in research and curation, which explore political and ecological themes, in relation to the many and varied effects of colonialism.

Aditya has trained in percussion at the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM), under the guidance of Peter Neville and John Arcaro. He completed a Bachelor of Music (Honours) at the University of Melbourne in 2023, for which he wrote a thesis on electronic music and anthropology. Outside of music, Aditya enjoys cycling, cooking, and reading about history and cultures.

Aditya Bhat is generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

The Pandan Quartet is a dynamic young string quartet based in the Oberlin Conservatory of Music since 2023. They have been the recipients of Flint Initiative, Shansi, and Oberlin Winter Term Grants. The Pandan Quartet was invited to participate in the 2024 Singapore Chamber Music Festival, where they performed to critical acclaim for local audiences, renowned artists, and various international embassies. They are honored to have had the opportunity to pave the way for more academic, musical, and cultural exchanges between East Asia and Oberlin College. Later in 2024, the Pandan Quartet was invited to be the Artists in Residence for the Off The Hook Arts: Music Spoke Concert Series, located in Ft. Collins, Colorado. Working alongside the Dalí Quartet, the Pandan Quartet performed a range of different concerts, including multiple educational and outreach performances for families and children, various donor events to help support the festival, and more formal concerts. The Pandan Quartet was invited to Banff Center for the Winter 2025 Musicians in Residence where they will work with the Kronos Quartet among other renowned artists. Other quartet projects include learning two of the Kronos Quartet’s “50 for the future” pieces and performing in senior care facilities. 

The Pandan Quartet has worked with a host of incredible artists, including Tabbea Zimmerman, the Takacs Quartet, the Dalí Quartet, the AOI trio, the Verona Quartet, Sunny Yang (Kronos Quartet), Kirsten Doctor (Cavani Quartet), Sibbi Bernhardsson (Pacifica Quartet), Bill van der Sloot (Villa Marteau Quintet), Peter Slowik, and Leslie Tan.

The Pandan Quartet is generously supported by the Cyril and Elizabeth Challice Fund for Musicians, and the Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Elissa began her piano studies at the age of 4, enrolling in the Sulhi al Wadi Conservatory in Syria. After earning a 10-year degree with honors, she continued her education at the Higher Institute of Music in Damascus under Professor Victoria Snobar. She later moved to Montreal to attend McGill University, where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Piano Performance under Professor Kyoko Hashimoto in 2023, receiving the Anna Paull Gertler Scholarship in Music.

Elissa has collaborated with the Al Farah Choir in France (2016), with Eyad Al Rimawi in Syria (2017), and gave a solo concert at the Damascus Opera House (2021). She also participated in the Domaine Forget de Charlevoix International Music and Dance Academy's 2023 New Music session, and performed with Le Vivier in 2023 and 2024, as well as at the Outaouais en fête music festival (2024).

Elissa is an RCM-certified piano teacher, currently working at the Coopérative des Professeurs de Musique de Montréal. She founded a workshop series through McGill’s Community Engagement Project, focused on spreading Arabic music in Montreal.
 

Elissa Nakhleh is generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Maddalena Ohrbach (she/her) is an Italian-American multidisciplinary singer. She received her Bachelor’s from the Peabody Institute, studying with Ah Young Hong funded by the Rosa Ponselle Scholarship in Voice. In college, she served as a Technology Fellow and Inspired Aging Fellow, contributing to the ear-training curriculum and accessibility awareness around elderly perception of music; she also premiered many works by living composers and worked as a collaborative pianist. Ohrbach has interned with Boulanger Initiative and Institute of Composer Diversity, researching and advocating for marginalized composers, and pulls inspiration from vocalists Julia Bullock and Pamela Z. She has sung with Buffalo Choral Arts Society, Harmonicham, regional invitationals including NAfME All-Eastern, and toured Europe as the featured soloist with American Music Abroad’s Honor Choir. She recently appeared at Opera McGill as Berthe in Weir’s Blond Eckbert and will soon premier a role in Gray’s Tax Opera and co-direct Sokolović’s Svadba. She has received the Fonds de recherche Québec (FRQ) grant, Segal AmeriCorps Education Award, and Peabody Launch Grant, among others. She lives in Montréal, Québec, where she pursues a Master’s at McGill University studying with Dominique Labelle and Michael McMahon, and she loves to cook and run along the Lachine Canal.

Maddalena Ohrbach is generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Lucas Crawford is the author of four poetry books that all kind of wanted to be lyrics: Sideshow Concessions (Invisible Publishing, 2015), The High Line Scavenger Hunt (U of Calgary, 2018), Belated Bris of the Brainsick (Nightwood Editions, 2019), and Muster Points (U of Calgary, 2023). His long poem about maritime music and its queer provenances, “Failed Seances for Rita MacNeil,” was widely republished, including in Best Canadian Poetry 2015. With Morgan Sea, he is author of “Report from the Interior,” a poetry-comic that may become a music video soon (crossing fingers).

By day, Lucas is Canada Research Chair of Transgender Creativity and Mental Health at the Augustana Faculty of the University of Alberta. He leads “Rewriting Ourselves: Poetry in the Psych Ward,” a collaborative pilot project offering free poetry workshops to psychiatric inpatients in 2025.

At Banff, Lucas will spend mornings tidying a poetry book called “Leonard Cohen is Starving!,” and writing an accompanying academic article about Cohen’s appetites. During the evenings, Lucas will finetune some of his own songs – poppy queer poetic folk of guitar/vocal/euphonium. 

Lucas Crawford is generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Project 23.6°N, named after the geographic coordinates of the country of Taiwan, consists of KaiChen Cheng (flute), Pin-hui Tsai (cello), and Calvin Hu (piano) who formed the group under their shared heritage and love of Taiwanese culture. As an ensemble, they not only strive to perform the music of Taiwanese composers from past to present, but also to serve as a cultural advocate of the diJerent traditions and stories from the island. From traditional Formosan melodies to contemporary sounds, Project 23.6°N aims to share the sounds of Taiwan with a global audience.

Project 23.6°N is generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards.