Jessica Westhead (she/her) is an author, editor, and creative writing teacher who has been working with fellow writers since 2005. She has taught creative writing at the University of Toronto and Toronto Metropolitan University, and facilitated at Sage Hill Writing. Jessica’s fiction has been shortlisted for the CBC Literary Awards, selected for the Journey Prize anthology, and nominated for a National Magazine Award, and has been published in major literary journals in Canada, the US, and the UK. She is the author of the novels Pulpy & Midge (Coach House Books) and Worry (HarperCollins) and the critically acclaimed short-story collections And Also Sharks and Things Not to Do (Cormorant Books) and Avalanche (Invisible Publishing). And Also Sharks was a Globe & Mail Top 100 Book, one of Kobo’s Best Ebooks of 2011, and a finalist for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award. Worry was included on CBC Books’ Best Canadian Fiction of 2019 and the CBC Canada Reads Longlist. Jessica lives in Toronto with her family.

Jen Yakamovich is a Vancouver-based drummer and improviser who works across disciplines as a performer, composer, researcher, and educator. She sees her relationship with the drum set—a system of interrelating sounds and parts— as an inquiry into relationships with both her own internal system and wider socioecological webs. Her approach to improvisation and spontaneous composition is rooted in the Creative Music Workshop in Halifax, NS, where Yakamovich grew up. From 2024-2025 Yakamovich studied with drummer, composer & field recordist Susie Ibarra (New York/Berlin).

Over the past year Yakamovich has worked with the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin / bauhaus Campus Stadt Nature program, Now Society’s 8east, Vancouver Coastal Jazz, Active Passive Performance Society, The Only Animal, and grunt gallery. She has recently contributed to projects with percussionist Adrian Avendaño (Vancouver), artists Roxanne Nesbitt & Ben Brown (Montréal), guitarist Sam Wilson (Halifax), Persian psych artist Niloo (Victoria), art rock group Heaven For Real (Montréal), producer Miguel Maravilla (Vancouver), improvisers Mustafa Rafiq (Edmonton) & Jairus Sharif (Calgary) for Active Passive, and Balkan folk group Fetele Din Balkani (Vancouver). She regularly performs with experimental pop artist Wallgrin (Vancouver), and recently formed the improvisation duo Notice Flower with pianist Bahar Khazei. She has a solo experimental folk project called Troll Dolly.

Yakamovich has a progressive vision impairment called retinitis pigmentosa. She holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Studies from Dalhousie University.

Jen Yakamovich was generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Sarah Rossy (she/they) is a Lebanese-Canadian performer, composer, producer, and educator based in Tio’tia:ke/Montreal. Her multidisciplinary work blends jazz, live-processed electronics, and visual projections into autobiographical and socially engaged soundscapes.  

In 2019, Sarah began ancestral research with the Arrivals Legacy Project, a process that now deeply informs her creative work. She has collaborated with artists such as Meredith Monk, GEORGE, Thanya Iyer, No Cosmos, and many more. In 2021, Sarah was appointed Artistic Director of the feminist choir Chœur Maha, and joined the faculty of Dawson College as a Professor of Music. The interdisciplinary nature of Sarah’s artistic practice now includes education as a tool for social justice, empowerment, and transformation. 

Recent projects include WASH, a solo performance addressing immigration and Arab erasure; Indra’s Net by Meredith Monk (NYC); and ongoing work with GEORGE and self-led ensembles on an international level. A debut album entitled “LUCID” is set for release in 2025. Compositionally, Sarah explores experiential processes which traverse through a feminist lens and nurture the ecosystems of artistic community, unifying her passions for social justice, representation, and unity. Sarah Rossy’s work is a unique and compelling representation of art, culture, and the human experience. 

Sarah Rossy was generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Ryan Daunt is an in-demand drummer, composer, and improviser based in Perth, Western Australia. He has performed at major festivals including the Perth Festival (2024), Perth International Jazz Festival (2017–2021, 2023), Lyric Lane Jazz Festival (2024), and Fringe World (2017–2025). International appearances include the Terni Jazz Festival (Italy), Jazz Dock (Prague), and the Memphis International Blues Challenge (USA).

His trio releases, Fragile Information and Essence, have received praise from All About Jazz, JazzWeekly, and Jazz Da Gama, with Essence earning a WAM nomination for Best Jazz Song. Ryan has recorded in the studio with many artists; some highlights include releases with MELVE, Gemma Farrell, and Brass Party. In 2016, he placed in the top 10 of Drumtek’s Australia’s Up and Coming Drummer Competition. Ryan proudly endorses Bosphorus Cymbals, Protection Racket, and Pro Music Australia.

Ryan Daunt was generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Roman Munoz is a guitarist, composer, and improviser based in Montreal, Quebec. He is a graduate of the Jazz Performance programs at Cégep Saint-Laurent (2012) and McGill University (2017). Over the years, he has had the opportunity to collaborate with some of his mentors and teachers, including Chris McCann and John Hollenbeck, as well as inspiring musicians from the Montreal scene such as Simon Millerd, Claire Devlin, Jay Atwill, Eli Davidovici, and Cole Birney-Stuart.

Roman’s playing spans a wide range of styles, from avant-garde and contemporary music to jazz and folk. His first album as a leader, Enchantements, was recently recorded and is set to be released in the fall of 2025. 

