[HARRY]

yet rhythmic” (NY Times), with a “terrible luminosity” and “ferociously expressive” (Times Colonist), his concert music is “an amalgamation of the classical music tradition and the soul and grime of heavy metal” (I Care If You Listen). With an intimate background in progressive metal and traditional Greek music, Stafylakis has developed a unique conception of musical temporality and rhythm, infusing his compositions with a propulsive vitality that “favors doomsday chords and jackhammer rhythms” (The New Yorker).

Since 2016, Stafylakis is the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s Composer-InResidence and Co-Curator of the WSO’s Winnipeg New Music Festival. His works have been performed by orchestras including the Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Ottawa, Regina, Québec, Victoria, PEI, Spokane, Stamford, Longueuil, FSU, and Greek Youth Symphony Orchestras, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Orchestre Classique de Montréal, and Israel Chamber Orchestra.

New York Citybased composer Haralabos [Harry] Stafylakis hails from Montreal, Canada. “Dreamy

He has collaborated with artists and ensembles including Animals As Leaders, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Roomful of Teeth, JACK Quartet, Bent Knee, Decoda Ensemble, ShoutHouse, Raphael Weinroth-Browne, Contemporaneous, Vicky Chow, Hard Rubber Orchestra, Alexandre Da Costa, and Philippe Sly, among others.

His works have been featured at venues and festivals around the world, including Carnegie Hall and the NY Philharmonic

Biennial. In 2018–19 he collaborated with progressive metal pioneers Animals As Leaders on the symphonic adaptation of their music for metal band & orchestra, and in 2020–21 collaborated with Courtney Swain and members of Bent Knee and ShoutHouse on the prog metal and chamber music fusion dontwaitforme.

Recent recordings featuring his music include albums by the Norwegian Radio Orchestra & Miguel Harth-Bedoya (Naxos), Jenny Lin (Sono Luminus), the Cicchillitti-Cowan Duo (Analekta), Patrick Kearney (Contrastes), and the Hard Rubber Orchestra (Redshift).

His music has been recognized with the Charles Ives Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, ASCAP’s Leonard Bernstein Award, SOCAN’s Classical Composer of the Year Award, four SOCAN Foundation Awards for Young Composers, and grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, FACTOR, SSHRC, and New Music USA. He serves on the board of directors of GroundSwell (Winnipeg), is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre, and a founding member of the NYC composer collective ICEBERG New Music.

Stafylakis holds degrees from McGill University and The Graduate Center, City University of New York. He lectures at the City College of New York (CUNY) and Purchase College Conservatory of Music (SUNY), and is a guest lecturer at Nazareth College in Rochester, NY.

His research examines the conception of rhythm and meter in progressive metal. hstafylakis.com

Kalevi Aho

Distinguished Guest Composer

Kalevi Aho, one of Finland’s leading composers of today, was born in Forssa in southern Finland. He studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki under Einojuhani Rautavaara and in West Berlin in Boris Blacher’s composition class. In the years 1974-1988 he was a lecturer in musicology at Helsinki University; from 1988 until 1993 he was professor of composition at the Sibelius Academy and since the autumn of 1993, he has been a freelance composer.

In the works which marked his breakthrough (the First Symphony, 1969, and Third String Quartet, 1971), Aho continues in the tradition of Shostakovich; even in these pieces, however, he arrived at a very original formal/dramatic decision. Thus, in the four-movement First Symphony, we are gradually drawn ever further away from the “existing reality” of the beginning, ultimately reaching the third movement’s strange, pseudo-baroque style, and finally, in the last movement, we can meet the problems of the “true reality” head on. The structural starting-point for the single-movement Second Symphony

(1970/95) is a triple fugue. In the four-movement Third Symphony (1971-73) the dramatic tension is different; it is a conflict between an individual (a solo violin) and the sound blocks of the orchestra; there is a similar conflict in the pessimistic Cello Concerto (1983-84). The culmination of Aho’s first period (approx. 1969-74) is the threemovement Fourth Symphony (1972-73) with widely varied emotional contrasts.

