Eve Egoyan: Longing & Belonging Program

Eve Egoyan: Longing and Belonging Music for piano by Armenian composers

May 9, 2024

Photo credit: David Rokeby

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TO Live would like to acknowledge Tkaronto, which is a Mohawk word meaning the place in the water where the trees are standing.

We live and work on the traditional territory of Haudenosaunee-speaking nations, including the Huron-Wendat, Seneca, and Mohawk. Haudenosauneespeaking nations have been here since time immemorial, and were more recently joined by the Mississaugas of the Credit.

This place has many Indigenous ports, including where the Humber and Rouge rivers meet other waterways such as Lake Ontario. Ancient longhouses— typical Haudenosaunee housing structures—have been found along both these rivers and in the north of Toronto near modern-day York University. This territory is covered by the Dish with One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Haudenosaunee (Six Nations) Confederacy and the Anishnaabe (Ojibwe) and allied nations to peaceably share and care for the lands and the relationships around the Great Lakes.

What this means is that by living and working here, we all have a responsibility to the environment and to each other, to treat each other and the environment with peace and respect. This means we have responsibilities to honour, renew, and consistently uphold the values and relationships outlined in the ancient agreements.

Today, Toronto is home to Indigenous peoples and settlers from around the world. Let us all come together in an atmosphere of respect and peace to do good work together with good minds. Let’s start building stronger and healthier relationships with each other and the spaces we inhabit in Tkaronto, Ontari:io, Kanata.

Let’s hold our minds together in kindness. Nia:wen. Thank you.

© Dawn Maracle

Welcome letter from TO Live

Welcome to George Weston Recital Hall. Tonight, TO Live is proud to present Eve Egoyan: Longing and Belonging, an all-Armenian program featuring four Canadian premieres alongside works by Komitas Vardapet.

The diverse and deeply expressive music on this program represents part of a very personal journey for Eve Egoyan. Eve is Armenian-Canadian, born in Canada to Armenian parents. Her father’s parents were both orphans of the Armenian genocide. In the spring of 2022, Eve travelled to Armenia where she connected to the music of living Armenian composers and charted new emotional territory.

Through this program, which she shares for the first time, Eve seeks a point of intersection between her Armenian heritage and musical practice.

The Armenian genocide was the systematic killing and deportation of Armenians by the Turks of the Ottoman Empire. In 1915, during World War I, leaders of the Turkish government set in motion a plan to expel and massacre Armenians. By the early 1920s, when the genocide finally ended, between 600,000 and 1.5 million Armenians were dead, with many more forcibly removed from the country.

This genocide put an end to more than 2,000 years of Armenian civilization in eastern Anatolia. Together with the mass murder and expulsion of Assyrian/ Syriac and Greek Orthodox Christians, it enabled the creation of an ethnonationalist Turkish state, the Republic of Turkey. The Turkish government maintains that the deportation of Armenians was a legitimate action that cannot be described as genocide. As of 2023, 34 countries have recognized the events as genocide, concurring with the academic consensus.

Thank you for joining us on this musical journey this evening with this wonderful artist. TO Live is committed to reanimating and revitalizing the great George Weston Recital Hall at Meridian Arts Centre in North York and we have many exciting performances planned.

Thank you for supporting live music. Enjoy the show.

Max Rubino Director of Programming TO Live

Photo credit: David Rokeby

An Act to proclaim the month of May as Armenian Heritage Month - Bill 105

Preamble

Ontario is home to more than 100,000 people of Armenian heritage. Armenians began migrating to Canada in the 1880s. The first Armenian to do so was Garabed Nergarian, who settled in Port Hope, Ontario in 1887. Approximately 37 Armenians came to Ontario in 1892 and 100 more settled in the province in 1895. After the Hamidian massacres of the mid1890s, Armenian families began settling in greater numbers in Ontario. Decades later, approximately 2,000 survivors of the 1915 Armenian Genocide—mostly women and children—came to Canada as refugees.

In the early 1920s, over 100 orphaned Armenian children, later called the “Georgetown Boys,” were brought to Georgetown, Ontario by the Armenian Relief Association of Canada, an organization that provided assistance to Armenian refugees in adjusting to Canadian society. In what became known as “Canada’s Noble Experiment,” it was considered one of the first Canadian humanitarian acts on an international scale. In 2010, the Georgetown Farmhouse (now the Cedarvale Community Centre) was designated an historic and protected municipal site.

