IGNITE: Banff Musicians in Residence Participant Concert 1

India Gailey (she/they) is a cellist, composer, vocalist, and improviser who appears most often in the realms of classical and experimental music. Named by CBC as one of “30 hot Canadian classical musicians under 30,” India moves fluidly as a soloist, chamber musician, and collaborator with various disciplines to create works of exploratory art. She has worked with numerous living composers, including Nicole Lizée, Amy Brandon, Philip Glass, Fjóla Evans, Andrew Noseworthy, and Michael Harrison. India’s album to you through (Redshift Records), was praised as “a truly exceptional display of unparalleled talent” (Take Effect) that “flows like poetry” (The Whole Note). Problematica (People Places Records, 2024) presents a series of commissioned works written especially for India.

As a composer, India has written music for concert, film, dance, and theatre, often exploring environmentalism and magical realism in her work. In 2022 she composed music for Symphony Nova Scotia to illustrate Mi’kmaw poet Rebecca Thomas’s children’s book I’m Finding My Talk, followed by her own cello concerto Butterfly Lightning Shakes the Earth in 2024. India is the recipient of numerous honours, including awards from Arts Nova Scotia, the Nova Scotia Talent Trust, the Canada Council for the Arts, Upstream Music, and Acadia & McGill Universities. India is currently based in Kjipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia). 

India Gailey is generously supported by the N. Murray Edwards Family Fund.
 

JUNO nominated, Canadian Folk Music Award winning fiddler and violinist Elise Boeur explores the outfields of contemporary folk music with a deceptively light touch. Her music is grounded in aural folk traditions, with a particular interest in the expansive forms and elasticity of time in Norwegian hardingfele music.

As a bandleader, she currently concentrates on her prog-trad quintet Aerialists, using the group as a playground to explore permutations of minimalist, pop, jazz, and post-rock sounds and structures reflected onto traditional celtic and nordic fiddle music. Another current focus is playing for community folk dances in several genres, as a more direct communication of fiddle traditions born out of decades of social music making.

Elise also works as a chameleonic collaborator on stage and in the studio, where her work as a side-person with songwriters and poets has shaped a sonic sensitivity and impressionistic approach to string playing.

Elise Boeur is generously supported by the N. Murray Edwards Family Fund. 

Isa Holmgren is a vocalist and dancer working in the field of traditional Swedish and Norwegian folk music and improvised music. With a background in the traditional dance scene, her solo performances revolve around the asymmetrical rhythms and melodies of the fiddle music from the border regions between Sweden and Norway. Her music centres the voice, and rests on astonishingly accurate transcriptions of the sound and characteristics of the fiddle as well as on thorough research of vocal traditions. Her first solo record, the EP Efter Eda , was released in 2019 at Ransäterstämman Festival (SE) and was well received. She also works and collaborates with groups such as Staerna (SE/NO/FI) and Aerialists (CA). 

She has a Bachelors degree from the Academy of Music and Drama in Gothenburg (SE) and a Masters degree in Traditional Nordic Folk Music from the Academy of Music in Oslo (NO), where she is regular guest teacher in traditional music and dance. Isa also works with choirs and ensembles focusing on traditional music, both as a conductor and composer. 

Her latest album Dans med meg, released in 2024 on the label Melovitten (NO), features dancers and explores the musical and audible connection between the movements and sounds of the voice and the dancers.

Isa Holmgren is generously supported by the Isobel and Tom Rolston Fellowships in Music Endowment, and the Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Described as “darkly lyrical” by the New York Times, an awardee of 2023 Chamber Music America Commissioning Grant, a winner of 2022 Beth Morrison Projects Next Generation Competition, and a 2019 recipient of Opera America’s Discovery Grant and National Sawdust Hildegard Commission Award, Iranian-American composer Niloufar Nourbakhsh’s music has been commissioned and performed by Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Nashville Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic musicians, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, International Contemporary Ensemble, Camerata Pacifica, Library of Congress, Center for Contemporary Opera, National Sawdust, New Music USA, Shriver Hall, Forward Music Project, PUBLIQuartet, Loadbang Ensemble, Calidore String Quartet, Cassatt String Quartet, Akropolis Reed Quintet, and Ensemble Connect at numerous festivals and venues including BBC Proms, Ojai Music Festival, Carnegie Hall, Washington Kennedy Center, Mostly Mozart Festival, and many more. A founding member and co-director of Iranian Female Composers Association, Nilou is a strong advocate of music education. She currently teaches theory and composition at Longy School of Music of Bard College and Berklee College of Music. Nilou also regularly performs with her ensemble, Decipher.

Niloufar received a Ph.D. in music composition from Stony Brook University under the supervision of Sheila Silver.

Niloufar Nourbakhsh is generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Born and raised in Tehran, Iran, Aida Shirazi is a composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music. Shirazi’s music is described as “unfolding with deliberation” by The New York Times, “well-made” and “affecting” by The New Yorker, and “unusually creative” by San Francisco Classical Voice. In her works, Shirazi mainly focuses on timbre for organizing structures inspired by language and literature.

Shirazi’s music has been featured at festivals including Manifeste, Wien Modern, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Mostly Mozart, ACHT BRÜCKEN, Beethovenfest, and Tehran Contemporary Music Festival in venues such as Maison de la Radio France, WDR Funkhaus, Radialsystem Berlin, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, and Carnegie Hall. Her works are performed by Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Miranda Cuckson, International Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente, and Bilkent Symphony Orchestra, among others.

Shirazi holds a Ph.D. in composition and music theory from the University of California, Davis. She is a 2022 graduate of IRCAM’s Cursus Program in Composition and Computer Music. Shirazi studied santoor (Iranian traditional hammered dulcimer) with Parissa Khosravi Samani. Shirazi is a founding member and co-artistic director of the Iranian Female Composers Association (IFCA.)

Aida Shirazi is generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Hiroki Tanaka, is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and composer. Formerly lead guitarist of YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN, he has embarked on a solo career that infuses elements of his Japanese-Canadian heritage with lyrical, conceptual folk, and indie rock. 

His debut solo album, Kaigo Kioku Kyoku, was built from Tanaka’s experience as a caregiver for his grandmother with Alzheimer’s, and uncle with terminal cancer. Kaigo Kioku Kyoku makes music out of meaningful objects, voice recordings of his relatives, and are structured off of hymns and Japanese folk songs. 

During the pandemic, he collaborated with Prof. Megan Davies (York University) on Covid In The House of Old, a traveling exhibit meant to shed light on those “who either died or were severely impacted by COVID-19 while living in long-term care”. 

His work with YT//ST was nominated for the 2018 Polaris prize, and toured extensively in Canada/US and Western Europe. He continues to write, record and perform his own music while based in Toronto.

Hiroki Tanaka is generously supported by the OK Gift Shop Endowment and Banff Centre Artists' Awards.