≈ 80 minutes · No intermission
Last updated: March 1, 2019
Reflection: Christopher Deacon
On May 19, 2016, Canada’s NAC Orchestra performed the world premiere of Life Reflected. It was the most ambitious concert in the history of the Orchestra, for many reasons. It was created by multiple composers, in collaboration with multiple artists, across many disciplines. Its multimedia presentation challenged the convention of what an orchestra concert could be.
But the work’s true power lies in its subject matter – stories that present the female perspectives of four remarkable Canadians: Alice Munro, Amanda Todd, Roberta Bondar and Rita Joe. Each faced great challenges in their lives, yet each spoke with a strong, distinct voice that made an impact on our world. In 2017, Life Reflected was performed in cities across Canada during the Orchestra’s Canada 150 Tour, to great acclaim. This spring, the Orchestra will be performing this ambitious, truly Canadian work for international audiences during its European Tour in honour of the NAC’s 50th anniversary.
Tonight, on International Women’s Day, we are proud to share Life Reflected with you once more. And we are honoured that the internationally renowned Inuit throat-singer Tanya Tagaq is performing once again on our stage. Enjoy the concert.
Reflection: Alexander Shelley
Tonight’s program brings the voices of women to the forefront. I am honoured to share the stage with the powerful, visionary Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq. Her lament – an improvisation on the lament for missing and murdered Indigenous women – is a new experience each time it is performed.
Life Reflected tells powerful stories through the eyes, ears and words of some of Canada’s finest creative artists. It is an immersive, multidisciplinary work without an interval, an unbroken, focused, intense and dramatic experience from beginning to end.
During the creation of this unique symphonic experience, it has been an honour to bring together four exemplary Canadian composers in collaboration with an ensemble of extraordinary Canadian performers and multi-media artists, all under the inspiring leadership of Creative Producer & Director Donna Feore.
Canadian arts and culture continue to captivate audiences worldwide thanks to compelling stories such as those of these remarkable women, each of whom found voice through sacrifice and challenge. They have been an inspiration to me. And while some of the subject matter is born from painful memories, it is my belief that Life Reflected will prove a redeeming and hopeful experience for us all.
Life Reflected: Reflection
Donna Feore, Creative Producer & Director, Life Reflected
Life Reflected explores the lives of four exceptional Canadian women. Alice Munro, Roberta Bondar, Amanda Todd and Rita Joe, each in their own unique way, encourage us to see, and to see with fresh eyes. My challenge was to find a way of telling their stories in an orchestral setting that embraced their vision. Believing that many heads are better than one, I assembled an exceptional group of collaborators who drew their inspiration from these extraordinary women. And though each element is capable of standing alone, we built on the impact of the foundational orchestral work of four magical composers led by the incomparable Alexander Shelley, in the hope that we might arrive somewhere new.
The brilliant visual design team at Normal Studio became the heartbeat of our effort. They made it possible to integrate the work of our wonderful collaborators – musicians, photographers, filmmakers, actors, dancers and singers – into a seamless whole.
Dr. Bondar has seen us from afar. Alice Munro has seen us from within. Amanda Todd shared her heart and Rita Joe shared her soul. I hope the experience of Life Reflected will thrill and move you as much as it has enlightened and inspired me.
Dear Life: Reflection
Merilyn Simonds, author
When the NAC Orchestra approached me to adapt Alice Munro’s story “Dear Life” for symphony, I was in the process of reading all of Alice Munro’s short stories, in order. Rereading, rather, as I had waited impatiently for each new story to appear since I read Dance of the Happy Shades as a girl of eighteen. I grew up in a small town not far from Alice Munro’s home town, longing like her to escape. As I became a writer and got to know her, I was inspired by her unsentimental, clear-eyed embrace of the world she was born into, a world she has explored in literature for 50 years.
From her most recent story of several thousand words, I was asked to distill a work of only 500 words that would be the basis for the symphony and for Martha Henry’s recording. All of the words are Alice Munro’s; I have added none of my own, though the order of some events has been shifted for clarity.
It is a testament to Alice Munro’s generosity as a writer that she welcomes the creative play that an adaptation entails. And it is a testament to the authenticity and purity of her prose that such distillation is possible, the essence of her characters and themes vitally present in this new version of “Dear Life.”
My Name is Amanda Todd: Reflection
Carol Todd, mother of Amanda Todd
Having my daughter remembered in a production produced by the National Arts Centre, alongside three notable Canadian women, is an honour in itself, and those of us who knew Amanda are so very proud of this.
Missing Amanda has played a huge part in my life and it was difficult for me to envision what the NAC wanted to create and present, but as time went on, the vision became clearer. Giving permission to use Amanda’s story in a venue of both visual and performing arts was a dream come true for Amanda’s Legacy. My daughter evolved around the sights and sounds of both art and music.