May is a significant month for the Armenian community. May 28, 1918 is widely celebrated by Armenian people around the world as the day Armenians regained sovereignty over their historical territory after 600 years of colonization, occupation, subjection, and genocide. The 1918 Armenian Declaration of Independence is a symbol of Armenians’ aspiration for freedom, democracy, and independence. May 28th is one of the most important Armenian holidays, and many parades and festivities take place during the month of May.

By proclaiming the month of May as Armenian Heritage Month, the Province of Ontario recognizes the significant impact that Armenian Canadians have had on Ontario’s social, cultural, educational, economic, and political institutions, as well as their contributions to art, science, and literature in the province. Armenian Heritage Month is an opportunity to educate Ontarians about the struggles and achievements of Armenian Canadians in a society that respects freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. These core values have contributed to the strength and diversity of Ontario.

Therefore, Her Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, enacts as follows:

Armenian Heritage Month

The month of May in each year is proclaimed as Armenian Heritage Month.

Program

Introductory film

Su Rynard, “Longing and Belonging” (2024)

Works

Tigran Mansurian, “Lullaby for the Prince” (2010)

Mary Kouyoumdjian, “Aghavni”(Doves) (2009)

Boghos Gelalian, “Tre Cicli” (Three Cycles) (1969)

Vaché Sharafyan, “Excerpts from Goat Rite” (2014)

Intermission

Komitas Vardapet, “Seven Dances for Piano”

Nariné Khachatryan, “4 Monodien für Klavier” (4 Monodies for Piano) (2011)

Eve Egoyan, “Ghosts beneath my Fingertips” (for Viva) (2020)

Photo credit: John Price

About Eve Egoyan: Longing and Belonging

The diverse and deeply expressive music on this program represents part of a very personal journey for Eve Egoyan. Eve is Armenian-Canadian, born in Canada to Armenian parents. Her father’s parents were both orphans of the Armenian genocide. In the spring of 2022, Eve travelled to Armenia for the first time where she connected to music of living Armenian composers and charted new emotional territory.

Through this program, which she shares for the first time, Eve seeks a point of intersection between her Armenian heritage and musical practice. The unique music explores the piano through an Armenian folkloric lens, grounding itself in a work by Komitas Vardapet (the godfather of Armenian music), and includes works by contemporary composers from Armenia and the Armenian diaspora: Vaché Sharafyan (Armenia), Mary Kouyoumdjian (U.S.A.), Nariné Khachatryan (Germany), Boghos Gelalian (Lebanon), Tigran Mansurian (Armenia), and herself. The works by Sharafyan, Kouyoumdjian, Gelalian, and Khachatryan will be Canadian premieres.

Armenian history is a complicated one. Through the genocide and subsequent diaspora, Armenians have lost ties to their historic past. Eve hopes to find a musical place for herself between remnants of the past and the energy of the present to create a musical place of her own. Though she will never be able to return to her ancestral home without being fully aware of its violently destructive past and uncertain future, she hopes to find something safe nestled within its extraordinarily rich and ancient culture.

Photo credit: Mané Hovhannisyan

Notes and biographies

Ghosts beneath my Fingertips (for Viva) (2020)

“I received an arts grant to travel to Armenia for the first time to explore the rich musical culture and meet with composers. When COVID-19 delayed this travel, I decided to reach into a collection of songs by the Armenian composer Komitas (who was also the most important collector of Armenian folk songs) to write a work for myself.

“Using an extremely subjective process, I selected fragments from the songbook and created the compositional fabric keeping the original keys of the songs and allowing myself to create using material based on the pitches within each song. It was my desire to avoid obscuring the delicacy of Armenian folk tunes with western European harmony.”

—Eve Egoyan

Eve Egoyan (b. 1964) is an internationally celebrated Armenian-Canadian artist whose medium is the piano. She continually reinvents her relationship with her instrument through the creation and commissioning of new works, which she performs worldwide.

Born in Victoria, B.C. and trained as a classical pianist in Europe and Canada, Eve has followed her curiosity into the world of contemporary music, inspired by an emerging generation of Toronto-based composers. Her 13 solo CDs have received accolades including best classical disc (The Globe and Mail, 1999) for her first solo CD, and top-10 classical disc of the year (The Globe and Mail, 2011) for Returnings. Eve’s recording of Ann Southam’s Simple Lines of Enquiry (2009) was selected as a top-10 classical disc by The New Yorker magazine’s Alex Ross, one of the world’s leading music writers.

