COMPOSER BIOGRAPHIES
|
Michael SelvaggiMichael Selvaggi is a Toronto-based composer of contemporary music and a fourth-year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music, where he is working towards a B.Mus. in Composition. He has been a participant of numerous international masterclasses and programs, the recipient of multiple commissions, and was recently named as the winner of two separate SOCAN Foundation Young Composer Awards in both the Chamber Music and the Electroacoustic categories. In addition, Michael has recently been selected for an upcoming artistic residency at the SME AMKP Studio for Electroacoustic Music at the Academy of Music in Krakow, Poland. Michael has worked with multiple organizations such as: Redshift Music, Women on the Verge, the Julius Quartet, the Kamratōn Ensemble, the Canadian Music Centre, Du Vert a L’infini, and Green Room Sound Collective. His interest in exploratory music manifests through combining the familiar with the unfamiliar, specializing in the unknown and often pleasantly discomforting realm of noise music. Currently studying under the mentorship of Norbert Palej, Michael is exploring the realms of spectral composition, experimental sound art, microtonality, and soundscape.
|
|
Katharine PetkovskiA Canadian composer, pianist and producer, Katharine Petkovski draws from many genres of music, layering and experimenting with acoustic instruments and synthesized textures to create exciting sonic palettes.
Katharine has released a number of recording projects and has composed music for Canadian ensembles like Odin Quartet, Bedford Trio, and most recently, the Exultate Chamber Singers. Katharine is especially passionate about scoring music for multimedia, and has written for a variety of films, most recently With Love from Munera (2020), a documentary that premiered at Inside Out Festival, Canada’s largest LGBTQ+ festival, and was shown at TIFF Next Wave Film Festival, along with the Reel Asian Film Festival. Katharine holds a BMus in Composition from the University of Toronto ('19), and a MMus in Composition from the University of Toronto ('21), where she received the prestigious Tecumseh Sherman Rogers Graduating Award upon completion. Katharine sings as an alto in Exultate Chamber Singers, Concreamus, and is an active member of the Screen Composer’s Guild of Canada, along with the Alliance for Women Film Composers. |
|
Liliana MahaveLiliana Mahave is a high-school musician and composer born and raised in Toronto, Canada. She began playing the violin at age 4 and the piano at age 6, and currently studies with Conrad Chow and Tanya Tkachenko. She has played with the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra since 2019 has been a part of various chamber music ensembles including the Sound Post String Quartet and Mooredale String Quartet. She was featured in many collaborative projects during the pandemic, including a Soundsforcomfort Bach Double project with violinists all across Canada, and numerous calls to seniors in care homes as a part of TSYO’s TSOUND Connections project for seniors in isolation during COVID. She has won several awards on both of her primary instruments including the ORMTA Outstanding Performance Scholarship on piano and a Kiwanis Gold Level performance on violin with a recommendation to advance to the OMFA Provincial Finals. With her composition Baile Diabolica de Tontin, she received first place in the ORMTA Music Writing Competition and Second place in CFMTA/FCAPM Student Composer National Competition. She is currently a highschool senior enrolled in the Claude Watson Arts Programme at Earl Haig as a violin major.
|
|
Ricardo FerroRicardo Ferro is a Venezuelan-Canadian Toronto-based composer and multi-instrumentalist. His composition style and research interests are largely centred in areas of artificial intelligence for composition and performance, controlled aleatoricism and improvisation, rhythmic innovation, and unconventional performance environments. Filtered through this lens, his musical landscapes are often dynamically changing, filled with heavy contrasts and relentlessly driving, asymmetrical rhythms. Recent and upcoming engagements include work with the Bedford Trio, Jameson Platte, Mehrdad Gholami, Moni Simeonov, the Atlantic Music Festival Orchestra and Contemporary Ensemble, the Calidore String Quartet, Orchestra Breva, Younggun Kim, the Oakville Symphony Youth Orchestra, Concreamus Vocal Arts Collective, and the University of Toronto Opera.
