ELIAZER

Kramer Composer

Eliazer Kramer is a pianist and composer from Montreal. He began bachelor studies in piano performance at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal and completed them at the Musikhögskolan in Piteå, Sweden. Following this, he obtained a master’s in piano interpretation from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and then spent one year of supplementary studies at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland. In 2015, Eliazer obtained his Diplôme d’études professionnelles approfondies in piano performance from the University of Montreal under the guidance of Paul Stewart, and in 2017, he completed his master’s in composition under the tutelage of François-Hugues Leclair and Denis Gougeon. Eliazer regularly collaborates on music for film and video games; in 2016, he composed the music for the viral animation video, Le clitoris. In 2017, Eliazer was named one of three winners of the Concours de l’OUM, the University of Montreal’s orchestral composition competition. In 2018, Eliazer completed his Diplôme d’études professionnelles approfondies in composition with Denis Gougeon. In 2019, he was chosen to participate in the Orchestre de la Francophonie’s “Contemporary Orchestral Composition Workshop.”

In 2020, he became a student member of the Analysis, Creation, and Teaching Orchestration (ACTOR) project and was selected to compose a piece for one of their “Composer-performer Research ensembles” (CORE).

Eliazer is currently pursuing his doctorate in composition at the University of Montreal under François-Xavier Dupas and Caroline Traube. He is researching the effects that virtual orchestration can have on live orchestration. Eliazer’s works have been performed in Canada, the USA, Sweden, Germany, Japan, Cyprus, Turkey, and Finland. eliazerkramer.wixsite.com

Sandra Laronde Choreographer

A highly accomplished arts leader, creator, innovator, and influential speaker, Sandra Laronde (Misko Kizhigoo Migizii Kwe) which means “Red Sky Eagle Woman” in Anishinaabemowin (Ojibway) language, M.S.C., O.M.C., B.A. (Hon), Hon. LL.D. has over 30 years of experience in arts and culture. She is from the Teme-Augama-Anishinaabe (People of the Deep Water) in Temagami, northern Ontario and is based in Toronto.

Sandra plays a pivotal role in the ongoing Indigenous cultural resurgence in Canada. For three decades, she has created an extraordinary body of work with collaborators that has led to powerful arts experiences elevating the ecology of arts and culture in this country while strengthening an international presence.

A champion of Canada, Sandra is active in cultural diplomacy through the arts, forging stronger ties by representing the nation at numerous high-profile international events and platforms including the Venice Biennale, two Cultural Olympiads (Canada and Beijing), Canadian Heritage’s first Creative Industries Trade Mission to China, a Trade Mission to Europe, Global Affairs Canada visit to northern Sweden, Canada’s High Commission, Australia Council for the Arts, Arts Council of Mongolia, and as an Official Delegate and Speaker at the 19th ASSITEJ World Congress in Soweto, South Africa, to name a few. Sandra founded Red Sky Performance in 2000, Canada’s leading company of contemporary Indigenous performance in Canada and worldwide. Sandra’s awards and nominations include: the 2021 Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize; 2020 Celebration of Cultural Life Award from the Toronto Arts Foundation; 2018 Meritorious Service Decoration on behalf of the Governor General of Canada; and the 2018 Lieutenant Governor’s Ontario Heritage Award for Excellence in Conservation. In 2017, Sandra was a finalist for the Margo Bindhardt and Rita Davies Cultural Leadership Award; 2014 Vital Ideas (Toronto Community Foundation); 2013 Victor Martyn

Staunch-Lynch Award for Outstanding Artist in Dance (Canada Council); bestowed with a 2011 Honorary Degree (Hons LL.D) from Trent University; 2011 Expressive Arts Award (Smithsonian Institute); Ontario Good Citizenship Medal; City of Toronto and Toronto Life’s “Face the Arts” recipient celebrating Cultural Mavericks; Paul D. Fleck Fellowship in the Arts (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity); Toronto City Council’s Aboriginal Affairs Award, and participated in the Governor-General’s Canadian Leadership program that celebrates leaders who make a significant impact on Canada. Her company Red Sky garnered 16 Dora Mavor Moore awards and nominations (2020, 2019, 2018, 2016, 2012, 2010, 2006, 2004) and two Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards, among other recognitions. In 2019, Sandra was the Curator and brainchild of the inaugural “The Land on Which We Dance Festival” at Jacob’s Pillow in the USA which featured an embodied land acknowledgement, Indigenous traditional and contemporary dance, storytelling, workshops, masterclasses, and connecting with local Indigenous communities.