Eve has performed as a solo artist at international festivals, including Canberra International Festival, Luminato Festival Toronto, Sydney Festival, Klangspuren Festival, Transart Festival, Modulus Festival, PuSh Festival, Huddersfield Festival, ISCM (Vancouver), Kwadrofonik 6Festival, Other Minds Festival, Images Festival, 21C Festival, Nuit Blanche (Paris), Sound Symposium, Open Ears Festival, Dias da Música, Festival Domaine Forget, Vancouver International New Music

Festival, and the Kobe International Modern Music Festival. On disc and on tour, Eve performs Canadian and international works, placing Canadian works within an international context. Eve works to improve gender equity in the world of contemporary music performance as a performer and as a voice in the community. She is one of Canada’s primary ambassadors for Canadian music abroad and, in 2023, was inducted into CBC’s Hall of Fame.

Most recently, Eve’s creative practice has expanded to include writing works for PIANO NEXT (her bespoke enhanced piano) as a solo instrument, within an ensemble, and in collaboration with other musicians and visual artists. PIANO NEXT is used in Eve’s piece “Ghosts beneath my Fingertips (for Viva),” where she reveals recordings of Armenian folkloric instruments and the voice of her daughter, Viva, within the texture of the piece.

Eve is honoured to be recently selected as the Jackman Humanities Institute’s 2025-26 artist in residence in collaboration with the faculty of music and the Institute for Music in Canada at the University of Toronto.

Longing and Belonging (2023)

“To create this documentary, we asked each composer to record a short introduction to their work and provide images that connect them to the place they live today. The resulting film is a mosaic of a diaspora that captures the stories behind the music, and illuminates how a deep connection to a country continues to inspire from afar.”

—Su Rynard

Su Rynard (b. 1961) is a Toronto/Tkaronto-based filmmaker and media artist. She has collaborated with Egoyan on three previous projects: an interactive work (SoloForDuet.ca), a feature film (Duet for Solo Piano), and a short film (Études for Augmented Piano).

Lullaby for the Prince (2010)

“This piece is dedicated to the memory of my friend Andrei Volkonsky. I was going to visit him in Aix-en-Provence (France) on my way back home, but it did not happen. Prince Andrei Volkonsky died a few days before our scheduled meeting

time. It was hard. The ‘see you soon’ he had said to me on the phone kept echoing in my mind. He was waiting for me.

“Sometime later, I was in Krems (Austria), in a church. They brought a grand piano for my upcoming concert. I sat down. The sound was so exquisite. From the first strokes, the lullaby started to take shape. After the concert, I asked the organizers to leave the piano for some time, if possible. They agreed. In a few days, beneath the serene vaults of the church, under the dim daylight, on this fine instrument, in this mystic atmosphere, the sounds began to rest on the music sheet, and I knew that the piece was to the memory of Andrei. A lullaby for the prince.”

—Tigran Mansurian

Tigran Mansurian was born in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1939. In 1947 his family moved to Soviet Armenia where he studied at the Yerevan Conservatory and went on to become director. In the 1960s he was attracted by the ideas of the western avantgarde but became increasingly convinced of the spirit of place and of composing in an authentically Armenian voice; he is deeply steeped in his country’s folk tradition. “Our position on the map of music and culture,” he writes, “is exactly in the spot where east and west meet.” This special vantage point fires his creative imagination.

Restrictions on creative freedom in the Soviet era meant that film music became an early laboratory for Mansurian’s musical experiments and a way of making a living; he has written over 100 soundtracks. He is recognized as one of the forerunners of contemporary music in the former USSR, and as the first to introduce modern compositional techniques to Armenia. For the concert stage, Mansurian has written orchestral, chamber, choral, and vocal works that are performed worldwide.

Aghavni (Doves) (2009)

“Based on the poem Carpet Weavers by Brenda Najimian Magarity, Aghavni follows the lives of a group of women before and during the Armenian genocide, and closes with a retrospective look at what they lost.”

—Mary Kouyoumdjian

Mary Kouyoumdjian is a composer and documentarian whose projects range from concert works to multimedia collaborations and film scores. As a first-generation ArmenianAmerican from a family directly affected by the Lebanese civil war and Armenian genocide, she uses a sonic palette that draws on her heritage, her interest in music as documentary, and her background in experimental composition to progressively blend the old with the new. She is a strong believer in freedom of speech and the arts as an amplifier of expression, and her compositional work often integrates recorded testimonies and field recordings of place to invite empathy by humanizing complex experiences around social and political conflict.