Passionate about contemporary music composition and performance, Ricardo co-founded Green Room Sound Collective, a contemporary music organization dedicated to the creation and performance of new dramatic and multimedia works of music, where he currently acts as artistic director. He has additionally performed as a conductor and pianist with various groups across Canada and the United States, including the University of Toronto Contemporary Music Ensemble, the Atlantic Music Festival Contemporary Ensemble, Orchestra Breva’s Academy Orchestra, and the Victoria Scholars. Ricardo is currently pursuing a degree in Composition at the University of Toronto, where he studies with Norbert Palej. Previous teachers include Gary Kulesha, Larysa Kuzmenko, and Alexander Rapoport. Ricardo has additionally worked with various composers across North America, including Martin Bresnick, Melinda Wagner, David Ludwig, George Tsontakis, and Reiko Füting. Committed to the field of music education and research himself, Ricardo is the head of composition studies at Sistema Toronto, and has worked for the University of Toronto Faculty of Music History and Theory Department as a guest lecturer and researcher. Recent accomplishments include a Toronto Arts Council Music Project Grant for Fugue State, a chamber opera in one act, a SOCAN Music Creation grant for his multimedia Gallery project in collaboration with Green Room Sound Collective, and participation in the Atlantic Music Festival, where he worked as a composer fellow and a conductor for the festival’s contemporary ensemble. |
|
Adrian Thornton-MarkAdrian Thornton-Mark is a 17 year-old musician and composer from Toronto. He began to play piano at age 4, drums at age 9, and classical percussion at age 12. Throughout highschool, he has played drums and keyboards, and composed in various metal and rock bands, as well as being active in many different projects featured on his YouTube channel and instagram account. He has also played percussion in the Hannaford Youth Brass Bass for 4 years, in which he received second place in their solo competition on xylophone, and has played with Orchestra Toronto. Adrian currently attends the Claude Watson music program at Earl Haig Secondary School, where he composed his piece "Birth Certificate" for the Bedford Trio, and received the Grade 11 music award. His composition style is reflective of his love for metal, progressive rock, and 20th-century classical music. It often includes odd rhythmic concepts, and heavily pattern based ideas.
|
|
Vivian KwokHong Kong-born pianist, violinist, and composer Vivian Kwok is known for her versatility and active engagement in the creation of new music. Over the past four years, Vivian has premiered over 30 works and collaborated with no fewer than 20 composers. As a winner of the University of Toronto Winds Concerto Competition, she will be performing Igor Stravinsky's Concerto for Piano and Winds in the 2021-22 concert season. As a composer, her recent projects include Venus, an art song commissioned and premiered at the Banff EvoFest 2021, as well as Disobedience, an opera for the University of Toronto opera program, which will be premiered in 2022. She has also written for ensembles such as the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, the M.E. LaZerte High School concert band, Concreamus Chamber Choir, and Green Room Sound Collective, in which she is a member. Vivian is currently pursuing her undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto, where she studies piano with Jamie Parker and composition with Abigail Richardson-Schulte. You may learn more at www.viviankwok.com.
|
ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
|
Yang SuiYang is a full-time engineer, a part-time artist, and any-time learner. Yang dabbles in many fields: photography, videography, pixel art, and video game design. He even dares to explore augmented reality (AR) experiences and making art using artificial intelligence (AI). He loves to learn and enjoys the challenge of making something new. Yang is an amateur pianist and draws continuous inspiration from his wife, Bedford Trio’s pianist Jialiang Zhu.
His art piece is called “I Want a Superpower.” This piece explores the intersection of technology and music. Some people have the superhuman power to “see” music as colours. This fascinating synesthetic ability is the inspiration for this art piece. The piece is a real time interactive media visualization. It translates sound into colourful lines and projects them onto a screen. The colour spectrum is mapped onto the musical scale such that a specific musical note is linked with a specific colour. As a result, this piece transforms music, and sound in general, from the auditory domain into the visual domain. This piece aims to give non-synesthetic people a taste of what synesthesia might feel like. It aims to create a different way to experience music and highlight the complex richness of the auditory domain that many of us take for granted. |
|
Alessia DisiminoAlessia's paintings are inspired by concepts, colours, emotion, and intuition. Using acrylic as her medium, Alessia's commissioned works have been influenced by musical excerpts and poetry, to colour schemes and emotional quality, ranging in style from abstract to impressionist modernism with an old-soul charm. Alessia's works have been published in the University of Toronto's Acta Victoriana.
|
|
Parsa FardParsa Fard is a Multimedia Artist based in Toronto, Canada. His work infuses traditional and new media to create multifaceted experiences. Over the years, He has experimented with various styles and mediums, from drawing and painting to 3D animation and sound design. His work explore’s themes surrounding identity and the tension between humans and artificial intelligence.
Parsa is currently a senior at the Claude Watson Visual Arts Program at Earl Haig. Last year, he won a mural art competition hosted by Collecdev. Parsa is also currently part of a youth film production crew @3tvproductions, where he is working as a production designer for an upcoming short film. |
|
Farhad O'NeillFarhad comes from a rich cultural background of Persian and Irish. He is no stranger to the word of Classical and Jazz performance: Farhad’s University studies focused primarily on Music, graduating with a BA in Fine Arts (Music) in 1991. His training in sculpture was primarily self-taught, working with found objects and inspiration from art, critique, and critical thinking of the time. Life after graduation saw extensive travel - Farhad visited major European cities and viewed the work of notable artists. He set up his artistic practice by supporting himself with piano lessons and selling his artwork. Since his first studio opened in 1995 in Belfast, Farhad has worked solely as a visual artist, exhibiting and commissioning works for several countries and private collections.