The Fifth Symphony (1975-76) marks a turning point in Aho’s output. From a structural point of view this massive work is extremely complicated; in this multilayered symphony, instead of polyphony between various individual instrumental voices, we hear a polyphony of different, independent musical strands. The virtuoso and colourful Sixth Symphony (1979-80) concludes a sequential line of development in Aho’s symphonic work; after this, the composer concentrated for a while on concertos and operas. Aho’s first opera, Avain (The Key, 1978, with a libretto by Juha Mannerkorpi) tells of the paranoid alienation of an inhabitant of a big modern city in the estranging social climate of today. In 1982 and 1984 The Key was also performed by the Hamburg State Opera. In the years 1985-87 Aho wrote his sharply satirical second opera Hyönteiselämää (Insect Life), which combines elements both of comedy and of tragedy (the libretto, by the composer himself, is based on a play of the same name by Josef and Karel Capek) and contains numerous stylistic parodies as well as pointed social criticism. The work was premiered with great success by the Finnish National Opera on 27 September 1996. Drawing on material from the Insect Life, Aho composed his Seventh Symphony in 1988: a six-movement, cheerful work, the “Insect Symphony” has been described as a post-modern, tragicomic anti-symphony. Two years later Aho composed Pergamon for four narrators, four orchestral groups and organ; the text, which is in four languages, is based on Peter Weiss’s novel Die Ästhetik des Widerstands. In the intense Chamber Symphony No. 2 for strings (1991-92) we hear, in a sense, the music of the composer’s inner voices.

In 1992 the Lahti Symphony Orchestra appointed Aho as its composer in residence, and he has written all of his more recent orchestral works for these musicians. The bright, single-movement Symphony No. 8 (1993) for organ and orchestra is Aho’s most expansive instrumental work; this musically wide-ranging piece is one of the fundamental cornerstones of Aho’s entire output. The lighter Symphony No. 9 (1993-94) is also a concertante symphony: in this work, which contains many different time strata, the solo instrument is the trombone. The large-scale, dramatic Tenth Symphony (1996) is like a tribute to the great Romantic tradition of symphonic music, and is quite different from the Eleventh Symphony for six percussionists and orchestra (1997-98), which is dominated by strong, hypnotic rhythms and by subtle tonal colours.

The song cycle Kiinalaisia lauluja (Chinese Songs, 1997) for soprano and orchestra is a setting of ancient Chinese love poetry. Soloistic virtuosity is a hallmark of Aho’s large-scale, symphonic concertos for violin (1981), cello (1983-84) and piano (1989), of his three chamber symphonies (in the last of these the solo instrument is the alto saxophone) and of many chamber pieces (e.g. the Oboe Quintet, Bassoon Quintet, Oboe Sonata, Quintet for Alto Saxophone, Bassoon, Viola, Cello and Double Bass, Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet, Epilogue for trombone and organ, Seven Inventions and Postlude for oboe and cello and Quintet for Flute, Violin, Two Violas and Cello). Aho’s other operas include the one-act Salaisuuksien kirja (The Book of Secrets, 1998) to a libretto by Paavo Rintala and the two-act Ennen kuin me kaikki olemme hukkuneet (Before We All Have Drowned, 1995/1999), the libretto of which is based on a radio play by Juha Mannerkorpi. In 2013 Aho wrote his fifth opera Frida y Diego to the libretto by Maritza Núñez. The opera was commissioned by the Sibelius Academy and premiered on 17 October 2014 in Helsinki. It tells, in Spanish, about turning points in the lives of Frida Kahlo, her husband Diego Rivera, and Lev Trotsky, an exile in Mexico. In the opera the atmosphere varies from dreamy to wild carnival moods and there is also some heated argument and sharp political parody.

Kalevi Aho has composed 17 symphonies in all. They include Symphony No. 12, “Luosto” (2002-03), designed for outdoor purposes, Symphony No. 13 subtitled “Symphonic Characterizations” (2003), Symphony No. 14 “Rituals” for darabuka, djembe, gongs and chamber orchestra (2007), Symphony No. 15 (2009-10) commissioned by the BBC Philharmonic and the Lahti Symphony, and Symphony No. 16 commissioned by YLE and premiered by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2015.

Symphony No. 17 was premiered in 2019 by the Sinfonia Lahti, under the direction of the Aho expert Osmo Vänskä. Subtitled Symphonic Frescoes, with its 63 minutes, it is s Aho´s longest, and the movements – From the Depth, Scherzo macabre and Distant Songs – can also be performed separately as independent tone poems. Among Aho’s many orchestral works are Minea (2008, commissined by the Minnesota Orchestra) and Gejia –Chinese Images for Orchestra (2012, commissioned by the National Centre of Performing Arts in Beijing, China).