Kouyoumdjian has received commissions for the New York Philharmonic, Kronos Quartet, Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Beth Morrison Projects/ OPERA America, Alarm Will Sound, Bang on a Can, International Contemporary Ensemble, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and Roomful of Teeth, among others. Her work has been featured internationally at Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln Center, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), the Barbican Centre, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Millennium Park, Benaroya Hall, Prototype Festival, Cabrillo Festival, Big Ears Festival, Cal Performances, Tribeca Film Festival, and PBS.

Upcoming projects include an LA Opera presentation of Adoration, an adaptation of filmmaker Atom Egoyan’s film by the same name, created with librettist Royce Vavrek; an album of her works with the Kronos Quartet; and the premiere of Andouni (Homeless) with the NY Philharmonic, a musicdocumentary hybrid centering on the recent Artsakh/ Nagorno-Karabakh genocide, in collaboration with photojournalist Scout Tufankjian.

She holds a D.M.A. and M.A. in composition at Columbia University, an M.A. in scoring for film and multimedia from New York University, and a B.A. in composition from UC San Diego. Kouyoumdjian is faculty at the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University and The New School. She is proud to publish her music with Project Schott New York, and is based in Brooklyn. www. Marykouyoumdjian.com

Tre Cicli (Three Cycles) (1969)

“This work is titled ‘Three Cycles’ because the same thematic material appears in all three movements and is transformed by varying the rhythm and pianistic writing. The outer movements are characterized by an incessant rhythmic drive, whereas the middle movement has a more contemplative character. ‘Tre Cicli’ is a vivid example of the synthesis that Gelalian achieved between western, Armenian, and Lebanese influences.”

—Araxie Altounian

Born to two orphans of the Armenian genocide, Boghos Gelalian (1927-2011) arrived in Beirut, Lebanon as an adolescent. Serving as a safe haven for Russians who fled the 1917 revolution and later for Europeans who fled the second world war while Lebanon was under French mandate, Beirut became a cosmopolitan city where Middle Eastern and western lifestyles and cultures thrived side by side.

Young Gelalian was exposed to a variety of musical styles: he accompanied mass in an Armenian church and Mme. Marie Koussevitsky’s opera class at the Beirut National Conservatory; played jazz and Latin music in night clubs and light classical music in classy hotels; and had sporadic composition lessons with French composer Bertrand Robilliard and Russian baron Erhast Belling.

His early music reflects a strong French and Armenian influence, while the Lebanese element becomes more evident in his middle period as a result of his longtime collaboration with the founders of the Lebanese musical theatre genre (the Rahbani brothers and the Lahoud brothers), particularly through the International Baalbeck Festival.

In the 1960s, Lebanon was introduced to new European compositional trends. European musicians visiting Beirut encouraged their Lebanese peers to be more innovative while tapping into local culture with its modal scales and a rich array of rhythmic patterns. Gelalian understood the importance of this evolution, but rather than adopt atonality, he exploited the chromaticism embedded in Middle Eastern scales, even creating his own scales and exploring harmonies to match those sounds. He also experimented with the pianistic imitation of Middle Eastern rhythms typically played on the derbakkeh, a local percussive instrument.

While Gelalian’s Lebanese colleagues perceived a strong

Armenian influence in his music, Gelalian’s unique style stands out among Armenian composers for its allusions to the Middle East.

Excerpts from Goat-rite (2014)

“The Goat Rite piano cycle was originally commissioned in 2014 for the pantomime play producer Zhirayr Dadasyan. The complete cycle consists of 12 movements with a total duration around 65 minutes. Goat Rite is a mystery full of passion, love, erotica, drama, suffering, darkness, confession and light. In the theatrical version, the action takes place in a swamp from which the players struggle to extricate themselves. In ancient tradition, people’s sins would be fastened to a goat’s horns, and the goat was driven out into the desert where it would be eaten by predators along with the attached sins. The term scapegoat comes from this ritual.”

—Vaché Sharafyan

Vaché Sharafyan was born in Yerevan, Armenia in 1966. In 1992 he obtained a doctorate in composition at Yerevan State Conservatory. From 1992 to 1996, he taught at the Armenian Theological Seminary in Jerusalem, where he authored the book of hymns for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Currently, Sharafyan is the head of composition at Yerevan State Conservatory.

