| Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity

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Patrick O’Reilly is a composer, artist and a community-driven fixture in the Toronto creative music scene. He operates the W/DRWN record label, is co-founder of the Furniture Music composition workshop series, is a contributor to Musicworks Magazine, and co-curates the Second Fridays concert series in partnership with the Canadian Music Centre.

A sought-after collaborator, he can be found on tour internationally with Senegalese Afro-Pop artist Cheikh Ibra Fam, in Canada with singer-songwriter Just Prince, and art-pop band Language Arts, at Toronto’s Tranzac Club with creative music ensemble Never Was, in Kensington Market with epic-afro-funk trio Wapama, at the University of Toronto running the Large Improvising Ensemble (DOG), and improvising with ad-hoc groups in basements and DIY spaces throughout the GTA.

His latest release, Plastic Babies, is a collaborative album with celebrated improvisers Christine Duncan and Laura Swankey. Produced by Jean Martin and released on the venerable Barnyard Records, the album showcases the trio’s spontaneous and deeply connected musical language.

Patrick holds a Bachelor’s of Contemporary Music from Humber College, and a Master’s of Musical Arts from the University of Toronto where he is a Doctoral candidate. He is a sessional lecturer at the University of Toronto and Toronto Metropolitan University.

Patrick O'Reilly was generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Photo credit: Mark Senitt

Language English

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Hinano Fujisaki is a saxophonist, improviser and composer based in Eora/Sydney, Australia. She just recently released her sophomore EP there is a rabbit on the moon in May this year. This music is an extension of the sounds explored in her debut EP Home Is (People Sound, 2023), where she blends together jazz, improvised, folk and ambient music, weaving folkloric melodies against shifting soundscapes and textures. Hinano recently featured on Simon Barker’s new release, Tymbal Echoes (2025) performing the music at Sydney’s notable Phoenix Central Park. She also performs with jazz quartet Zodiac, who released their album Wild Wild East (ABC Jazz Commission, 2024) and toured in Asia, performing the music in Malaysia, Hong Kong and Tokyo at the start of this year.

In 2024, Hinano was awarded the Judy Bailey Jazz Connection Emerging Composers Scholarship and she has collaborated with directors to compose for short films including Echoes of the Lake by Lonefish Productions (2024) and Essence of You by Mellowminh (2025). She has completed a Bachelor of Music (Performance) majoring in jazz saxophone at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 2021.

Hinano Fujisaki was generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Language English

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Jasper Craig-Adams is an Eora/Sydney based musician, composer and improviser who performs under monikers: jasper c-a and jasu. Despite a background in guitar-centred studies in jazz, latin-american music and classical, Jasper has worked with a number of bands in the DIY scene of punk, experimental, and folk infused pop. Primary band Daily Toll has released two EP’s and just recently released an album A Profound Non-Event on Tough Love Records (UK), earning attention from BBC 6, several NTS radio shows as well as community radio stations across Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

This July 2025 sees Jasper touring Hungary and the United Kingdom with Daily Toll. Jasper also performs experimental improv based music using extended technique on guitar both solo and in collaborations with Hinano Fujisaki (Hinano Fujisaki & jasper c-a), kankan (kankan + jasu) and Mitchell Elliott (withdrawe).

Jasper Craig-Adams was generously supported by the Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

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Illustration by Shannon Fidler, Banff Centre

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Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian classic continues to resonate, with a new iteration of the story appearing at Alberta’s Banff Centre on July 26, 2025 in a chamber arrangement by Brooklyn, N.Y.-based composer Dan Schlosberg commissioned by Banff Centre.

BANFF, AB, July 16, 2025 – Four decades after its first publication, Margaret Atwood’s chillingly relevant The Handmaid’s Tale continues to evolve into new form: from a novel to an acclaimed TV show, to an opera by composer Poul Ruders and librettist Paul Bentley. Now, a new chamber music arrangement by Dan Schlosberg of that opera will receive its world premiere at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity on Saturday, July 26, 2025, at 8 p.m. in the Jenny Belzberg Theatre at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

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Set in the year 2195, the opera begins with the sudden discovery of a box of audio cassettes dating back to the early 21st century. The tapes reveal the secret diary of an anonymous woman who appears to have escaped from her role as an involuntary, so-called Handmaid, in the theocratic dictatorship of the republic Gilead—formerly The United States—around the year 2006. We never learn the Handmaid’s real name, only her assigned name of service: Offred.