During the 90s Aho concentrated primarily on opera, symphonies, chamber music as well as instrumental solo pieces, and his concerto production was not resumed until the beginning of the new millennium with the elegiac and cantabile Tuba Concerto (2000-01). It was also at this time that the absolutely unique idea of composing a series of concertos for every instrument in the symphony orchestra was born – a project that is nearly completed. In 2002 followed one of the key works in Aho’s production, the lyrical and melodious Flute Concerto written for Sharon Bezaly; it one of his most often performed works. After that followed concertos for double bass, clarinet, bassoon, viola, trumpet, trombone and French horn.

Kalevi Aho has also composed concertos for such solo instruments as the tuba, the contrabassoon, the soprano saxophone, the tenor saxophone, the timpani, the accordeon and the harp. His most performed concerto is Sieidi (Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra, 2010) commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Luosto Classic Festival and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and performed by Colin Currie and Martin Grubinger. The Theremin Concerto Eight Seasons (2011) was commissioned by the Lapland Chamber Orchestra and premiered in 2012 by Carolina Eyck. The recording of Aho’s theremin and horn concertos won the prestigious ECHO Classic Award in 2015 for the best concerto disc of the year. Aho’s oeuvre also includes two double concertos: for two cellos (commissioned by the BBC and premiered in Manchester in 2004) and for French horn and harp (commissioned by the Royal Flemish Philharmonic in 2015).

Aho has also completed J. S. Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge, Contrapunctus XIV which exists in versions for string orchestra, organ or saxophone quartet. The Symphonic Dances (Hommage à Uuno Klami) was composed in 2001 as the third act of Uuno Klami’s ballet Pyörteitä (Whirls) and the recording by BIS has scored great international success. Among Kalevi Aho’s numerous arrangements are Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death for bass and orchestra and the first act of Klami’s ballet Whirls. In 1995 Aho composed the lost second violin parts of all six string quartets by the first Finnish composer of importance, Erik Tulindberg (1761-1814), and in 1997 he completed Sibelius’s complete Karelia score in preparation both for performance and for recording (BIS-CD-915). Foremost among Aho’s many writings are the treatises Finnish Music and the Kalevala and Einojuhani Rautavaara as a Symphonist, the collection of essays The Tasks of an Artist in a Post-Modern Society, Art and Reality as well as the books Music of Finland (in collaboration with E. Salmenhaara, P. Jalkanen and K. Virtamo) and Uuno Klami – Life and Works (in collaboration with Marjo Valkonen, 2000).

Rebecca Adams Composer

Rebecca Adams is a Canadian composertrombonist from Springvale, Prince Edward Island, currently based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She completed her Bachelor of Music with a Concentration in Composition at Dalhousie University in April 2020, and a Graduate Certificate in Music Scoring for Screen and Stage at Sheridan College in August 2021. During her time at Dalhousie, Rebecca studied composition under Jérôme Blais, and, while studying at Sheridan, was mentored by Felipe Téllez and Virginia Kilbertus. Rebecca has a passion for storytelling and loves writing music about people: Personal identity, human struggles, conflicts and emotions, and mental health are all topics that are explored in her catalogue of work.

Above all else, she strives to write pieces that evoke a strong emotional response in the listener: This potential of music, to capture and communicate the innermost thoughts and experiences of people so accurately, is what drew her so strongly to the field. Rebecca has been playing the trombone for ten years and has performed with the Dalhousie Symphony Orchestra, the Dalhousie Wind Ensemble, the Nova Scotia Youth Orchestra, the Halifax Queer Ensemble, the UPEI Wind Symphony, and the UPEI Jazz Band. In 2018, she performed as a soloist for the Dalhousie Wind Ensemble in Berlioz’s Grand Symphonie Funèbre et Triomphal. She studied trombone under Gregory Irvine and Eric Mathis and has had opportunities to participate in masterclasses with renowned musicians, including Alain Trudel. It was only partway through her BMus degree that Rebecca discovered her true niche was composition. After only four months of composition experience, she applied to Dalhousie’s distinguished Composition Program and was subsequently accepted. Since then, Rebecca has had pieces performed by ensembles such as the Maritime Brass Quintet and the Dalhousie Wind Ensemble and has had the opportunity to workshop music with Symphony Nova Scotia and the Verona Quartet.

