BLAZE: Jane Siberry, François Salque, Megumi Masaki, and BMiR Artists

Recognized as a true Canadian icon, singer-songwriter Jane Siberry has released over fifteen records, including her beloved signature Calling All Angels. The singer’s songs have also been covered by numerous artists, including k.d. lang with her stunning renditions of Love is Everything and the 23rd Psalm-inspired The Valley. Jane Siberry has been recognized and honored with numerous prestigious awards throughout her illustrious career, include a Grammy nomination, the Canada Council’s Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award, Juno, Genie, Gemini, Canadian Folk Music and East Coast Music Awards. A unique blend of folk, art-rock and pop music, Siberry’s shows are where a song can become a story of its own; full of laughter, thrills and the unexpected!
 

François Salque is recognised as one of the most stunning cellists of his generation. His profound musical thinking and phenomenal technique have earned him many prestigious awards: François is a prize-winner at such international competitions as Lausanne, Geneva, ARD Munich, and Tchaikovsky in Moscow. François has already performed as a soloist and in chamber music in over fifty countries with some of the world’s most renowned artists. He has played as a soloist with the Münchner Rundfunk Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Moscow chamber orchestra, the Saint-Petersburg Camerata, the Baltica Chamber Orchestra, the Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Berner Philharmonic, as well as many French orchestras. A graduate of Yale University, François is currently teaching at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne.

Funded through the generosity of Foundation David R. Graham Awards.

Megumi Masaki is a pianist, multimedia performing artist, educator and curator. She is recognized as an innovator that reimagines the piano, pianist and performance space. Her work pushes boundaries of interactivity between sound, image, text and movement in multimedia works through new technologies, including hand-gesture-motion tracking to generate and control live-electronics and live-video, AI, 3D visuals, keyboard-controlled computer game, e-textile sensors and active infra-red tracking. As a Japanese-Canadian artist, her work also explores how human rights and environmental issues can intersect and be communicated through music. Over 70 compositions have been created with/for Megumi and she has premiered 150 works worldwide. Megumi was appointed to the Order of Manitoba and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
www.megumimasaki.com

Benjamin Portzen is a composer, improviser, and movement artist who strives to make space for connection, healing, presence, and absence through immersive sound and movement works. By enabling performers and witnesses to be with time differently – often through alinear, cartographically-constructed scores – Ben offers the opportunity to create and interrogate relationships between bodies, ideas, sounds, and objects across, around, and through time. At present, Ben’s research interests include designing intelligent computer collaborators for composition and improvisation, illuminating the body as the locus of creative potential in the creation of sound works, the facilitation of “real” experiences for performers and audiences, and the ways in which artistic practice offers the opportunity for radical self-transformation and -dissolution.

Ben sees little boundary between artistic and religious practices, freely embracing the ritualism of repetition, and improvisation’s ability to put us in contact with the unknown by grounding oneself completely in the present. Ben’s work probes the liminal space between creativity and destructivity in search of ways in which art can help us live with greater depth, beauty, and grace.

Benjamin Portzen was generously supported by the Repsol Emerging Artists Award.

Christine Choi began her professional career at the age of 14 when she became a member of the first violin section in the Regina Symphony Orchestra. She completed an Advanced Certificate in Music Performance at the University of Toronto where she studied violin with Scott St. John and Lorand Fenyves, and chamber music with William Aide, Patricia Parr and Terrence Helmer.  As a chamber musician, she has participated in numerous festivals across North America, including the Scotia Festival of Music, the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, the Toronto Summer Music Festival, the St. Lawrence String Quartet Chamber Music Seminar at Stanford University, the Casalmaggiore International Music Festival, and the Colorado Springs Music Festival, where she was a winner of the concerto competition. In Vancouver, she has performed with the Vancouver Chamber Players and as a member of the Arbutus String Quartet.  She has been studying with violinist Tasmin Little since 2020. Christine graduated with a medical degree from the University of Toronto in 2004, and completed her residency in Emergency Medicine in 2009.  She is currently an emergency physician based in Vancouver.

Christine Choi was generously supported by the N. Murray Edwards Family Endowment.

Coralie received a classical harp training at the Music Conservatory of Montreal before curiosity and an urge for creative freedom pushed her to explore more unconventional ways of playing her instrument. She completed a Bachelor of Music at Concordia University studying jazz, composition and electroacoustic music with renowned harpist and experimentalist Sarah Pagé and is now studying Electronic Music at Université de Montréal. A versatile collaborator, she worked with a variety of artists and performed both locally and internationally in several music ensembles and bands for the last 10 years (Fruiting Bodies, Luminescent, Sauf Les Drones, Echönymphia). Her fascination for the connections between sound and movement along with her personal dance practice drove her to do many projects involving contemporary dance and circus arts. Her works were heard at MUTEK Festival (2021 & 2022), Phi Center, Festival Quartiers Danse, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, L'Arsenal Contemporary Art, Thinker's Studio (Taiwan) Visiones Sonoras Festival (Mexico), and Pop Montreal Festival. Minkworks, her solo project, reveals the intriguing sonorities of a harp hijacked by electronic effects which are manipulated in real time. Through intimate ambient soundscapes and dreamlikeindustrial atmospheres, Minkworks explores meticulously crafted sonic worlds blending softness and frenzy, machine and living, intensity and ethereality.

Coralie Gauthier was generously supported by the Cyril & Elizabeth Challice Fund for Musicians.

There is nuance in the everyday; in its layers of love, joy, and hurt, and in its emotional currents ever present. Erin reaches into the everyday and blurs the edges, creating works that are at once deeply personal and achingly relatable. These are songs that take it all in, that read between the lines, that hear the subtext, that feel it, that say it out loud. Her voice rings true with nuance and power, with rare clarity and precision. It is a tool of exacting expression, expertly honed. It reaches in to resonate; calling the listener inside, sounding the overtones of our shared experience. As a Juno-nominated, WCMA-winning recording artist, Erin has established herself as a mainstay in the Manitoba music scene and is known across Canada for her interpretation of melody within the jazz genre. Erin has performed with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra, opened for the esteemed Gretchen Parlato, been featured at the Juno gala award ceremonies, and recorded for an array of albums in all genres. A longtime educator, guest speaker and more recently adjudicator, Erin builds community and connection in all aspects of her artistic practice.

Erin Propp was generously supported by the Repsol Emerging Artists Award.

Justin Wright is a composer, cellist, and multimedia artist from Montreal, Canada. After finishing his master’s in molecular biology, Justin left science to perform in bands of all sorts before eventually starting to compose, using the techniques he learned in recording studios. Justin’s primary composition tools, for both electronic and acoustic music, are his cello, Ableton Live, a modular synthesizer, and a 4-track tape machine. Lately, Justin has focused on filmmaking, early music, virtual reality, and in situ composition. He has opened for artists such as Johann Johannsson, Hauschka, Thomas Mapfumo, Lubomyr Melnyk, Colin Stetson, Okkyung Lee, and Mount Eerie, and has composed for Alarm Will Sound, JACK Quartet, and SO Percussion. This past summer, Justin travelled to Svalbard, an archipelago close to the North Pole, and serenaded the glaciers with the most northerly cello performances in history. He is currently a PhD candidate in composition at Princeton University.

Justin Wright was generously supported by the Repsol Emerging Artists Award.

Maïa Xifaras began playing the cello at the age of 5 at the Suzuki school. At the age of 8, she was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire, with Marcel Bardon and then Thomas Duran. She then entered Matthieu Lejeune's class at the CRR de Saint-Maur-des-fossés, where she won cello and chamber music prizes with the highest distinctions. In 2020, she entered the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne in François Salque's class, where she obtained her Bachelor's degree and continued her Master's there. In 2019 she became a member of the Orchestre-Atelier-ostinato, and in 2023 a member of the Blaricum Festival Orchestra. At the same time, she benefits from the advice of Tabea Zimmermann, Emmanuelle Bertrand, Raphaël Merlin, Stephane Forck, Yvan Chiffoleau among others. As a soloist and chamber musician, she has shared the stage with artists such as François Salque, Maria Perrotta and Nur Ben Shalom, and has been invited to numerous international festivals (Blaricum, Dinard, Dinan, Saint Cézaire, La Sage, etc). A keen chamber musician, she has also studied with Vincent Coq (Trio Wanderer) and Patrick Genet (Quatuor Sine Nomine), and received invaluable advice from Alexander Zemtsov, Virginie Robilliard and Florent Heau. During her years at the CRR in Paris, she also took a music training course in the class of Jean Paul Despax, and obtained her diploma of musical studies in 2017 with unanimous approval from the jury. In 2023, in collaboration with Martin Le Nouvel, she composed the music for the film Le Vourdalak, which was selected for the Critics' Week at the Venice Film Festival.

Maïa Xifaras was generously supported by the Foundation David R. Graham Awards.