Commissioned by Banff Centre, the new arrangement by Dan Schlosberg reimagines Ruders and Bentley’s opera for an intimate yet powerful chamber orchestra. Schlosberg, based in Brooklyn, New York, has been praised for his adaptations of operas like Carmen and Madama Butterfly as “fresh, urgent and immediate… with an avant-garde spirit and an eye toward the issues of our time” by The New York Times. Under Schlosberg’s musical invention, this production presents Atwood’s story at a time of unprecedented significance.

After an acclaimed workshop at Banff Centre in 2024, this full production is a marquee event of the 2025 Banff Centre Summer Arts Festival, featuring an all-female creative team including conductor Kamna Gupta, director Brenna Corner, and assistant director Amanda Testini. It also features set design by Gillian Gallow, lighting by Sophie Tang, costumes by Jessica Oostergo, projections by S. Katy Tucker, and fight and intimacy coordination by Anastasia St. Amand.

Quotation

This is a dream team to bring striking new life to this story, which only feels more visceral and urgent with each passing year. Kamna, Brenna, Amanda, Gillian, Sophie, Jessica, Katy, and Anastasia are all exceptional in their craft, and the result is eerie, moving, and undeniably powerful. In this new chamber production, my hope is that this opera will reach even more audiences across Canada and beyond.

Source

Amiel Gladstone, Director, Theatre Arts at Banff Centre

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Fulfilling Banff Centre’s mission as a post-secondary institution dedicated to training and education opportunities in arts, leadership, and mountain culture, this production is the culmination of a month-long residency program Interplay, celebrating the convergence of opera and chamber music. A collaboration between Banff Centre’s Theatre Arts and Music departments, Interplay offers early-career opera, music, and theatre professionals the unique opportunity to work on a fully produced opera alongside a world-class creative team.

After 11 years as Artistic Director, Opera at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, this production will be Joel Ivany’s final project in this role. For Ivany—founder and first artistic director of Toronto’s Against the Grain Theatre and current Artistic Director of Edmonton Opera—The Handmaid’s Tale represents not only a story for the current moment, but his legacy in bringing opera training at Banff Centre into the 21st century.

Quotation

As I reflect on my tenure at Banff Centre, I think about helping foster a collaborative and innovative space for emerging artists in opera and music. I’m proud to have reimagined traditional practices and to have supported building a community where curiosity and creativity could thrive.

Source

Joel Ivany, Artistic Director, Opera at Banff Centre

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The Handmaid’s Tale
Jenny Belzberg Theatre at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
107 Tunnel Mountain Drive, Banff
July 26, 2025
7:30 p.m. $45 -$75
Runtime: 2 hours 10 minutes
Tickets are available at banffcentre.ca or 403.762.6301.

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For photos, information, or interview requests, please contact:

Carly Maga
Director, Communications
Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
tel: +1.403.763.6210
cell: +1.403.431.3423
carly_maga@banffcentre.ca

About Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity

Founded in 1933, Banff Centre is a post-secondary institution built upon an extraordinary legacy of excellence in artistic and leadership development. What started as a single course in drama has grown to become a global organization leading in arts, culture, and creative decision-making across dozens of disciplines, from the fine arts to Indigenous Wise Practices. From our home in the stunning Canadian Rocky Mountains, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity aims to move everyone who attends our campus - artists, leaders, thinkers, and audiences - to unleash their creative potential and realize their unique contribution to build an innovative, inspiring future through education, performances, convenings, and public outreach. banffcentre.ca