Sharafyan is the author of hundreds of symphonic, chamber, choral, and vocal compositions, as well as the operas King Abgar and Round-Trip to Paradise, and ballets Another Moon (about G. I. Gurjieff), Gravity, Ancient Gods, and The Bride of the Desert.

He has been commissioned by Yo-Yo Ma and the Silkroad Ensemble, Yuri Bashmet and the Soloists of Moscow, The Hilliard Ensemble, Boston Modern Orchestra, Dresden Symphony, The Metropolitan Museum of Arts, Soli Deo Gloria’s Psalm project, the Estonian National Male Choir, Sion Fest, Quintette a vent de Marseille, Toronto Sinfonia, Ontario Philharmonic, Hover choir, OSS, ASSO, and ANPO.

His works are performed worldwide. Recent premieres include The Sound of the Stone (MET, NY); Armenian Odyssey (Washington National Cathedral); Amazingly Pure and Simple Things, for piano and choir; Gravity, a ballet in two acts (Armenian National Opera-Ballet Theatre); Cello Concerto no. 3, Some Other Paradise, (Tallinn and Parnu Halls); Sinfonia no.

3 (Gera Altenburg Philharmonic); and Another Moon ballet suite (Armenian National Opera-Ballet Theatre).

Seven Dances for Piano

“In these carefully curated traditional Armenian dances, Komitas preserves the folklore while experimenting with the essentially western instrument that is the piano. Going against the trend in fin-de-siècle European pianism, Komitas opts for a minimalistic, transparent texture. Rather than drape folk themes in rich harmonic textures, he brings the piano into the eastern sound-world by making it imitate the folk instruments originally used in those dances. The names of these instruments are meticulously marked on the score of each dance along with the composer’s precise expressive markings and the locations from where the dance music was collected: Yerevan, Vagharshapat, Shushi, Karin.”

—Araxie

Altounian

Komitas Vardapet (1869-1935), born Soghomon Soghomonian in Kutahia (in present-day Western Turkey), is widely considered the father of the Armenian national school of classical music, and an innovator in the field of ethnomusicology. At a time when historic Armenia was divided between the Ottoman and Russian empires, father Komitas was educated at the seminary of Etchmiadzin, then part of the Russian empire, and later in Berlin, Germany.

He singlehandedly undertook the mission of searching for the roots of Armenian music in the villages, away from cosmopolitan cities (as Béla Bartók would do years later), but also in monasteries where liturgical music had been preserved for many centuries despite waves of invasions and foreign dominance. Having transcribed thousands of songs, he published some and presented them in concerts in various cities, published papers and participated in international conferences introducing Armenian music to the Middle Eastern and European musical circles.

His ethnographic work contributed hugely to preserving Ottoman Armenia’s musical legacy on the eve of the genocide, for which Armenians remain eternally grateful to their beloved “Vardapet:” an honorific given to highly educated monks in the Armenian Apostolic Church. However, Komitas was also a progressive composer who pointed towards the future. “We Armenians must first establish a national idiom and only then

confidently move forward,” he wrote to Paris-based Armenian soprano Marguerite Babayan in 1907. His compositional style, based more on counterpoint than harmony, strives to preserve the delicacy of melodic and rhythmic lines as well as the modal character of Armenian music, and has served as a beacon to Armenian composers around the world.

4 Monodien für Klavier (Four Monodies for Piano) (2011)

“These monodies were composed on behalf of musica femina e.V. With their emphasized melodiousness, airiness but also depth, they seem like a piece of Armenian spiritual music, a unique prayer. The basis of the second monody is an Armenian hymn melody and the fourth is ‘Kara-Murza' by Komitas, wrapped in the cloak of contemporary music and dramatic chords. In general, almost all my works have a spiritual perception and relationship to God.”

