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Taurey Butler is a phenomenal jazz pianist of the highest calibre. Hailing from East Orange, New Jersey, he has played all across the world from Hong Kong to New York and now makes his home in Montreal. He emerges as a fully-formed master of hard-driving swing deeply rooted in the blues.

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3x JUNO Award-winner Robi Botos has been hailed as one of the most diverse multi-instrumentalists of this generation. Drawing on inspiration from his Hungarian roots, his invariably expanding taste in music, or the experiences that shaped his life, Robi’s incomparable creativity and seemingly limitless technical ability have kept audiences returning to his performances with an eagerness for more than twenty five years. His openness blended with his ever-evolving sound, incomparable creativity and seemingly limitless technical ability gains the listener's eager attention within a few notes, and keeps them both captivated and eager to know what he will do next.

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A part of Banff Centre Celebrates, a fundraiser in support of Banff Centre.

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A dazzling and unforgettable evening of music celebrating the 100th birthday of Oscar Peterson.

About the Program

On the joyous occasion of the 100th birthday of beloved Canadian national treasure, Dr. Oscar Peterson, C.C., The Estate of Oscar Peterson and Banff Centre are proud to come together for a dazzling and unforgettable evening of music. Since his first jazz workshop in 1974 (co-led with Phil Nimmons, O.C.), Peterson's relationship with Banff Centre is deep and legendary. That workshop became an annual event and in five decades, evolved into the renowned Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music.

Banff Centre will celebrate this history as well as the legacy of Oscar Peterson with some of the most dynamic names in jazz music today: pianists Robi Botos, Taurey Butler and RINA, guitarist Jocelyn Gould, bassist Brandi Disterheft, C.M., drummer Mark McLean, and vocalist Caity Gyorgy.

Featuring originals and classic jazz standards from throughout Peterson's near seven-decade career, this concert is perfect for the most avid fan or a newcomer to jazz.

Lead Sponsor:

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Interplay Opera Pub, photo by Rita Taylor.

gathering: A coming together of people in shared space and spirit — to connect, to listen, to create, and to be changed by the presence of others.

conversation: An exchange of ideas, stories, and energy — a dialogue that invites understanding, sparks inspiration, and builds community.

Gathering and conversation — I can’t think of a better way to describe what we do here at Banff Centre!

Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity has always been a space for people from around the world to come together, share ideas, learn, and grow. So much artistic exchange happens here, from the dining room to the studios to the stages.

The creative convergence of artists working in all disciplines at Banff Centre has transformed the careers and lives of thousands of participants in our programs.

It is the ultimate artistic laboratory.

Katarina Thorsen, Literary Arts Spring Thematic: Graphic Novels and Visual Narrative Residency, photo by Rita Taylor.

For Literary Arts alumna, Katerina Thorsen, her residency was transformative. Her graphic novel, Salt Green Death, created during her time at the centre, had caught the eye of guest faculty Andy Brown of Conundrum Press. Andy offered to publish the book and we are thrilled to say it was released in May of 2025.

Shared experiences can be a powerful antidote to all the chaos happening in the world right now. Whether it’s artists collaborating on a new project, thought leaders exchanging ideas, or community members engaging in meaningful dialogue, the magic of gathering and conversation is at the heart of what we do.

Your philanthropic support helps more artists find their voice and community here.

Your generosity enables us to continue our work, to provide a space where artistic potential flourishes, and to bring people together in meaningful ways. It is through your support that we can offer programs that inspire and transform — and that we can continue to be a place where gathering and conversation lead to lasting impact.

Chris Lorway, President & CEO

Over the past year, we saw how powerful gathering and conversation can be. From artist residencies to leadership programs, the impact of these interactions has been profound.

We saw artists collaborate to create bold new work. We witnessed discussions that sparked new initiatives — and we experienced beautiful moments of shared understanding that have strengthened our community.

These wonderful outcomes were possible because of the generosity of people like you!

As we look to the future, we are excited about the possibilities that lie ahead. We have ambitious plans to expand our programs, to reach even more artists and leaders, and to deepen our impact.

Thank you for helping sustain our vision and mission, and for helping us continue to be an extraordinary place where gathering and conversation can change the world.

Please join us in keeping the spirit of connection and creativity thriving by making a gift today!