About Dan Schlosberg

Brooklyn-based composer, pianist, and conductor Daniel Schlosberg’s music has been performed by the Dover Quartet, Minnesota Orchestra, Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Nashville and Albany Symphonies, at Carnegie Hall, (le) poisson rouge, Royal Albert Hall, Beijing Modern Music Festival, and David Lynch’s Festival of Disruption, and has also been featured in the New York Times and WNYC’s Soundcheck. Dan has received the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and two ASCAP Morton Gould Awards. He has composed for and music directed at the Soho Repertory Theater, Public Theater, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Baryshnikov Arts Center, and Playwrights Horizons. Daniel is the Music Director of Heartbeat Opera, for which his radical re-orchestrations of classic operas have been praised by the Wall Street Journal as “ingenious.” In addition to collaborations with Angel Blue, Ariana DeBose, Ben Stiller, Tony Kushner, Anthony McGill, and the Imani Winds, Schlosberg was a pianist on the Grammy-winning soundtrack of Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, and a featured soloist in Only an Octave Apart with the New York Philharmonic. danschlosberg.com

Media Release

Description

Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity,
Punctuate! Theatre, and Pyretic Productions present

Kohkom’s Babushka

Written by Lianna Makuch & Joleen Ballendine
Inspired by the book by Marion Mutala
Directed by Lianna Makuch
Movement Directed by Anna Kuman

Previews: October 10, 15, & 16
Premiere: October 18

Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity is proud to present Kohkom's Babushka, a new family theatre production developed in collaboration with Pyretic Theatre, Pemmican Collective, and Punctuate! Theatre.

When feuding tweens—Paulette, who’s Métis, and Natalia, who’s Ukrainian—are forced to team up to protect a beloved tree from being cut down, they are accidentally transported back to the turn of the 20th century. The girls find themselves caught in an unfamiliar world and must discover a way to cooperate if they want to find their way back home. Along the way, they discover connections between their two cultures through music, dance, and their values, and craft the beginnings of a new and profound friendship.

Inspired by the work of prairie author Marion Mutala, Kohkom’s Babushka re-examines the legacies of traditional Canadian settler stories, fostering dialogue that celebrates both differences and shared values. It highlights the beauty of cultural traditions, the spirit of generosity, and the enduring power of friendship.

Join Banff Centre for this family production, great for ages 8+.

The New Play Productions are generously funded by The Slaight Family Foundation.

Praise for Punctuate! Theatre

"ever-enterprising" - The Edmonton Journal
"Never let it be said that Punctuate! Theatre doesn’t earn its exclamation mark." - 12thNight.ca

Page Summary

Experience the heartwarming world premiere of Kohkom’s Babushka, a time-travelling family play. Previews Oct 10, 15, 16; world premiere Oct 18.

Exhibition

Free

Donation

Off

Banff Centre Artist/Practicum/Staff Only

Off

Licensed

Off

Age Restrictions

Ages 8+

Event Tags

Theatre/Drama

Performance Date

Date

Saturday, October 18, 2025 - 19:30

Audience View Micro Site URL

https://tickets.banffcentre.ca/Online/mapSelect.asp?BOset::WSmap::seatmap::performance_ids=3FBEEBD0-7C4C-46B2-BBF7-F6888CAA3886

Extra Description

Premiere

Location

Margaret Greenham Theatre

Computed Sort Date

1760837400

Description

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Based on the story by Washington Irving
Adaptation & Story by Peter Balkwill, Anna Cummer, Steven (Pityu) Kenderes, and Judd Palmer
Written by Anna Cummer and Judd Palmer
Directed by Craig Hall
Alberta Theatre Projects
In association with Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
Featuring The Old Trout Puppet Workshop
World Premiere

Previews: October 11, 14, & 15
Premiere: October 17

Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity is proud to present the premiere of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, developed in association with Alberta Theatre Projects and featuring The Old Trout Puppet Workshop.

Ten years after the American Revolutionary War, the country is still haunted by the violence that created it. A country school master, Ichabod Crane, finds himself dispatched to a remote village North of the Hudson River: Sleepy Hollow. Here, he tries to bring the inhabitants of this deeply superstitious hamlet into the 18th century. But secrets run deep, and not all is as it appears in this place still haunted by its past.

Brought to wildly imaginative life by the twisted genius of The Old Trout Puppet Workshop, this world premiere adaptation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow breathes exciting new life into the enduring and haunting tale of the Headless Horseman.