Roman Munoz was generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Lisa Yoshida is a violinist, composer, and educator currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology at the University of California, Irvine. Her research reimagines the role of the violinist as an autobiographical multimedia performer, integrating audio-visual technologies to expand the expressive possibilities of the violinist. Lisa was recently named the winner of the 2025 UCI Concerto Competition, performing Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto with the UCI Symphony in June 2025.

As a performer-composer, she has attended the Darmstadt Summer Courses’ Violin Studio, June in Buffalo, Domaine Forget Music Festival’s New Music Program, and NiefNorf’s Composer-Performer-Improvisor Summit. Her composition, Hana No Tayori (2024), received a Merit Award for the Tribeca New Music 2025 Young Composer Competition. Lisa has also served as Assistant Orchestra Manager for the Pacific Music Festival for three summers in Sapporo, Japan. 

She studied under Moni Simeonov at California State University Long Beach for her Master of Music in Violin Performance, and was the Strings Graduate Student Assistant and a member of the CSULB University String Quartet. Lisa has a Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance and a French minor from Chapman University, where she studied with Prof. William Fitzpatrick. 

Lisa Yoshida was generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Kevin Woods has emerged as one of the most melodic and emotive voices in improvised music in the Northwest US. The trumpeter, composer and author’s passion for both performance and education have made him in demand as a leader and sideman, composer, arranger, and clinician. An Origin Records artist, Woods has recorded seven albums as a leader and has performed throughout North America, Italy, Sweden, and South Korea. 

Kevin’s father, who also played the trumpet, gave him a bugle at age two, a cornet at age 5, and a trumpet at age 13. Music from the Big Band era through early Rock ‘n Roll was always playing in the house or in the car, and Woods was enthralled by all of it. Kevin currently lives in Bellingham, Washington, where he serves as Professor of Music and Director of Jazz Studies at Western Washington University. He leads the contemporary Jazz group Emotive Origami, and co-leads the Toren//Woods Duo, Trio Linguae, and the In Motion Quartet. Kevin enjoys living and spending time in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with his wife and two daughters. 

Kevin Woods was generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Lunr Girl is the moniker of Keira Madsen, an independent electronic musician, producer, and performer with roots in so-called “Vancouver” and Denmark. Blending ambient textures, gentle rhythms, and lush vocals, her music lives somewhere between stillness and movement, offering a space to slow down in a world shaped by urgency and disconnection. 

Growing up, Keira often turned to the piano as a quiet space to process her emotions, using improvisation as a way to work through whatever she was feeling. Later, she discovered that she could bring those improvisations into a computer and build on them by adding other layers, instruments, sounds, rhythms, and textures. She still builds music this way: by listening, layering, and letting each idea unfold naturally. 

After graduating from the New Media + Sound Art program at Emily Carr University of Art & Design in 2023, she began developing her voice as Lunr Girl, influenced by artists like Four Tet, Enya, Kelly Lee Owens, ML Buch, and Grimes. Since 2023, she has steadily grown her practice as a self-managed artist: releasing music monthly, sharing videos and visualizers on YouTube, performing shows, and connecting with listeners through social media, email, and livestreams.

Keira Madsen was generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Karl A. Rozankovic is a pianist, composer, and improviser based in Montreal. Trained in classical music, his path expanded through jazz studies at McGill University, where he studied with major figures of the Montreal scene such as Marianne Trudel, Jean-Michel Pilc, and John Hollenbeck. Improvisation has since become a central focus of his artistic approach, allowing him to revisit classical repertoire with a fresh perspective, compose his own pieces, and adapt them for various ensembles. 

He is the co-founder of the group Solarium, with whom he won First Prize at the Sutton Jazz Competition as well as the Grand Prize at the Festi Jazz de Rimouski. Their album aube/nocturne was nominated for Jazz Album of the Year at the 2024 GAMIQ awards. He also received the Emerging Artist Prize at Université Laval’s music competition. 

To date, Karl A. Rozankovic has released three short solo piano albums under his name and taken part in numerous projects as a pianist, accordionist, arranger and composer. His musical research is rooted in a sensitive exploration of sound and presence, through an approach that is both rigorous, intuitive, as well as deeply personal.

Karl A. Rozankovic was generously supported by the Banff Centre Artist' Awards. 

Canadian cellist George Crotty has forged his own exciting vocabulary, pushing the boundaries of the cello. Following his graduation from the Berklee College of Music, Crotty immersed himself in New York’s jazz and world music scenes, playing with several ensembles, such as the Brooklyn Raga Massive, and Detroit-based National Arab Orchestra. Crotty has also worked with esteemed musicians such as Bob Ezrin, Adam Rudolph, Simon Shaheen, and Paquito D’Rivera. Crotty has performed as a soloist and bandleader in The Americas and Europe and enjoys active collaboration in film & theatre. He toured North America with award-winning Broadway musical, “The Band’s Visit,” and played on the video game soundtrack for “Assassin’s Creed Mirage.”

Formed in 2019 in Brooklyn, The George Crotty Trio (GC3) makes multicultural chamber music that is both cinematic and conversational; using the language of other cultures to speak new things. “I’m not at home in any one culture,” muses Crotty, “so the trio became my home.” The GC3 has performed at the 21C Festival, Small World Music Festival, Copenhagen Vinterjazz Festival, and the New Directions Cello Festival. They have toured internationally in cities such as Toronto, Montreal, New York, Chicago, Washington DC, Bogota, Sao Paolo, London, Berlin, Antwerp, and Copenhagen. The GC3’s new album, “Heart Music” will be released on June 6th, with summer tour dates in Canada & the US. 

George Crotty was generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards.