Membership

There is something vividly distinct about Mehdizadeh's music. This Canadian composer is revered for his intricate, unpredictable and haunting works. The sound and gesture of his pieces bury themselves deep in complex imagination—participating you in an exploration of uncertain visceral implications. His unique musical language is perceived as complex yet engaging, bringing together a hybrid of musical expression including the Mehdizadeh Modes.

Jack Hui Litster is a graduate student in the Music and Culture program at Carleton University, where he studies composition with Dr. James K. Wright, and is a research assistant to Jesse Stewart. Jack's new baroque/Celtic chamber opera titled 'The Day You Were Born' will be premiered in May 2021 by OperOttawa.

Using atonal language, Sanchez’s music testifies to his cultural roots, without borrowing from folklore, however. One example of this is his work Tatei Ja Urima (goddess of water) for flute, oboe, clarinet, piano, violin and cello. This piece, which subjectively explores the Huichols’ ceremonial rites and their vision of the cosmos, features a personal approach to modern composition techniques. Tlahtolli, for clarinet, percussion and voice (commissioned), is another example.

Mackenzie Carroll is a Canadian contemporary composer and classical/contemporary double bassist currently based in Ottawa. She is presently studying towards a master’s in music composition at the University of Ottawa with John Armstrong.

Matthew-John is a composer and pianist who lives and works in Ottawa, Ontario. He graduated from the University of Ottawa in 2017 with a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance, in which he studied with Andrew Tunis. Multiple injuries pushed Matthew-John to find other avenues of music to explore, and luckily, composition became the perfect fit. He spent a year away from school to re-orient his academic goals and begin building a portfolio by studying with with Dr. Kelly- Marie Murphy. Currently, he is finishing his Master of Music in Composition at the University of Ottawa with Kelly-Marie Murphy. Now he is looking at doctoral studies with the intention of eventually working as a freelance composer and a professor at a Canadian university.

Julian Bertino was born in a small town in Ontario, Canada. He has studied guitar with Patrick Roux, Philip Candelaria, Denis Donegani, Dr. Matthew Gould (of Duo46), Louis Trepanier, and composition with Dr. John Gordon Armstrong and Dr. Frederic Lacroix. He has premiered compositions and performed in masterclasses and festivals, including performances for Johannes Möller, Sergio Assad, Marcin Dylla, Bruce Holzman, Adam Holzman, Nicholas Goluses, Lorenzo Micheli and Matteo Mela (SoloDuo), and others.

Joanna Estelle (Storoschuk) is a Canadian composer, lyricist, and arranger whose music has won critical acclaim from Parliament Hill, Ottawa to London (UK), Barcelona (Spain), and elsewhere around the world.

Maria Atallah is a Canadian composer, pianist and teacher from Ottawa. In 2015, she received a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Ottawa under the guidance of John Armstrong and Frédéric Lacroix in composition as well as Andrew tunis in piano.

Born in Vancouver, BC, Jason Fung spent his early years in Hong Kong, taking piano lessons from age seven. Upon his subsequent return to Canada, he began formal studies with Dina Namer of Queen’s University, graduating with a Bachelor’s of Music with Distinction in 2016. He is now studying at the University of Ottawa for a Master's in Music under David Jalbert.

Eleanore Altman studied voice with Beverly McGuire and Colette Boky, and composition with Alan Belkin and Lisa Heffter. She studied at the Atelier d’Opéra de l’UQÀM in Montreal, as well as at Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Benjamin Sajo is an Ottawa-based composer and educator. His love of comparative mythology, multiculturalism, folklore, social justice, literature and visual art inspires a writing imbued with a post-modern aesthetic: mixing the tools and tricks of the past into decidedly modern, fiery, magic.

Guitarist, composer, performer, improviser — Roddy Ellias draws from so many musical influences his work defies labels. As each piece unfolds it tells its own unique story — eclectic, intense, rhythmic, powerful, and ultimately human.

Colin Frank is a Canadian percussionist, composer, and electronic musician born in Ottawa. Trained orchestrally, but influenced by a variety of genres, Colin specializes in performing and creating contemporary music.

Viktoria Grynenko is a young emerging performer born in Kyiv, Ukraine. She studied at the Kyiv Children's Academy of Arts and later at the Kyiv Glier Music College with well known Leonid Schuhman. Viktoria is a winner of two international competitions of Ignacy Paderewski (3rd prize, 2011) and "The Art of the XXI Century" (3rd prize, 2011).

Derek is a singer, songwriter, and composer based in the Ottawa area. He is primarily a composer, having not studied any instrument at a post-secondary level, but is a capable singer as well as a passable guitarist. His interests involve experimental art music, and his specific influences include a wide range of artists, from the classical modernists of Charles Ives, Claude Debussy, and Igor Stravinsky, to the mid-20th century experimentalists John Cage and Earle Brown, all the way into modern and ongoing artists such as Nirvana, Bright Eyes, and The Tragically Hip.

Daniel Ramjattan started performing on the guitar at ten years old in Stratford, Ontario. Since then, he has become increasingly distinguished in Canada. He received first prize in the Open Level of the Ontario Music Festivals Association Provincial Guitar competition in 2014, and placed third in the National Music Competition in 2014.

Originally from South Africa, Steven Webb (b.1989) is a Toronto based performer,
composer, and audio engineer, currently completing his Masters in Composition at
the University of Toronto under the direction of Dr. Christos Hatzis.