Experience this thrilling tale first, before it heads to its full theatrical run at Alberta Theatre Projects in Calgary. Just in time for Halloween, travel to Sleepy Hollow at Banff Centre!

The New Play Productions are generously funded by The Slaight Family Foundation.

Praise for The Old Trout Puppet Workshop:

“A fantastical visual world” – The Globe and Mail

“…Unimaginable creativity and talent… downright beautiful.” – Vue Magazine

“As funny as it is inventive” – The Guardian

“Brilliant, sublime and often hilarious… sheer visual poetry…” – Monday Magazine

Page Summary

Catch the haunting world premiere of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Previews Oct 11, 14, 15; world premiere Oct 17.

Exhibition

Free

Donation

Off

Banff Centre Artist/Practicum/Staff Only

Off

Licensed

Off

Event Tags

Theatre/Drama

Performance Date

Date

Friday, October 17, 2025 - 19:30

Audience View Micro Site URL

https://tickets.banffcentre.ca/Online/mapSelect.asp?BOset::WSmap::seatmap::performance_ids=14F0597C-1479-4E6C-8D21-8AB40960BEFE

Extra Description

Premiere

Audience Advisory: Suggested for ages 12+, mature content, dark imagery, theatrical effects (loud sounds, flashing lights, water-based non-toxic fog/stage haze). For further advisory information which contains light show spoilers, please click HERE.

Location

Jenny Belzberg Theatre

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Shahrokh Yadegari, composer and computer musician, has collaborated with such artists as Peter Sellars, Robert Woodruff, Ann Hamilton, Christine Brewer, Gabor Tompa, Maya Beiser, Steven Schick, Keyavash Nourai, Siamak Shajarian, and Hossein Omoumi. He has performed and his productions, compositions, and designs have been presented internationally in such venues as the Carnegie Hall, Royce Hall, Festival of Arts and Ideas, OFF-DAvignon Festival, International Theatre Festival in Cluj/Romania, Ravinia Festival, Ruhr-Triennale, Vienna Festival, Holland Festival, Tirgan Festival, Forum Barcelona, Japan America Theatre, The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, and the Institut für Neue Musik und Musikerziehung (Darmstadt).

Yadegari holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University, a Master's in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT's Media Lab, and a Ph.D. in music from University of California, San Diego. He has worked at Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), and he is one of the founders and the artistic director of Kereshmeh Records and Persian Arts Society, organizations dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of Persian traditional and new music. Yadegari is currently on the faculty of the department of Music at University of California, San Diego, and an associate director at the Qualcomm Institute where he directs the Sonic Arts Research and Development group.

Composer

Description

Join us for an engaging conversation with acclaimed filmmaker and producer Georgina Lightning, who will reflect on the power of media to inspire change, build economies, and shape political and social movements.

In this conversation, Georgina will explore how media can perpetuate harmful narratives, but also how it can serve as a force for empowerment, opportunity, and community strength. Drawing from her Hollywood experience and her work in Alberta, she will consider how investing in Indigenous filmmaking can create cultural, political, and economic impact, both locally and nationally.

Facilitated by Janine Windolph, Director of Indigenous Arts at Banff Centre, the session includes a presentation by Georgina, followed by a discussion and a Q&A. This conversation will be live-streamed and will also be recorded and shared following the event. Sessions may share experiences and ask difficult questions.

About the Decolonizing the Narrative Conversation Series

The Decolonizing the Narrative Conversation Series is a bi-monthly conversation session inviting leading Indigenous Art creators to discuss their practices and processes. The series engages an Indigenous lens across various art forms, including Literary Arts, Film and Media Arts, Digital Media, Visual Arts, and Performing Arts such as Theatre, Dance, and Music. These sessions offer a space to explore and deepen your understanding of how Indigenous artists use their disciplines as tools to decolonize artistic processes and creation.

Page Summary

Georgina Lightning reflects on media’s power to shape narratives and explores how Indigenous filmmaking can drive cultural and economic change in Alberta.

