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Bekah Simms' varied output has been heralded as “cacophonous, jarring, oppressive — and totally engrossing!” (CBC Music) and “tough, even gutsy...with a sure sense of original and vibrant colours” (Vancouver Sun). Propelled equally by fascination and terror toward the universe, her work is often filtered through the personal lens of her anxiety, resulting in nervous, messy, and frequently heavy musical landscapes.
Bekah hails from St. John's, Newfoundland but is currently Toronto-based. Her music has been widely performed across Canada, in over a dozen American states, and throughout Europe, and interpreted by a range of top-tier performers including Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Esprit Orchestra, Continuum, Ensemble Télémaque and Ensemble Paramirabo.
Bekah has been the recipient of over 25 awards and prizes, including the 2019 Barlow Prize and the 2017 Toronto Emerging Composer Award. Works from her debut album "impurity chains" were nominated in both 2019 and 2020 for the JUNO Award for Classical Composition of the Year. Her music has twice been included in the Canadian Section's official submission to World Music Days (2016 & 2019). Bekah holds a D.M.A. in music composition from the University of Toronto. Her principal teachers during academic studies were Gary Kulesha and Andrew Staniland, alongside significant private study with Clara Iannotta and Martin Bédard.
Bekah Simms' website
Originally from Chicoutimi, Gabriel Dufour-Laperrière lives and works as a composer in Montreal. In 2019, he completed a PhD in composition under Denys Bouliane at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music. His research is focused on the notion of control over the directionality of the musical discourse and the convergence of sound vectors to establish the dynamism of the form.
He is also dedicated to the study and transmission of aural sonology, a method developed by Norwegian composer Lasse Thoresen, which consists of analysis practices to describe, through phenomenology (purely by ear), dimensions of sound neglected by traditional music theory. Gabriel Dufour-Laperrière is a member of the ACTOR (Analysis, Creation, and Teaching of Orchestration) research project.
Among other awards, he has won the 2019 Fernand-Lindsay Prix d’Europe prize for Composition, the first prize in the 2010 Città di Udine competition in the Electroacoustic Music category for his piece Plier-Déplier, three SOCAN Foundation awards and an SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier scholarship. Gabriel’s music is published by BabelScores.
Gabriel Dufour-Laperrière's Soundcloud
Stefan Maier is a composer based in Vancouver, Canada — the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. His compositions, installations, and performances, examine emergent and historical sound technologies. Highlighting material instability and unruliness, his work explores the flows of sonic matter through sound systems, instruments, software, and bodies, to uncover alternate modes of authorship and listening possible within specific technologically-mediated situations.
Stefan works fluidly between contemporary classical music, sound art, experimental electronic music and installation. His work has been presented by Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Kunsthal Aarhus, Ultima festival, SPOR festival, G(o)ng Tomorrow, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, and Unsound Festival among many others. In 2017 he received a Mayor’s Art Award from the City of Vancouver and was a 2019 Macdowell Colony Fellow. Stefan currently lectures in electronic music at Simon Fraser University.
Stefan Maier's website
Matthew Ricketts’ music moves from extremes of presence and absence, from clamor to quietude, at once reticent and flamboyant. It has been noted for its “effervescent and at times prickly sounds” and “hypnotically churning exploration of melody” (ICareIfYouListen) as well as its “tart harmonies and perky sputterings” (The New York Times). He is a 2020 Gaudeamus Award finalist and a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow.
His works have been performed internationally by the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, JACK Quartet, Mivos Quartet, the Fromm Players, Flux Quartet, Quatuor Bozzini, the Chiara String Quartet, Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Talea Ensemble, etc. Matthew was Composer-Collaborator-In-Residence at East Carolina University from 2016-2018. In 2018 Ricketts’ multilingual opera Chaakapesh: The Trickster’s Quest opened the OSM’s 84th season to great critical acclaim.
Matthew is the recipient of fellowships from Civitella Ranieri (2020/2021), MacDowell (2019), the Tanglewood Music Center and the Aspen Music Festival (2017), in addition to the 2016 Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund Prize, the 2016 Jacob Druckman Prize (Aspen Music Festival), the 2015 Salvatore Martirano Memorial Composition Award and eight prizes in the SOCAN Foundation’s Awards for Young Composers. Matthew holds degrees in music composition and theory from McGill University and Columbia University, where he was a Core Lecturer 2017-2020.
Matthew Ricketts' website
