Ottawa New Music Festival 2025

Friday, November 7 @ 7pm - "Awake and Dreaming"

Pianist Katherine Dowling performs Awake and Dreaming, a concert devoted to the piano music of acclaimed Canadian composer Alice Ping-Yee Ho. Spanning 30 years of Ho’s career, this program offers Ottawa audiences a rare chance to experience the evolution of one of Canada’s leading compositional voices.

Saturday, November 8 @ 7pm - "Quigital Corporate Retreat"

Part concert, part installation, and part participatory experience, Quigital Corporate Retreat transforms the Alma Duncan Salon into an immersive “corporate retreat.” Audience members become “attendees,” complete with nametags and an interactive app that guides their movements, groups, and games throughout the evening. Their participation directly shapes the performance by Architek Percussion and Sarah Albu, who act as “retreat facilitators.” Blending music, improvisation, and digital interaction, the work playfully critiques corporate culture while inviting deep audience engagement.

Sunday, November 9 @ 2:30pm - "Community Showcase"

ONMC Artistic Directors SHHH!! Ensemble join Ottawa musicians and OrKidstra students for Jesse Stewart’s In Sea. The concert also features the world premiere of a new work for two violins by emerging composer-in-residence Shanti Sivarulrasa, a violin sonata by Dinuk Wijeratne, plus piano/percussion duo works by Vincent Ho and Jocelyn Morlock performed by SHHH!! Ensemble.

Meet the artists:

SHHH!! Ensemble, piano/percussion duo & artistic directors:

Percussionist Zac Pulak and pianist Edana Higham are the SHHH!! Ensemble, described as “truly virtuosic and intense” (Confluence Concerts) and “a beautiful discovery” by the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec. Their appetite for collaboration and experimentation has led to bold new works written for them by John Beckwith, Frank Horvat, Jocelyn Morlock, Mari Alice Conrad, Harry Stafylakis, Monica Pearce and more.

In February 2023, SHHH!! Ensemble “enthralled” (Winnipeg Free Press) as soloists in the world premiere of Kelly-Marie Murphy’s concerto Machines, Mannequins, and Monsters with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. Other world premieres include JUNO-winning composer Jocelyn Morlock’s Spirit Gradient with the Tuckamore Festival in Newfoundland, and Noora Nakhaei’s Echoes of the Past for the Ottawa International Literary Festival. Across the country, their performances at the Open Ears Festival, New Works Calgary, Ottawa Chamberfest, GroundSwell, the Banff Centre, and for the National Arts Centre captivate audiences and critics with their “avant-accessible” approach, calling them “inspiring” and “inventive”.

SHHH!! Ensemble’s debut album Meanwhile (Analekta), nominated for Classical Recording of the Year at the 2023 East Coast Music Awards, was released in October 2022 to critical acclaim, reaching top positions on Apple Music and Spotify playlists. In the fall of 2023 they released their 2nd CD, a large-scale commission by Toronto composer Frank Horvat on the Leaf Music label, titled An Auditory Survey of the Last Days of the Holocene. La Scena Musicale gave the album a 5-star rating, calling it a “masterpiece” and “a much needed reminder of the world we are all working towards”. 

Katherine Dowling, pianist:

Praised by The New York Times for her “crystalline performances, gestural expressiveness, and careful attention to color,” and by The Boston Globe for her “effortless incisiveness,” award-winning pianist Dr. Katherine Dowling performs widely across North America and Europe as a soloist and chamber musician.

A frequent artist-in-residence at the Orlando Festival (Netherlands) and Avaloch Farm Music Institute (USA), she has held fellowships at the Tanglewood Music Center, Britten-Pears Young Artist Program, and The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. As a soloist and member of Gruppo Montebello, she appears on eight acclaimed recordings on the Etcetera label, with broadcasts on CBC, Radio-Canada, BBC, and National Radio 4 (Netherlands).

Recent highlights include performing Mozart’s Triple Concerto with Angela Hewitt and Silvie Cheng at Ottawa Chamberfest, recital debuts in Vienna and The Hague, national tours with violinist Kerry DuWors, and a recording of Alice Ping-Yee Ho’s piano works for Leaf Music. She has premiered over twenty-five new works by composers such as Louis Andriessen and John Harbison.