In the past, she has received several prestigious awards, including the Patricia Wiegers Norman Memorial Music Scholarship and the James A. Faraday Memorial Award. Rebecca has also composed original music for several short films and video games. These include the animated short “Dançarina,” by Monica Santos, and the documentaries “Dancing in the Cold,” directed by Dmitrijus Monastyrecki, and “Romario,” directed by James Cooper. She was also a composer and sound designer for the indie video games Summit, by Unavailable Games, and Uprooted, directed and produced by Alexandre Bujold. rebeccalynnadams.com

Kati Ag Cs Composer

Hailed as “a composer of imposing artistic gifts” (Gramophone Magazine) and “one of the brightest stars in her generation of composers” (Audiophile Audition), Kati Agócs (KAH-tee AH-goach) writes “sublime music of fluidity and austere beauty” (The Boston Globe), that is “simmering…lucid…and demands to be heard” (The New York Times). A recent Guggenheim Fellow, she is also a winner of the prestigious Arts and Letters Award, the lifetime achievement award in music composition from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a two-time nominee for Classical Composition of the Year in the Juno Awards, the Canadian Grammy Awards.

As part of its Composer Portraits series, Miller Theatre in New York recently presented a Kati Agócs portrait featuring Third Sound ensemble and vocalist Lucy Dhegrae. The concert included the world premiere of Voices of the Immaculate, a cantata co-commissioned by Miller Theatre at Columbia University, Chamber Music America, New Music USA, and the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. In The New York Times, Zachary Woolfe wrote: “For once, singing of complete and utter clarity…a simmering new cantata, conceived with transparency as a first principle…entirely, word for word, lucid… her text demands to be heard, and is.” Other upcoming and recent premieres include a Piano Concerto for Nicolas Namoradze, commissioned by the Esther Honens International Piano Competition, and a Horn Concerto for James Sommerville, co-commissioned by a consortium of five orchestras in the U.S and Canada.

Other recent works include Morning Star, a motet commissioned by Emmanuel Music in Boston in celebration of their Fiftieth Anniversary; Imprimatur (String

Quartet #2), commissioned by the Harvard Musical Association, Krannert Center/University of Illinois, and the Aspen Music Festival and School to open the Aspen Music Festival; Concerto for Violin and Percussion Orchestra, commissioned by the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University for the New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble; and The Debrecen Passion, a work for chorus and orchestra with texts by Szilárd Borbély, commissioned by The Jebediah Foundation for Lorelei Ensemble and Boston Modern Orchestra Project. The Boston Globe named The Debrecen Passion, on which Kati Agócs also performed as a soprano soloist, one of its Top Ten Classical Albums of 2016. Her music has been commissioned and performed by many other premier ensembles and organizations including the the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Reconsil Vienna, Lontano, Albany Symphony Orchestra, National Youth Orchestra of Canada, Claremont Trio, Hub New Music, Jupiter String Quartet, Continuum, Da Capo Chamber Players, Ensemble Contemporain de Montreal, New Juilliard Ensemble, and the multiple Grammyaward winning ensemble Eighth Blackbird, who toured the U.S. with Immutable Dreams. She has collaborated with vocalist Lucy Dhegrae, cellist Paul Katz, harpist Bridget Kibbey, violinist Jennifer Koh, saxophonist Timothy McAllister, hornist James Sommerville, and pianist Fredrik Ullén in the creation of new works. Residencies include the Charles Ives Music Festival, Chelsea Music Festival, Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, Oberlin University, National Youth Orchestra of Canada (for which she was Composer-in-Residence for their Fiftieth Anniversary) and a curatorial residency with Metropolis Ensemble in the Bowery on New York’s Lower East Side.

Awards and honours include the Guggenheim Fellowship; the Arts and Letters Award, Charles Ives Fellowship and Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; a recording grant from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music; Composer fellowships from the Massachusetts Arts Council and the New York Foundation for the Arts; The Boston Foundation’s inaugural Brother Thomas Fellowship; the ASCAP Leonard Bernstein Fellowship at the Tanglewood Music Center; a Fulbright Fellowship to the Liszt Academy in Budapest; a Jacob K. Javits Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Education; residencies at the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo; and commissioning grants from the Canada Council for the Arts.