In 2017, Sandra was also a Curator for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra celebrating Canada’s diverse musical landscape. She curated and directed a singular concert featuring a new genre-defying creation redskyperformance.com

Jenny Lin Pianist

Pianist Jenny Lin is an artist of keen musicianship, brilliant technique, and a compelling perspective shaped by a deep fluency in global culture. Born in Taiwan, raised in Austria, educated in Europe and America, Lin has built a vibrant international career, notable for innovative collaborations with a range of artists and creators. In every performance, Jenny Lin places her considerable technical skills and her fierce intellect at the service of the composer’s intention, yielding results that win the loyalty and rapt attention of audiences and fellow artists alike.

In the 2021-23 season, Lin has performances – both digital, and in person – for Washington Performing Arts; at Hudson Hall performing the American premiere of William Bolcom’s Suite of Preludes; at Boston Conservatory’s piano series; at Little Island in NYC; and at Winnipeg New Music Festival performing a piano concerto by Harry Styfalakis. She also releases a number of new albums, including Simple Music with music by Giya Kancheli in partnership with accordionist Guy Klucevsek; Liszt Harmonies poétiques et religieuses on the Steinway label with pianist Adam Tendler; and a new recording featuring the complete vocal works of Artur

Schnabel with contralto Sara Couden, a complement to Lin’s earlier album of the complete Schnabel piano works. Recent performances include dates for the Mostly Mozart Festival; at “Angel’s Share” in the catacombs of Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery; at St. Olaf College; at OKM Music in Oklahoma; and as the featured pianist in Elliot Goldenthal’s original motion picture score for Julie Taymor’s 2020 film, The Glorias. She performed a recital of Philip Glass’s music for the Morris Museum –a continuation of a close collaboration with Glass, with whom she has appeared regularly since 2014. This experience has inspired the creation of her own commissioning initiative, The Etudes Project, in which she works with a range of living composers to create new technical piano etudes, pairing each new piece with an existing etude from the classical canon. The results form both a series of solo recital programs and albums released by Sono Luminus. The first volume showcases Lin’s commissioning by ICEBERG New Music, a composer collective including a range of brilliant emerging composers. The Etudes Project; Vol. 1 ICEBERG was released to critical acclaim in 2019, and Volume 2 is forthcoming.

Other notable recordings in Lin’s catalogue (which includes more than 30 albums, on Hänssler Classic, eOne, BIS, New World, Albany, et al) include Philip Glass’s Etudes, the complete Chopin Nocturnes, Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues Op. 87, the Liszt

Sonata and Schumann Fantasie. Lin has also recorded “Get Happy,” an album of Broadway song arrangements, and her ingenious Steinway & Sons release of transcriptions of the songs of Chinese pop singer Teresa Teng.

Jenny Lin is the central figure in “Cooking for Jenny” by Felix Cabez for Elemental Films, a musical documentary portraying her journey to Spain. Other media appearances include CBS Sunday Morning, NPR Performance Today, and “Speaking for Myself”, a documentary by filmmaker Bert Shapiro, about Manhattan as seen through the eyes of eight contemporary artists.

A passionate advocate for education, Jenny created “Melody’s Mostly Musical Day“, a musical album and picture book for children, following the adventures of an imaginative little girl from breakfast to bedtime, told in a collection of 26 classical piano works from Mozart to Gershwin. Since the publication of the book in 2016, Lin has toured a multimedia concert version of the program which she performs regularly at schools and educational institutions throughout North America. This season also marks a decade of outreach concerts Lin has programmed and presented in retirements communities.