With gratitude,

Josephine Ridge
Executive Director, Arts

Support Today

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The world needs more of the vision, creativity, and extraordinary collaborations that can only happen at Banff Centre. Learn more about how you can help.

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Title page of Bach's St Matthew Passion autograph score and portion Original Composition

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A native of Tacoma, Washington, double bassist Matthew Heller joined the Calgary Philharmonic in 2007. He has appeared frequently as a recitalist and chamber musician, including performances with the Mountain View Chamber Music Festival, Land’s End Chamber Ensemble, Kensington Sinfonia, and Instrumental Society of Calgary. He was awarded the Instrumental Society’s inaugural Janice Waite Scholarship in recognition of his contributions to Calgary’s performing arts community.

Heller also performs as Principal Bass with the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, a summer orchestra in Boulder, Colorado. He was previously a member of the New World Symphony (Miami, Florida), Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, and Civic Orchestra of Chicago. He has been an orchestral fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center and the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, and performed chamber music with the St. Lawrence String Quartet at Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina.

Heller completed studies at the New England Conservatory and at Northwestern University. He has studied with some of today’s most accomplished bassists, including Donald Palma, Harold Robinson, Michael Hovnanian, Matthew McDonald, and Joel Quarrington. Heller performs on an Italian double bass attributed to Antonio Gilbertini, dated 1862.

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Elliptical Lineages presents the work of artists that engage in the creative practices of a family member or those whom they consider kin. Curated by Jacqueline Bell, Director, Walter Phillips Gallery and Collections at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Elliptical Lineages is on view from June 7 to September 7, 2025.

The exhibition complicates conventional ideas of artistic lineage and reflects on the exchange of knowledge between generations. Hear directly from a number of the artists exhibiting in Elliptical Lineages as they reflect on their work on view.

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Installation view of Elliptical Lineages, Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2025. From left to right: seth cardinal dodginghorse, nasagha (home), 2025, courtesy of the artist; tīná gúyáńí, nadisha-hi at’a (I am going home), 2023, courtesy of the artists. Photo: Rita Taylor.

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seth cardinal dodginghorse & Glenna Cardinal

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My mom had the idea because I had studied silk screening in school, and she thought, well, if you can print on a shirt, maybe we could print on this animal hide. So we tried it out before, in 2019, and it worked really well. In 2023, we thought we'd give it another try, and we created this work. And like my mom said, part of the work was that we wanted to honour the women in our family as well—women who come from the land that my mom raised me on, that her mom raised her on, and her grandma raised her on—going through the women on our Tsuutʼina side.

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seth cardinal dodginghorse

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Installation view of Elliptical Lineages, Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2025. tīná gúyáńí, nadisha-hi at’a (I am going home), 2023, courtesy of the artists. Photo: Rita Taylor.

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Being a mother, your kids and your family touch all your work. As an artist and mother, everybody is part of that whole process of creating this artwork and even the cat touches some of the work too.

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Glenna Cardinal

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Installation view of Elliptical Lineages, Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2025. seth cardinal dodginghorse, nasagha (home), 2025, courtesy of the artist. Photo: Rita Taylor.

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About seth cardinal dodginghorse

seth cardinal dodginghorse is a Tsuut’ina, Amskapi Pikanii, and Saddle Lake Cree multidisciplinary artist, Prairie Chicken Dancer, experimental musician and cultural researcher. They grew up eating dirt and exploring the forest on their family’s ancestral land on the Tsuut’ina Nation Reserve. In 2014 their family was forcibly removed from their home and land for the construction of the Southwest Calgary Ring Road. This life changing event has been a driving force in their creative work and activism. They are currently a part of the artist collective tīná gúyáńí (deer road) which also includes their mother, Glenna Cardinal.

About Glenna Cardinal

Glenna Cardinal is a Saddle Lake Cree Nation member that resides on the Tsuut'ina Nation land of her maternal grandmothers. A mother of two artist/musicians. A 2023 graduate of the Indigenous Master of Social Work program at University nuhelot’įne thaiyots’į nistameyimâkanak Blue Quills, St. Paul. She has been recognized as a finalist for the Salt Spring National Art Prize, SSNAP Society (2021, 2023). Her art practice is informed by land, language, ceremony, ancestral history, and her lived experiences as the child of Indian Residential School (IRS) and day school survivors past and present. This multidisciplinary artist enjoys installation work through film, fabric, textiles, photographs, print making, and archival research.