Katherine credits pianist Gilbert Kalish and conductors Henk Guittart and Oliver Knussen as formative influences.

Architek Percussion, percussion quartet:

The Montreal-based quartet ARCHITEK PERCUSSION creates artistic experiences that entertain, captivate, and challenge audiences, often simultaneously. Founded in 2012 by members of McGill University’s Percussion Studio, Architek is equally comfortable performing classic quartet repertoire and exploring new terrain through commissions and premieres, often using instrument batteries that extend far beyond the traditional arsenal of instruments associated with percussion. Architek regularly performs in Montreal, having partnered with Codes d’Acces, Innovations en Concert, Le Vivier, Suoni per Il Popolo, Montréal/Nouvelles Musiques, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the Montreal Museum of Fine Art, the Pointe-a-Calliere Museum, and the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT). In addition, the quartet has collaborated extensively with the Montreal Arts Council’s CAM En Tournée program, which presents free, accessible arts programming across the 19 boroughs and 15 independent municipalities that comprise the Island of Montreal.

Architek regularly concertizes and conducts educational outreach across Canada, collaborating with New Music Edmonton, the Winnipeg New Music Festival, The Cluster Festival of Music and Integrated Art (Winnipeg), Jeunesses Musicales Canada, Debut Atlantic, Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, Music on Main (Vancouver), The University of Toronto New Music Festival, The Music Gallery (Toronto), New Music Concerts (Toronto), the Scotia Festival of Music (Halifax), and nearly all of Canada’s post-secondary music institutions. Architek’s international touring has taken them across Northern Europe in collaboration with the Ultima Festival (Oslo), NyMusikk Bergen, NTNU (Trondheim), Fylkingen (Stockholm), the Universities of Glasgow and Huddersfield (UK), Rainy Days Festival (Luxembourg), and the Royal College of Music (Stockholm).

Architek has commissioned and/or premiered over 60 works by composers from around the world. Several of these commissions have led to commercial recording projects, of which Architek appears on eight: Bookburners (Nicole Lizée / Centrediscs, 2014), A Boat Upon its Blood (Jason Sharp / Constellation Records, 2016), Metatron (Eliot Britton / Ambiances Magnétiques, 2017), Katana of Choice (Ben Reimer / Redshift Records, 2017), The Privacy of Domestic Life (Architek Percussion / Centrediscs, 2018), Six Changes (Architek Percussion 2022), Call Sign (Architek Percussion, 2022), and Apparitions vol. I (Olivier Alary / Line Imprints, 2023). Architek’s remarkably diverse artistic output is guided by the quartet’s belief that, given proper context, every audience member should feel welcomed, included, and challenged. Architek Percussion is Noam Bierstone, Ben Duinker, Alexander Haupt, and Alessandro Valiante.

Sarah Albu, soprano:

Sarah Albu is a singer, composer and performance-maker based in Tio'tia:ke (Montréal, Canada) and Berlin.

Her background in theatre and obsession with science fiction feed quirky and darkly comedic imagined worlds. She has been an invited artist at the Banff Centre for the Arts, the National Arts Centre of Canada, the Koumaria Residency in Greece, the Summertónar Festival in Tórshavn (Faroe Islands), Finland's Saari Residency and international series and festivals across Canada, Europe, the US and Mexico. She moves fluidly between different forms, genres and collaborations. Known for her captivating stage presence and natural ease in roles ranging from dramatic to slapstick comedy, she is praised for her precision, agile soprano register and her versatility as an adventurous vocalist specializing in avant-garde, contemporary and experimental music/stage work.

She works across genres from Balkan village music and ancient polyphony to film and game soundtracks (notably Resident Evil 8), noise and psychedelic rock. She is a founding member of the experimental vocal collective Phth and frequently collaborates with artists working in video, installation, contemporary dance, textiles and digital media. 

Her first solo album was released independently in 2013, featuring 8 commissions for solo voice. She has contributed to recordings with a wide array of artists as a guest vocalist. 2023 saw her release an album of Gayle Young's complete vocal works spanning from 1978-2021.