—Nariné

Khachatryan

Nariné Khachatryan (b. 1979) lives in Munich, Germany. She began music lessons at the age of eight at the Armen Tigranian Music School in Yerevan where her interest in composition became apparent early on. From 1996 to 2002, she studied composition at the Yerevan Conservatory with Edward Mirzoyan, during which she received many awards. In 2003, she received a DAAD to study with Hans-Jürgen von Bose at the University of Music and Theatre in Munich. Commissions include works for the Siemens Arts Program, the Munich Biennale, Musica Femina, Kassel Music Days, and the Young Euro Classic Festival. She has written works for vocal, chamber, and choral ensembles, and for orchestra. The Verlag für Neue Musik in Berlin and the Furore Verlag Kassel publish her compositions. Recently Khachatryan completed a degree in church music. She works as a church musician and choir director in Munich where she has also founded a children’s choir. Most recently, she received one of three Bavarian composition prizes, “Bavarians make music vianova.” The commissioned work will tour with the internationally renowned Munich “via-nova-chores” this spring.

Credits

Thank you:

TO Live team

CBC’s In Performance team

Lena Ouzounian

Araxie Altounian

Meri Musinyan

Aida Aydinyan

Su Rynard

Elma Bello

David Rokeby

Viva Egoyan-Rokeby

Iván Santiago Escobar and Barbara Scales at Latitude 45

Mary Kouyoumdjian

Vaché Sharafyan

Nariné Khachatryan

Tigran Mansurian

Lauren Pratt

Annie Moore

Supported by:

Tonight’s performance of Eve Egoyan: Longing and Belonging is generously supported by the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) and Rita Chemilian

Backstage with... Santee Smith

Backstage with… is TO Live’s glimpse behind the scenes and inside the minds of the artists and creators of the shows currently on stage.

Santee Smith is a multidisciplinary artist from the Kahnyen’kehàka Nation, Turtle Clan, Six Nations of the Grand River. A sought-after teacher and speaker on the performing arts and Indigenous performance and culture, Smith’s work focuses on identity and Indigenous narratives. Her body of work includes 14 productions and many short works that have toured internationally. In 2005, she founded Kaha:wi Dance Theatre, a non-profit that creates space for Indigenous audiences to witness themselves.

Smith is the creator of SKéN:NEN, an immersive new multimedia dance performance that explores Indigenous resilience within the self, community, and natural world. Presented by TO Live, the show premieres this week at St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts.

In this Backstage With... Smith shares how creativity runs in her family, what she’s making space for, and her favourite shop on Queen St. West.

Where do you find inspiration?

I find inspiration in many things and especially when mind and heart connections are activated, fleeting moments that stir the soul—people, place/space, story, nature, music, and design.

What led you to become an artist?

I grew up in an artistic family, so I was surrounded by creative people who researched, discussed concepts, and were always making, crafting, and devising. My gift is embodied performance and from an early age my go-to form of expression was dance.

Photo credit: Make Emarthle

What’s the importance of the performing arts in your life?

Performance is how I navigate the world. It offers me a way to tap into the creative force, to be a storyteller and transformer of space, to be responsive, a conduit for energetic exchange, a sharer of truth and beauty; performance makes me feel alive.

What are you making space for in your life?

I am making space for cultivating: earth, organic gardening, clay works, and Indigenous models of sustainability in action.

What can’t you live without?

I can’t live without my family, including my fur babies, or without having a creative outlet.

What’s your pre-show ritual?

Physical warmups and smudging, affirmations of being grateful for my gifts, body, ancestors, and for the opportunity to perform and share again at this moment in time.

What’s your favourite thing to do in Toronto?

More than one favorite for sure—fabric and ribbon shopping on Queen St. West, summer café dining, and strolling the streets while people watching.