Along with her child seth cardinal dodginghorse they are a parent/child art collective—tīná gúyáńí (deer road). They were long listed for the Sobey National Art Award, Sobey Art Foundation (2022). Their artwork honors Tsuut'ina Nation grandparents’ and the reserve land they were displaced from in 2014, to make way for the South West Calgary Ring Road—an 8-lane highway. Currently, she is an advocate and member of the Calgary Arts Development Indigenous Advisory board

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Elliptical Lineages
Walter Phillips Gallery at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
107 Tunnel Mtn Drive, Banff
June 7 to September 7, 2025
FREE

Media Release

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Installation view of Elliptical Lineages, Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2025. Hali Heavy Shield, Naaahsa is an Artist!, 2023, revised as installation, 2025, courtesy of the artist. Photo: Rita Taylor.

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Hali Heavy Shield

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We wanted to create a space that was very inviting and interactive. I think it creates a feeling of being home or an extension of home, which is really my experience with art. My mom's art studio is at home, so I feel like it's an extension of that.

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Hali Heavy Shield

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My mom is a senior artist, and she's been practicing for her whole adult life. Her making art while I was growing up was something that I was always a part of, either by participating or contributing. So very early on, we would do things like paper dolls, beadwork, going for walks...I always remember smelling things like paint, or when she was doing sculpture, or there would be grass and paper all over. I think those influences really had an impact on me and my art practice growing up—how making art is very ordinary and a daily thing.

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Hali Heavy Shield

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I think for Indigenous folks in particular, art is not mutually exclusive from daily life. It's so much a part of what you do every day.

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Hali Heavy Shield

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About Hali Heavy Shield

Hali Heavy Shield/ Nato’yi’kina’soyi-Holy Light that Shines Bright (PhD) is a multidisciplinary artist, author, mentor and emerging curator from the Kainai Nation (Blood Tribe) in Southern Alberta. She is the first Blackfoot woman to earn a PhD from Iniskim, the University of Lethbridge, where her research and art practice include themes of identity, history, community, and Blackfoot pedagogy. Her research and creative projects center on Blackfoot storytelling traditions, and visual culture, with a focus on healing, land-based knowledge, and intergenerational learning.

Heavy Shield’s art spans mural work, beadwork, poetry, illustration, and digital media. Her work has been exhibited at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge; the Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton; and various public art spaces throughout southern Alberta. She is also the author and illustrator of a children’s book inspired by her mother, Faye HeavyShield, an internationally renowned artist. Their shared experiences have deeply influenced Hali’s creative path, highlighting the importance of family, tradition, and the transmission of knowledge through art. In addition to her studio and literary work, Hali is a passionate educator, committed to supporting youth and artists through culturally responsive teaching and creative empowerment.

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Elliptical Lineages
Walter Phillips Gallery at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
107 Tunnel Mtn Drive, Banff
June 7 to September 7, 2025
FREE

Media Release

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Installation view of Elliptical Lineages, Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2025. Photo: Rita Taylor.

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Anne Ngan & Gailan Ngan

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Growing up, I was always around two artists, and there was also lots of creativity. When Jacqueline (Bell) asked me about this show and asked for a family member or somebody who influenced me... Anne (Ngan)’s family—both your grandmothers were artists. There were some architects…I was thinking of going back to the past, but then I was like, oh, there is someone right next to me here who is doing wonderful paintings in her 80’s. That would make a lot of sense, I thought.

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Gailan Ngan

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Installation view of Elliptical Lineages, Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2025. Wayne Ngan, Skipping Rocks, Testing Pebbles, 2010, courtesy of Wayne Ngan Estate. Photo: Rita Taylor.

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I come from an artistic family, and I've been interested in art—different kind of arts. For me, it has been a very slow process, coming to where I am now. I'm coming close to the end of my life. I'm still working at my age. I'm 85 and I’m discovering new things, and there's a whole life behind.

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Anne Ngan

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Installation view of Elliptical Lineages, Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2025. From left to right: Gailan Ngan, Shore Pine Ash Rush, 2025; Chrome Spill, 2025; and Lichen Dots, 2025, all courtesy of the artist. Photo: Rita Taylor.