In 2004, Farhad returned to Canada and resumed his practice, while simultaneously composing works for Canada and several countries abroad. Notable events during this time included several mural commissions for the British Council in Cyprus and Tunisia, the Corpus et Spiritus sculpture commission in 1997, and the Marian Doors of the St. Michael’s Cathedral Basilica in Toronto, a five year project that was finalized and installed in 2019. |
BEDFORD TRIO
Founded in 2016, Bedford Trio is the inaugural piano trio for the Irene R. Miller Piano Trio Residency at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music. During the 2020/21 academic year, the trio hosted and adjudicated the first edition of the University of Toronto Piano Trio Composition Competition and gave a virtual premiere of the winning piece by Katharine Petkovski as part of the Faculty's 2021/2022 New Music Festival. The second annual competition is currently underway, with a winner to be announced in late 2022.
Bedford Trio has performed in Canada, the United States, and Europe. They were a finalist group in the 2018 Anton Rubinstein International Chamber Music in Germany and a semi-finalist group in the 2019 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition in the US. They participated in the Career Development Residency at Ottawa Chamberfest under the mentorship of Gryphon Trio. Despite the challenges presented by the pandemic, the trio performed virtually at several international events in the past year, including the season opening gala concert at the Tartini Conservatory in Trieste, Italy, the 2020 Refugee Student Fund Benefit Concert at the University of Toronto’s Innis College, “Concert in the Cloud,” a virtual concert in China celebrating Beethoven’s 250th birthday, Music in the Atrium at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, and the Skyky Multicultural Learning Foundation’s Youth Fundraising Concert for SickKids Foundation.
Bedford Trio is committed to commissioning and performing contemporary repertoire by both established and emerging composers. Since 2018, the trio has been working with grade 11 composition students at Earl Haig Secondary School, workshopping their compositions throughout the academic year and performing them as part of the year-end showcase. The trio is dedicated to bringing live music performance to a diverse audience and has given recitals in senior residences, community centres, hospices, and hospitals across Ontario. During the 2019-2020 season, the trio delivered sensory-friendly concerts for autistic youth and their families and performed for adults with Alzheimer in collaboration with the charity organization Xenia Concerts.
Bedford Trio was founded by award winning instrumentalists Alessia Disimino (violin), Andrew Ascenzo (cello), and Jialiang Zhu (piano) and is currently based in Toronto, Canada. Bedford Trio is grateful to be working with Toronto-based designer Zvelle, who is the 2021/22 season sponsor. To learn more about Zvelle, please visit zvelle.com. To learn about Bedford Trio’s latest events, please visit bedfordtrio.com/concerts and follow them on Instagram @bedford trio.
Bedford Trio has performed in Canada, the United States, and Europe. They were a finalist group in the 2018 Anton Rubinstein International Chamber Music in Germany and a semi-finalist group in the 2019 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition in the US. They participated in the Career Development Residency at Ottawa Chamberfest under the mentorship of Gryphon Trio. Despite the challenges presented by the pandemic, the trio performed virtually at several international events in the past year, including the season opening gala concert at the Tartini Conservatory in Trieste, Italy, the 2020 Refugee Student Fund Benefit Concert at the University of Toronto’s Innis College, “Concert in the Cloud,” a virtual concert in China celebrating Beethoven’s 250th birthday, Music in the Atrium at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, and the Skyky Multicultural Learning Foundation’s Youth Fundraising Concert for SickKids Foundation.
Bedford Trio is committed to commissioning and performing contemporary repertoire by both established and emerging composers. Since 2018, the trio has been working with grade 11 composition students at Earl Haig Secondary School, workshopping their compositions throughout the academic year and performing them as part of the year-end showcase. The trio is dedicated to bringing live music performance to a diverse audience and has given recitals in senior residences, community centres, hospices, and hospitals across Ontario. During the 2019-2020 season, the trio delivered sensory-friendly concerts for autistic youth and their families and performed for adults with Alzheimer in collaboration with the charity organization Xenia Concerts.
Bedford Trio was founded by award winning instrumentalists Alessia Disimino (violin), Andrew Ascenzo (cello), and Jialiang Zhu (piano) and is currently based in Toronto, Canada. Bedford Trio is grateful to be working with Toronto-based designer Zvelle, who is the 2021/22 season sponsor. To learn more about Zvelle, please visit zvelle.com. To learn about Bedford Trio’s latest events, please visit bedfordtrio.com/concerts and follow them on Instagram @bedford trio.