She has premiered and produced many new works and contemporary opera roles in close cooperation with composers and new media artists including James O'Callaghan, Gabriel Dharmoo, Gayle Young, Patrick Saint-Denis, Keiko Devaux, Tomomi Adachi, Charles Quevillon and Tedd Robinson(10 Gates Dancing), Snežana Nešić, Sam Shalabi, Will Eizlini,  and Rita Ueda, among others. She performs as a soloist and internationally with bands and ensembles such as Ensemble Paramirabo, l'Ensemble contemporain de Montréal, No Hay Banda, Architek Percussion, Land of Kush, the Sam Shalabi Septet, the Vancouver Intercultural Orchestra and collectif9.

She is the voice of all of the characters in interdisciplinary duo Chloë Lum and Yannick Desranleau's (of Seripop/noise-rock group AIDS Wolf) six part video installation The Garden of a Former House Turned Museum, for which she also acted, danced and consulted on the writing process. Artistic and music direction credits include a film adaption of Claude Vivier’s lush and cosmic Love Songs, a commission supported by Groupe Le Vivier, premiered in March 2023 at the Festival International du Film sur l'Art. As a student in Jennifer Walshe and David Helbich's Composer-Performer course, she workshopped and performed her modular participatory work FutureMoves at the Darmstadt Summer Course and Festival for New Music in Germany and subsequently toured the work throughout the Nordic countries.

She holds BFAs in Theatre and Music Performance from Concordia University and an MMus from the Royal Conservatory of the Hague (Netherlands). An avid knitter and folk dancer, her recent performance work explores the effects of rapidly developing technology on our bodies and lives through a mix of curiosity and nostalgia.

Shanti Sivarulrasa, composer & violinist:

Born in Ottawa, Ontario, Shanti Sivarulrasa (b. 2003) is a composer and violinist based in Kjipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia). She is in her final year of the Bachelor of Music program at Dalhousie University on a four-year Fountain Performing Arts Scholarship. Shanti is pursuing a concentration in composition, studying composition with Dr. Jerome Blais and violin with Dr. Leonardo Perez. Her previous composition teachers include Amy Brandon and Dr. Matthias McIntire.

Shanti made her professional solo debut with Symphony Nova Scotia and conductor Karl Hirzer in 2025 performing her composition Chrysalis for solo violin and orchestra as part of the Open Waters Festival. She served as the Concertmaster of the Dalhousie Symphony Orchestra from 2022 to 2024. Shanti is also a three-time winner of the Dalhousie Concerto Night Competition and is the recipient of more than a dozen academic and artistic scholarships. Most recently, Shanti was awarded the Music’s Future Scholarship by the New York- based Music Performance Trust Fund, recognizing her as one of thirty current and future leaders in the music industry across North America. Shanti is also the recipient of several awards from Dalhousie University including the Elisabeth Meyerhof Scholarship in Music, the Jay MacLellan Family Award for Music Leadership, the Evanov Radio Group Scholarship, and the Djokic Family Prize for Excellence in Performance.

Shanti has completed several composition workshops with institutions such as the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance (Lunenburg, NS) and Arraymusic (Toronto, ON). She has also completed composition intensives, notably with composer Dr. Alyssa Weinberg and cellist Gabriel Cabezas (Brooklyn, NY). In 2024, Shanti was selected for the Earshot Readings with the National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa, ON).

Shanti is the co-founder and co-creative director of the Nuovo Contemporary Concert Series, a series dedicated to showcasing new works by Halifax-based composers. She is also the first violinist and a founding member of the Rostova String Quartet, a group performing classical and contemporary music. Beyond her work as a composer and performer, Shanti is a violin teacher at Long and McQuade and runs a free violin program for newcomers to Canada at the YMCA Centre for Immigrant Programs in Halifax.

We can't wait for YOU to hear THIS!

ONMC's 2025 Festival is made possible through the generous support of the City of Ottawa, the Canadian Music Centre, and community partnerships with the Ottawa Art Gallery and Steinway Piano Gallery Ottawa.

ONMC is committed to showcasing the very best in new music, with a focus on Canadian and Ottawa-based artists. The Ottawa New Music Festival's 2025 feature 100% Canadian music! Elbows up!