Lin has performed with orchestras throughout the world, including the American Symphony Orchestra, NDR and SWR German Radio Orchestras, the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, and others, with conductors including Lothar Zagrosek, Jiri Starek, Urs Schneider,

Alexander Mickelthwate, Kek-Tjiang Lim, Wen-Pin Chien, Peter Bay, James Bagwell, and Celso Antunes. She has been presented in performances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, at BAM Next Wave, Spoleto USA, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, and elsewhere.

Fluent in English, German, Mandarin, and French, Jenny Lin studied Noel Flores at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, with Julian Martin at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, and with Dominique Weber in Geneva. She has also worked with Leon Fleisher, Richard Goode, and Blanca Uribe, and at Italy’s Fondazione Internazionale per il pianoforte with Dimitri Bashkirov and Andreas Staier. In addition to her musical studies, Lin holds a bachelor’s degree in German Literature from The Johns Hopkins University. Jenny Lin currently resides with her family in New York City and serves on the faculty of Mannes College The New School for Music.

Zhou Long Composer

Zhou Long, (born July 8, 1953, Beijing, China), Chinese American composer known for his works that brought together the music of the East and the West, thus helping to establish a common ground between different musical traditions and cultures. Among

Zhou’s most famous compositions was the music he created for Madame White Snake (2010), a vivid opera based on a Chinese folk tale, for which Zhou earned the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for music.

Zhou spent his early life in Beijing and received instruction on the piano at a young age. During China’s Cultural Revolution (1966-76), however, he was forced to give up his musical studies and was ordered to live in the countryside, where he worked on a farm. In 1977, Zhou returned to Beijing to study composition and music theory at the Central Conservatory of Music. Upon graduating (1983), he became composer in residence (1983-85) with the National Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra of China. He then studied at Columbia University, New York City, where he earned a D.M.A. (1993), and he subsequently served as music director of Music from China, an ensemble based in New York City that performed traditional and contemporary Chinese music. He later presided as distinguished professor of music composition at the University of Missouri–Kansas City.

Zhou composed stage and orchestral works, chamber music, and choral and vocal pieces for ensembles worldwide. He became widely known for his exceptional ability for identifying techniques that enabled Western ensembles to effectively reproduce the sounds unique to Chinese music. Much of his work was influenced by his experience in China’s countryside, though he also drew inspiration from ancient Chinese poetry.

Notable among Zhou’s works were Soul (1992) for pipa (Chinese lute) and string quartet, created for the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, and The Ineffable (1994), commissioned by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation and the Library of Congress. Rites of Chimes (2000), commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution, was composed for cellist Yo-Yo Ma and musicians associated with Music from China. Among his later works were the symphonic epic Nine Odes (2013), the chamber composition Tales from the Nine Bells (2014), and the piano concerto Postures (2014).

In 2016 Zhou was enshrined into the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Hall of Fame. NYFA had previously awarded Zhou a fellowship in music composition (2000), providing him with the opportunity to further his work in blending the sounds and musical traditions of China with those of the West. Also in 2016, Zhou and his wife, Chen Yi, enjoyed growing acclaim for their jointly composed Symphony Humen 1839, which was nominated for a Grammy Award for best orchestral performance, under the baton of Singaporean conductor Darrell Ang and performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.

In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Zhou received numerous other honours during his career, including the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts (2001) and the Academy Award in Music (later the Arts and Letters Award) bestowed by the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2003). His translation of “Words of the

Sun” (1982, revised 1997) was featured on the male vocal ensemble Chanticleer’s Grammy Award-winning album Colors of Love (1999).