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About Anne Ngan

Anne Ngan (b. 1939, Sallanches, Haute-Savoie, France) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice is focused mainly on painting and dance. In the 1950s, she studied drawing, painting, and etching at the École des Beaux-Arts, Marseille. In 1961, she moved to Paris to study architecture and expand her knowledge of set design for the theatre. During this time, she also trained in modern dance at the Schola Cantorum de Paris with Karin Waehner, a student of Mary Wigman. Between 1962 and 1966, Ngan apprenticed with theatre designer André Acquart, working on set and costume design. She relocated to Vancouver in 1966 where she worked on costume design for the theatre and also joined Helen Goodwin’s dance group. After a brief return to Paris, she settled on Hornby Island, British Columbia, with her future husband, potter Wayne Ngan. Deeply influenced by the back-to-the-land movement, Ngan spent the 1970s raising her daughters Goya and Gailan Ngan and engaging in fibre arts including spinning, weaving, and natural dyeing, as well as gardening and baking. In 1979, Anne committed her artistic practice fully to painting. Ngan has exhibited primarily in Hornby Island, Victoria, Vancouver, Paris, and Marseille. In 1984, the Surrey Art Gallery presented a retrospective of her paintings. In 2018, she took part in a dance performance choreographed by Evann Siebens honouring Helen Goodwin at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, as part of the exhibition Beginning with the Seventies.

Anne Ngan continues to paint, dance, and garden on Hornby Island.

About Gailan Ngan

Gailan Ngan (Canadian, b. 1971, Cumberland) works and lives in Vancouver and occasionally works from Hornby Island. Her practice involves pottery, sculpture and co-managing her late father’s art estate. Ngan's work spans pottery, sculpture, and painting, as well as a deep exploration of material histories. She utilizes clay acquired from commercial suppliers as well as clay and materials sourced from the natural landscape. In recent years, Ngan has incorporated highly textured materials and surfaces in her work, imbuing them with a tactile richness reminiscent of geological formations. Incorporating elements such as grogs and pulverized insulation brick, her surfaces emerge as landscapes of texture, marked by irregularities and dents that echo the passage of time and the forces of nature. This tactile language is often further explored through the lens of modern technology, including the translation of forms into the realm of digital fabrication through 3D scanning and printing techniques. Ngan graduated with a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Vancouver, in 2002. She has shown work at the Esker Foundation, Calgary; Cooper Cole, Toronto; The Apartment, Vancouver; San Diego Art Institute; Nanaimo Art Gallery; Art Gallery at Evergreen, Coquitlam; Kamloops Art Gallery; Unit 17, Vancouver; Christian Lethert Gallery, Cologne; and The Vancouver Art Gallery. In 2015 she received the North West Ceramic Foundation Award. Ngan is represented by Monte Clark Gallery, Vancouver.

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Elliptical Lineages
Walter Phillips Gallery at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
107 Tunnel Mtn Drive, Banff
June 7 to September 7, 2025
FREE

Media Release

Body

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Elliptical Lineages presents the work of artists that engage the creative practices of a family member or those whom they consider kin. Curated by Jacqueline Bell, Director, Walter Phillips Gallery and Collections at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Elliptical Lineages is on view from June 7 to September 7, 2025.

The exhibition complicates conventional ideas of artistic lineage and reflects on the exchange of knowledge between generations. Hear directly from a number of the artists exhibiting in Elliptical Lineages as they reflect on their work on view.

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Installation view of Elliptical Lineages, Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2025. Frank McKeough, Selection of untitled works, c. 1977-1997, courtesy of the Estate of Frank McKeough. Photo: Rita Taylor.

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Rita McKeough & Frank McKeough

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I'm showing a piece called Wave over Wave. It was originally built and presented in 2000. And then this year, I just rebuilt it, and we presented it in this show and…we brought it in to show with my father's beautiful carvings. He started carving late in life, and he had been a fisherman so he started using buoys from nets and carving figures, and he carved these beautiful chains. So we've hung two of his chains and all these incredible animals and inventive creatures that he produced. And it was so exciting to be in that room with Wave over Wave and his carvings. What a treat and what an honour it is to show with him.

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Rita McKeough

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He started because he had a wonderful, beautiful friend named Claude Davidson, who was an incredible carver. And he showed my dad how to make his tools, and he encouraged him to carve and encouraged him to express himself.