Born in Canada of Hungarian and American parents, Kati Agócs earned doctoral and Masters degrees from the Juilliard School, studying with Milton Babbitt, and has served on the composition faculty at the New England Conservatory in Boston since 2008. She maintains a work studio in Flatrock, Newfoundland. She is an alumna of the

Aspen Music School, Tanglewood Music Festival, Sarah Lawrence College, and Lester B. Pearson College of the Pacific (United World Colleges), where she represented the province of Ontario. She studied voice with Adele Addison in New York and with Adrienne Csengery in Budapest. Kati Agócs is a citizen of the United States, Canada, and Hungary (European Union). Her works are published by Kati Agócs Music and distributed internationally by Theodore Front Musical Literature.

KINAN AZMEH COMPOSER, CLARINETIST

Hailed as “intensely soulful” and a “virtuoso” by The New York Times, Winner of OpusKlassik award in 2019 clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh has gained international recognition for what the New Yorker has called “Spellbinding!” for his distinctive voice across diverse musical genres.

Originally from Damascus, Syria, Kinan Azmeh brings his music to all corners of the world as a soloist, composer and improviser. Notable appearances include the Opera Bastille, Paris; Tchaikovsky Grand Hall, Moscow; Carnegie Hall and the UN General Assembly, New York; the Royal Albert Hall, London; Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires; Der Philharmonie, Berlin; the Library of Congress, the Kennedy Center, Washington DC; the Mozarteum, www.kinanazmeh.com

Salzburg, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie; and in his native Syria at the opening concert of the Damascus Opera House. He has appeared as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, the Dusseldorf Symphony, the WestEastern Divan Orchestra, the Qatar Philharmonic and the Syrian Symphony Orchestra among others, and has shared the stage with such musical luminaries as Yo-Yo Ma, Daniel Barenboim, Marcel Khalife, John McLaughlin, Francois Rabbath Aynur and Jivan Gasparian.

Kinan’s compositions include several works for solo, chamber, and orchestral music, as well as music for film, live illustration, and electronics. His resent works were commissioned by The New York Philharmonic, The Seattle Symphony, The Knights Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orhcetsra, Elbphilharmonie, Apple Hill string quartet, Quatuor Voce, Brooklyn Rider, Cello Octet Amsterdam, Aizuri Quartet and Bob Wilson.

An advocate for new music, several concertos were dedicated to him by composers such as Kareem Roustom, Dia Succari, Dinuk Wijeratne, Zaid Jabri, Saad Haddad and Guss Janssen, in addition to a large number of chamber music works.

In addition to his own Arab-Jazz Quartet CityBand and his Hewar trio, he has also been playing with the Silkroad Ensemble since 2012, whose 2017 Grammy Awardwinning album “Sing Me Home” features Kinan as a clarinetist and composer.

Kinan Azmeh is a graduate of New York’s Juilliard School as a student of Charles Neidich, and of both the Damascus High institute of Music where he studied with Shukry Sahwki, Nicolay Viovanof and Anatoly Moratof, and Damascus University’s School of Electrical Engineering. Kinan earned his doctorate degree in music from the City University of New York in 2013.

His first opera “Songs for Days to Come” which is fully sung in Arabic, was recently premiered in Osnabruck, Germany in June 2022 to a great acclaim and he has recently been appointed to the National Council for the Arts on a nomination by President Joe Biden.

Jaelem Bhate Rbc Guest Conductor

Jaelem Bhate is a conductor, composer, and bandleader from Vancouver, B.C. whose musical diversity has come to define his career.

Alongside serving as Artistic Director and Music Director for some of the most innovative and forward-thinking ensembles in Canada, Jaelem has steadily added to the repertoire in both the classical and jazz genres. He currently sits on the board of Orchestras Canada, a national association representing the interests of large ensembles across the country.

Jaelem was named to the CBC’s 2019 30 under 30 hot classical musicians.