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Coordinator

Joshua DeFreitas

Marketing Specialist

Box office

Tom Kerr

Director of Ticketing Services

Fran Holywell

Holly Merkur-Dance

Box Office Manager

Sandie Chui

Manager of Ticketing Services

Annaijah Dacres

Alexander Jackson

Thomas Quinlan

Box Office Assistant Manager

Brittney Channer

Clayton Batson

Jennifer Norman

Michelle Cruz

Zen Peterson

Box Office Duty Manager

Operations

Matthew Farrell

Vice President of Operations

Edward Delavari

Director of Capital Projects

Luke Belfontaine

Senior Project Manager

BahramAghakhan

Nerin Carvalho

Zane Elliott

Project Manager

Patron and Event Services

Sean Tasson

Director of patron and event services

Andrew Fong

Executive Chef

Juliana Fay

Senior Manager, Food and Beverage Services

Jamie Johnson

Assistant Manager, Food & Beverage Services

Agnessa Voloshina

Saba Resaei

Tera Harnish-Christie

Duty Manager, Kitchen

Natalie Ireland

Senior Manager, Events

Yuki Daloste

Events Manager

Fiona Alexander

Assistant Event Services Manager

Lina Welch

Lynn Frenette

Tara Hitchman

Tracey Fyfe

Patron Services Manager

Bruna Pisani

Corrine Engelbrecht

Hugo Ares-Gonzalez

Kizzie St Clair

Maria Waslenko

Peter Harabaras

Patron Services Duty Manager

Jai Bittles

Sous Chef

Facilities

Abiodun Ojekunle

Director of Facilities

Jarryd Fish

Facilities Manager

Evan Ramdin

Chief Building Operator

Robert MacLean

Roderick Padasdao

Building Operator

Ehsan Rahman

Ryan Nerona

Marciano Ramos

Junior Building Operator

Eduardo Costales

Matthew Pannel

Handyperson

Omar Nurse

Stage Door Security Supervisor

Colin Dyble

Henry Fernandes

Margreta Kristiansen

Mohammed Shaikh

Mohuddin Memon

Pema Lakshey

Reza Moradi

Sangay Lhamo

Tushar Somani

Stage Door Security

Mohamed Zuhair

Maintenance Supervisor

Ahmed Akinpelu

Catherine Patrick

Himal KC

Mizrak Mohamed

Roger Alves

Robert Bischoff

Rosalina Silva

Rosa Victoria

Vivian Hije

Maintenance

John Vickery

Housekeeping Supervisor

Adam Sikora

Alicia Surujbally

Andre O'Hare

Elliott Lewis

Ian Romero

Karrie Smith

Lauren Smith

Mabel Liwag

Michael Kim

Rhowen Jane Bunda

Housekeeping

Programming

Max Rubino

Director of Programming

Sierra da Silva-Canadien

Indigenous Cultural Curator

Ariana Shaw

Sascha Cole

Senior Producer

Kafi Pierre

Shannon Murtagh

Producer

John Kiggins

Programming Manager

Nathan Sartore

Programming & Accessibility Coordinator

Courtney Voyce

Bookings Manager

Martina Strautins

Alex Whitehead

Bookings Coordinator

Scott North

Director Corporate & Private Events

Michaela Aguirre

Social Media Specialist

Communities and outreach

Tasneem Vahanvaty

Director of Communities & Outreach

Dani De Angelis

Communities & Outreach Coordinator

Production

Kristopher Dell

Director of Production

Anthony (TJ) Shamata

Zoe Carpenter

Senior Production Manager

Bruce Bennett

Senior Manager, Theatre

Systems & Special Projects

Peter Suchostawski

Senior Manager, Theatre Systems & Special Projects

Armand Baksh-Zarate

Chris Carlton

Kristopher Weber

Susanne Lankin

Production Manager

Emma Pressello

Production Coordinator

Meridian Hall stage crew

IATSE Local 58

Richard Karwat

Head Electrician

Steve McLean

Head Carpenter

Marcus Sirman

Head of Properties

David Baer

Assistant Carpenter

Zsolt Kota

Assistant Sound Operator

Jason Urbanowicz

Assistant Electrician

Michael Farkas

Assistant Electrician – AV

St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts

stage crew

IATSE Local 58

Wes Allen

Property Master, Bluma Appel

Theatre

Jay Blencowe

Head Carpenter, Bluma Appel

Theatre

Keijo Makela

Head Sound Technician, Bluma

Appel Theatre

Benn Hough

Head Technician, Jane Mallet

IATSE Local 822

Susan Batchelor

Wardrobe Head, Bluma Appel Theatre

Meridian Arts Centre stage crew

IATSE Local 58

Aaron Dell

Head Technician, George Weston

Recital Hall

Patrick Hales

Assistant Head Technician, George Weston Recital Hall

Grant Primea

Head Technician, Greenwin Theatre

Duncan Morga

Head Technician, Studio Theatre

Ian Parker

Head Technician Lyric Theatre

St. Lawrence Centre

Redevelopment

Leslie Lester

Vice President of STLC

Redevelopment

Carolyn Tso

Senior Manager, Capital Fundraising

The TO Live Foundation is committed to creating a future where art engages and inspires all Torontonians. A future where all the creative voices of our diverse communities are heard and celebrated. A future where artists have the support they need to experiment and grow.

Visit tolivefoundation.com to learn more about how our Foundation is committed to building a better city through the arts.