Exhibition

Free

Yes

Donation

Off

Banff Centre Artist/Practicum/Staff Only

Off

Licensed

Off

Age Restrictions

Ages 14 and Over

Event Tags

Indigenous Arts

Performance Date

Date

Wednesday, November 19, 2025 - 19:00

Extra Description

Optional Smudge at 6:45 PM

Can’t make it in person? The talk will be live-streamed so you can watch from anywhere. Please register to receive the webinar link.

Location

Max Bell Auditorium

Expandable Content

Biography

Georgina Lightning is a First Nations Cree woman with more than 35 years in the film industry. Georgina has worked in all capacities from directing and acting to producing and mentoring. She is the founder of Tribal Alliance Productions, envisioned as an “Indigenous Warner Bros.” studio. Now back in her home territory in Alberta, she brings her Hollywood big-picture thinking to the Prairies with a vision of making Alberta the Indigenous Film Capital of Canada.

Learn More

Computed Sort Date

1763604000

Description

Join us for an insightful conversation with award-winning author and journalist Waubgeshig Rice as he explores the creative opportunities in adapting oral traditions into written form.

Passing stories down orally from generation to generation is a foundational cultural practice for people around the world. Today, writers capture, adapt, and document these spoken stories in diverse and evolving ways.

In this talk, Waub will reflect on how the oral stories of his Anishinaabe heritage inform his fiction writing. He will also share approaches for bringing oral traditions to the page, with a focus on dialogue, character development, and staying true to the spirit of spoken storytelling.

Facilitated by Janine Windolph, Director of Indigenous Arts at Banff Centre, the session includes a presentation by Waub, followed by a discussion and a Q&A. This conversation will be live-streamed and will also be recorded and shared following the event. Sessions may share experiences and ask difficult questions.

About the Decolonizing the Narrative Conversation Series

Page Summary

Join award-winning author Waubgeshig Rice for a conversation on adapting oral traditions into written form through character, dialogue, and storytelling.

Exhibition

Free

Yes

Donation

Off

Banff Centre Artist/Practicum/Staff Only

Off

Licensed

Off

Performance Date

Date

Wednesday, September 17, 2025 - 19:00

Extra Description

Optional Smudge at 6:45 PM

Can’t make it in person? The talk will be live-streamed so you can watch from anywhere. Please register to receive the webinar link.

Location

Max Bell Auditorium

Expandable Content

Biography

Waubgeshig Rice is an author and journalist from Wasauksing First Nation on Georgian Bay. His first short story collection, Midnight Sweatlodge, was inspired by his experiences growing up in an Anishinaabe community, and won an Independent Publishers Book Award in 2012. His debut novel, Legacy, followed in 2014. Moon of the Crusted Snow, his breakthrough novel, was published in 2018 and became a national bestseller. It received widespread critical acclaim, including the Evergreen Award in 2019. The sequel, Moon of the Turning Leaves, arrived in late 2023. His books have been translated into French and German, and his short stories and essays have been published in numerous anthologies.

His journalism experience began in 1996 as an exchange student in northern Germany, writing articles about being an Anishinaabe youth in a foreign country for newspapers back in Canada. He graduated from the journalism program at Toronto Metropolitan University in 2002. He spent most of his journalism career with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a video journalist, web writer, producer, and radio host. In 2014, he received the Anishinabek Nation’s Debwewin Citation for excellence in First Nation Storytelling. His final role with CBC was host of Up North, the afternoon radio program for northern Ontario. He left daily journalism in 2020 to focus on his literary career.

Computed Sort Date

1758157200

Language English

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Jazz pianist and composer RINA holds a Degree from the Kunitachi College Of Music in Japan where she studied with internationally acclaimed pianist Makoto Ozone. After graduation, RINA took an audition for the Berklee College Of Music and her talent and exceptional abilities were clearly noticed as received a full-scholarship to attend the college in consequence. In 2019, RINA signed a worldwide exclusive contract with Yamaha Music and later became a Yamaha Artist, joining an exquisite circle of renowned artists such as Chick Corea, Monty Alexander and Eddie Palmieri. In 2020, RINA released her first album “RINA”, produced by Ozone.

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