Jessica Macisaac Composer

Jessica MacIsaac is a composer born and living in Mi’gma’gi (Nova Scotia). Her music is inspired by her early years involved in theatre and dance, as well as a deep love for film scores. Her pieces incorporate elements of movement, humour, and references both overt and obscured. She obtained her B.Mus. in composition from Dalhousie University in 2019, studying under Dr. Jérôme Blais. She is currently pursuing her M.Mus. from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Her works have been performed both locally and internationally by ensembles such as the Dalhousie Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Nova Scotia, Trio Immersio, the Maritime Brass Quintet, the Quasar Saxophone Quartet, and Quartetto Indaco. She is a two-time recipient of the Kenneth Elloway Award for exceptional potential in composition, as well as multiple scholarships from the Nova Scotia Talent Trust and Fountain School of Performing Arts. jessicamacisaac.com

KELLY-MARIE MURPHY COMPOSER

With music described as “breathtaking” (KitchenerWaterloo Record), “imaginative and expressive” (The National Post), “a pulse-pounding barrage on the senses” (The Globe and Mail), and “Bartok on steroids” (Birmingham News), Kelly-Marie Murphy’s voice is well known on the Canadian music scene. She has created a number of memorable works for some of Canada’s leading performers and ensembles, including the Toronto, Winnipeg, and Vancouver Symphony Orchestras, The Gryphon Trio, James Campbell, Shauna Rolston, the Cecilia and Afiara String Quartets, and Judy Loman.

Dr. Murphy’s music has been performed around the world by outstanding soloists and ensembles, and has had radio broadcasts in over 22 countries. Her music has been interpreted by renowned conductors such as Sir Andrew Davis, David Brophy, Bramwell Tovey, and Mario Bernardi. Her music has been heard in iconic concert halls, such as Carnegie Hall in New York, The Mozarteum in Salzburg, and The National Concert Hall in Dublin.

Besides many academic scholarships awarded in Canada and England, Dr. Murphy has also won prizes for her music, dating back to 1992. She won first prize and the People’s Choice Award at the CBC Young Composer’s Competition in 1994 (string quartet category); received 2 honorable mentions in the New Music Concerts competition in 1995; earned fifth place at the International Rostrum of Composers in Paris in 1996 for her first orchestra piece, From the Drum Comes a Thundering Beat…; was awarded first and second prizes in the Maryland Composer’s Competition at Loyola College in Baltimore, 1998; won third place in the Alexander Zemlinsky Prize for Composition in 1999 for her work, Utterances; won first prize in the International Horn Society’s Composer’s Competition, 2001, for her work, Departures and Deviations; and in 2003 won first prize for her harp concerto, And Then At Night I Paint the Stars in the Centara Corporation New Music Festival Composer’s Competition.

Dr. Murphy has completed short residencies at the Snowbird Institute for the Arts, Utah, with Joan Tower; Tapestry Music Theatre/Canadian Opera Company, Toronto; rESOund Festival of Contemporary Music, Edmonton; Strings of the Future International String Quartet Festival, Ottawa; Soundstreams/Encounters, Toronto; and at the Banff Centre for the Arts. In 2004, Dr. Murphy was honored with The Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Calgary, and in 2005 as the Roger D. Moore Distinguished Visitor in Composition from the University of Toronto.

Dr. Murphy was granted the distinction of Honorable Mention in the 2008 Barlow Prize for composition. From 2006 to 2008, she served as composer-in-residence to the National Youth Orchestra of Canada.

Kelly-Marie Murphy was born on a NATO base in Sardegna, Italy, and grew up on Canadian Armed Forces bases all across Canada. She began her studies in composition at the University of Calgary with William Jordan and Allan Bell, and later received a Ph.D. in composition from the University of Leeds, England, where she studied with Philip Wilby. After living and working for many years in the Washington D.C. area where she was designated “an alien of extraordinary ability” by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, she is now based in Ottawa.

Josh Myers Bassist

Josh Myers is proud to offer his open ears and big earthy bass tone to various projects including Kinan Azmeh’s CityBand and Sister Sparrow & The Dirty Birds, as well as his own groups; Big Words and the Josh Myers Quintet. He has had the pleasure of performing in many beautiful places for many beautiful people in concert halls, theaters, and music venues across 49 United States, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Australia.