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Rita McKeough

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Installation view of Elliptical Lineages, Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2025. Frank McKeough, Selection of untitled works , c. 1977-1997, courtesy of the Estate of Frank McKeough. Photo: Rita Taylor.

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I've had his carvings in my house where I lived for years, ever since he gave them to me in the 70s, 80s, 90s. I've lived with them, and they're so beautiful. I just love having them. But to be in the gallery where other people can see them, and then we can see the relationship between our work and the connections, it's remarkable. And because he's no longer with us, for me, it's extremely special to have an opportunity to show our work together. We had had the honour to have his work shown a couple of times in the past. But having our work together, this is the first time. And it's really a beautiful experience and I'm very, very grateful.

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Rita McKeough

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About Rita McKeough

Rita McKeough is a performance and installation artist and musician. Born in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, on the traditional and unceded land of the Mi’kmaq people, McKeough received her BFA from the University of Calgary and MFA at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University, Halifax. McKeough works from a feminist perspective and her recent work has focused on the impact of urban development and resource extraction on the lives and habitat of plants and animals. Rita is known for her large-scale, multilayered installations and performances often comprised of complex audio works and electronic elements. McKeough uses sound as a medium to articulate forces of resistance, giving voice and agency to her subjects.

As a musician, McKeough is a drummer and has been a member of a number of bands dating back to the late 1970s including The Permuters, Sit Com, Mode d’empoli, Almost Even, Demi Monde, Simian Crease, Confidence Band, Books All Over the Bed and most recently Sleepy Panther.

Rita McKeough has shown across Canada and the USA in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including Remediation Room (2022–ongoing), EMMEDIA, Calgary and online; darkness is as deep as the darkness is (2020) Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity; dig as deep as the darkness (2019) Richmond Art Gallery; Veins (2018) OBORO, Montreal; and Oh, Canada (2015) MASS MoCA, North Adams. McKeough was awarded the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts, Canada Council for the Arts (2009). Her work has been featured in Radio Rethink: Art Sound and Transmission (Banff Centre Press, 1994), Caught in the Act: An Anthology of Performance Art by Canadian Women (YYZ Books, Toronto, 2004) and the monograph Rita McKeough: Works (EMMEDIA, TRUCK Contemporary Art and Mountain Standard Time Performative Art Festival Society, Calgary, 2018) as well as many articles and reviews in Canadian Art, C Magazine, Galleries West, and Sculpture Magazine among others.

Currently, McKeough is Associate Professor of Sculpture and Media Arts at Alberta University of the Arts (formerly Alberta College of Art and Design), Calgary, based on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Kainai, Piikani), the Tsuut’ina, the Îyâxe Nakoda Nations, and Métis Nation (Region 3) in Treaty 7 region of Southern Alberta. McKeough credits the support and assistance of her community in the production of her work. As an educator, McKeough is grateful to have worked with many extraordinary students and colleagues throughout her teaching career.

About Frank McKeough

Frank McKeough was born in Afton, Nova Scotia in 1909. As a young man he worked as a lobster fisherman in Bayfield, Nova Scotia and loved to be on the water. McKeough served in World War II on the front lines as a surveyor and eventually at the rank of sergeant, marrying his wife Molly MacPherson prior to departing for overseas. Following World War II, he moved to Antigonish, Nova Scotia where his daughters, Rita and Karen McKeough grew up until the family moved to Vancouver in 1957. McKeough began to carve later in life, during his last job when living in Masset, Haida Gwaii, British Columbia. Following the passing of Molly McPherson, he moved to Salt Spring Island where he lived for twenty-two years, and where McKeough spent a significant amount of time carving before his passing in 1997.

McKeough largely used materials for his sculptures that he found while beach combing, such as driftwood. He also often used cork buoys given to him by local fishermen as the basis for his animal sculptures. McKeough decided at a certain point to gift all of his work and generously shared his sculptures and the wooden chains he carved with children in hospital wards in Alberta and British Columbia, his children Rita and Karen, his grandchildren, and adults and kids alike who expressed interest in his pieces.

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Elliptical Lineages
Walter Phillips Gallery at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
107 Tunnel Mtn Drive, Banff
June 7 to September 7, 2025
FREE

Media Release

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