As a conductor, Jaelem has worked professionally as a guest with the Vancouver and Winnipeg Symphony Orchestras, as well as the Vancouver Philharmonic. He is the current music director of the Vancouver Brass Collective, as well as the artistic director of Symphony 21, and ensemble which he founded. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Jaelem spearheaded the creation of a digital season, garnering wide spread recognition and praise for having steered such a young organization through difficult circumstances. Symphony 21’s Fall season featured, in large part, works by underrepresented and unknown composers over two series: ‘Canadian Creators’ and ‘Beyond Backstage’, while its Summer season sees performances paired with local businesses. He is currently a finalist for the position of Artistic Director with the Guelph Symphony. Under his direction, Symphony 21 has gained a reputation for programming that in unique and groundbreaking. In December 2021, he produced a production of The Nutcracker with the orchestra sharing the stage with a full jazz band performing the Ellington and Strayhorn arrangements of the same music. In response to the invasion of Ukraine, Jaelem pulled together a 60-person orchestra on a week’s notice, and brought together community partners who donated their resources in full in support of the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.

Jaelem completed his Master of Music degree in Orchestral Conducting at UBC in 2019 under the guidance of Dr. Jonathan Girard. He previously received his undergraduate degree in percussion performance at UBC where he graduated first in his class and received the prestigious Wesbrook Award for academic achievement and leadership. He has pursued training as a conductor, in addition to his Master Degree, with some of the most prestigious pedagogues in the world, and has participated in a number of high-profile positions and programs. In 2021, he will be attending the Cabrillo Festival in California (virtually in 2021), where he will study with Christian Macelaru, Yannick Nézét-Seguin, and Marin Alsop. He was the sole apprentice conductor of the highly competitive 2018 National Academy Orchestra of Canada under Maestro Boris Brott, and was a conducting fellow at the 2019 Eastern Music Festival in North Carolina where he worked closely with Maestro Gerard Schwarz. Other programs include the New York Conducting Institute in Manhattan studying with Paul Nadler of the MET Opera company, and the University of Oregon conducting masterclass with Maestro Neil Varon of the Eastman School, and Dr. David Jacobs. He was also assistant conductor at the Pacific Regional International Summer Music Academy with Maestro Arthur Arnold of the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. He has conducted at the International Society for Contemporary Music Festival, the Canadian Music

Center New Music series and the 2019 Pacific Rim International Music Festival.

As a composer, Jaelem has been praised for possessing “a personal and highly effective voice” (Canadian Music Center) and has been described as “...a rising star”. (The Midwest Record). He founded and directs the Jaelem Bhate Jazz Orchestra, a 17-piece jazz orchestra that exclusively performs his compositions and was recently interviewed by CBC Radio 1 for his ensemble’s premiere of his original suite for Jazz Orchestra ‘The Nameless’ featuring the poetry of underrepresented, disadvantaged and discriminated against communities. He recently released his debut album for jazz orchestra ‘on the edge’, featuring a who’s who of Vancouver jazz instrumentalists, and has been hailed for its “polished and confident arrangements” (All About Jazz, 2019). ‘On the Edge’ won the 2020 Julian Award for excellence in Jazz, presented by Patrick Julian and The Jazz Spectrum. His works have been performed on recital programs throughout Canada and the US, and his music was featured as part of the 2019 and 2018 Jean Coulthard Readings, presented by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, as well as by the Victoria Symphony in their 2019 Hugh Davidson sessions. His music was accepted by the International Society of Jazz arrangers and composers as part of their call for scores, to presented at their 2019 conference in Colorado.

Other notable performances and commissions include a premiere as part of the Sonic Boom Festival hosted by Vancouver Pro-Musica, 2 works for the Brazzjazz ensemble, the Hard Rubber Orchestra, the 2018 PRISMA festival, and an upcoming project with the Canadian National Jazz Orchestra. His most recent commercial release was a suite of arrangements of Georges Bizet’s ‘Carmen’ for jazz orchestra. He also has recent credits as chief arranger of the Michael Kim Big Band, writing custom arrangements featuring all-star guests. Jaelem has studied composition Fred Stride and GRAMMY-award winning Darcy James Argue. Jaelem’s work has been funded by FACTOR Canada and the Canada Council for the Arts.

As a community leader and programmer, Jaelem created the BRASS-embly symposium as part of his role as Music Director of the Vancouver Brass Collective, aimed at encouraging youth in BC to become further involved in the brass and music community. He also serves as Music director for the Brock House Orchestra, serving a dedicated group of seniors, improving their quality of life through shared music making. He has been involved with youth teaching at the St. James Music Academy on the downtown East side of Vancouver, as well as the UBC Summer Music institute.