Born in 1999, Martin Beau studied for several years at the CRR de Paris with Chantal Fraysse, then Billy Eidi, before being admitted to the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris. There, he receives guidance from many leading musicians: Florent Boffard, Anne Lise Gastaldi, Tanguy de Willencourt (piano); Géraldine Dutroncy (accompaniment); Itamar Golan, Louis Rodde (chamber music); Thomas Ospital (harmony). He obtained his Bachelor's degree in piano in 2023, and is currently studying with Hortense Cartier Bresson. He has won several piano competitions: Lagny-sur-Marne (2019), Chatou (2019), and Brest (2017). In 2017, he won a Special Prize at the Concours International d'Ile-de-France. An excellent reader with a passion for chamber music and accompaniment, he specialized in these disciplines at an early age, joining Claude Collet's class. He obtained his accompaniment prize in 2020 and entered the CNSM de Paris in the same discipline in 2022.

Martin Beau was generously supported by the Foundation David R. Graham Awards.

Nina Vanhoenacker is a Belgian cellist and performer. She studied classical music performance at the Royal Conservatories of Antwerp and Ghent (BE). She is a founding member of Extended Music Collective, a chamber music ensemble focused on new, classical music and Inland Ocean, a global, creative cooperative of dancers, musicians and composers who transcend geographic, cultural, and disciplinary boundaries to pioneer contemporary art. 

As a soloist, chamber musician and improviser she performs contemporary classical and experimental music, both acoustic and electro-acoustic. This has led to collaborations with international composers and premieres of works by Missy Mazzoli, Alireza Farhang, Ollie Hawker, Adriana Hölszky and more. She performed at several festivals and venues in Europe such as Ruiskamer Festival (BE), Klangspuren Festival (AT) and Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt (DE).

Nina is strongly interested in boundary-stretching and interdisciplinary, collaborative projects. She created the accompanying music for visual artist Mike Nixon’s animation film River (2020) and often performs with dancers. After a month-long residency at the Akureyri Art Museum in Iceland, Nina premiered her first solo project, Urban Refuge, in 2023, featuring new and pre-existing music for cello, voice and electronics by composers such as David Fennessy, Anqi Liu and Leilehua Lanzilotti.

Nina Vanhoenacker was generously supported by the Sylvia & Jack Chetner Endowment.

To encapsulate the career of Montreal-based harpist Sarah Pagé, one would have to draw long, constellation-like shapes across genres, borders and histories. While perhaps best known as a founding and longtime member of roots rockers The Barr Brothers, a brief consideration of her resume reveals the fact that she’s equally at home within traditions as without them. Her first solo LP, Dose Curves, affirms this versatility and reveals Pagé as one of Canada’s most accomplished experimentalists. Across the album’s five tracks, Pagé unfurls untold possibilities from within the 1000-year-old instrument: moving through free-form tonal caverns, catching gently-bent melodic breezes and expanding out to the ambient aethers. Dose Curves is a world in a spin of its own, intricately detailed and paced serenely. The mere range of sounds Pagé is able to pull out of the harp while remaining tethered to its essence is astounding. It takes an incredible amount of discipline, dedication and curiosity to manifest such a unique and unified collection of music. That such a collection feel so immediate and welcoming speaks to the artistry of Sarah Pagé: fearless, tender and ever-changing.

Sarah Pagé was generously supported by the N. Murray Edwards Family Endowment.

Vox Rea features Kate Kurdyak (lead vocals/piano/guitar/violin) and Lauren Kurdyak (vocals/piano/percussion). Citing influences that range from Florence and the Machine to Friedrich Nietzsche, the sibling-duo draws inspiration from a mix of nostalgia for times past and life in a modern day world in turmoil. Vox Rea focuses on art as an experience as opposed to a product and their shows are an exercise in presence, communion and deep listening. Themes of addiction, self-doubt, lust, identity, independence and grief form the undercurrent of lyrics that are deeply introspective. Hell bent on creating a meaningful life amidst the siren songs of consumerism and efficiency, Vox Rea believes in the revolutionary power of art.

Since the release of their first single Dose Me Up in 2020, Vox Rea has been featured on playlists including New Music Friday, Indie All Stars, Fresh Finds, and Ultimate Indie and media outlets like Vice, MTV, and BBC Radio 6. Their single Damn (Unstuck) was featured on the cover of Folk & Friends and made Spotify’s Top Folk Songs of 2021. Vox Rea has played in music festivals across North America and Europe including SXSW, Reeperbahn, Treefort Music Fest, Tallinn Music Week, Rifflandia and Capitol Hill Block Party.

Vox Rea was generously supported by the Repsol Emerging Artists Award.