When I first met Donna Feore it was like meeting an old friend and getting reacquainted. Stories were shared and ideas crystallized. For the next year and a half, we stayed in communication. Listening to the music with Donna and Normal Studio for the first time was very emotional for me. It evoked emotions of joy, anger, sadness, and then peace. Together, we sat in silence with emotional tears in our eyes. I have no doubt that my daughter will be portrayed as a beautiful snowflake, symbolic of her unique individualism and fragility.
I want to express my appreciation to those who believe that there was a message of HOPE within Amanda’s story, and to send a message of thanks to those who BELIEVE and CARE. The NAC team worked to create a truer meaning of Amanda with her legacy – a spectacular representation of my snowflake princess Amanda in a production called Life Reflected.
I Lost My Talk: Reflection
Tekaronhiáhkhwa Santee Smith, film choreographer
Rita Joe’s simple and poignant poem I Lost My Talk reflects the complexity of First Nations people’s residential school experience and the resulting intergenerational trauma which still plays out in today’s society. As an artist, I can identify with Rita Joe’s wish to share her stories and experience with the goal to empower and educate. It is important to keep telling our narratives, which originate from the land, language and ancestral knowing, to continue to write, speak and dance our existence. As we look to the hope of reconciliation, let it move beyond an intellectual concept into embodied actions, and away from reconciling ourselves to colonialism.
Frances Sylliboy, daughter of Rita Joe
I have always called my mom a genius. She was a very determined woman, who did so much for so many. Through her words, she stood up and won the fight.
When she first moved to Eskasoni, she was teased about her broken Mi’kmaw language. When I read the first paragraph of her poem I Lost My Talk, it says a lot.
Mom used to say she would become famous after she dies. And lo and behold, her poem is now a film and musical piece.
We were so excited to see the finished production of her poem. At the premiere, when we entered the NAC, it felt like a dream. Hearing our mother’s words spoken out loud by Monique Mojica for the first time, it brought life to the poem. It was a moment that we will never forget. I felt very emotional. I was overwhelmed when the music started and the film played on screen. There was a moment when I grabbed my husband’s shoulder to cry, but I quickly got my composure back because I did not want to miss a second of the show.
We would like to thank Alexander Shelley, John Estacio, the NAC Orchestra, Donna Feore and all the staff at the NAC who did a marvelous job.
Upon seeing this performance I believe my mom was dancing for joy. She was indeed a gentle warrior and the legacy she has left behind gives Mi’kmaq children hope for the future.
I Lost My Talk: Film credits
Performers
Kennedy Bomberry
Jesse Dell
Josh DePerry
Ascension Harjo
William Merasty
Monique Mojica
Nimkii Osawamick
Tekaronhiáhkhwa Santee Smith
Montana Summers
Alex Twin
Normal Studio (Montréal), Visual & Stage Design
Samuel Greffe, Producer, Normal
Frédéric Cordier, Multimedia Director, Normal
Michel Greco, Editor & Colourist
Milan Podsedly CSC, Director of Photography
Susanne Ritzau, Line Producer
Trinni Franke, Associate Producer
Ryan Port, First Assistant Director
Paul Roberts, Second Assistant Director
Ariana Shaw, Third Assistant Director
Ann Baggley, Assistant to Donna Feore
Chrisann Hessing, Production Coordinator
Forbes Campbell, Script Supervisor
Teresa Przybylski, Costume Design
Michelle Tracey, Alex Mancini, Michelle Rivers, Costume Assistant
Andrea Heldman, Key Hair & Makeup
Heather Snowie, Hair & Makeup
Sasha Moric, Camera Operator – Ronin
Lori Longstaff, Tony Lippa, First Assistant Camera
Aaron Mallin, Bart Bialasik, Second Assistant Camera
Chris Bacik, Silvio Bulgaret, Drone Operator
James Thurston, Gaffer
Paul Gettlich, Electric
Tom O’Reilly, Key Grip
Allan Schwartzenberger, Technical Supervisor – Data Management
Laury Dubé, Assistant Editor
Chris Daellenbach, Peter Oundjian, Production Assistants
Doug Pawis, Sharon Nanibush, Nathan Pamajewon, Debra Stanger, Mary J. Acosta , Background Performers
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Special Thanks
Monica Côté, A.J. Demers, Milton Howe, Eugene Watts, Donna Zuchlinski, OMDC, Killbear Provincial Park
Produced by Willis Sweete Productions for the National Arts Centre, 2016
In Appreciation
The National Arts Centre Foundation would like to thank the following individuals and organizations for their support in helping Alexander Shelley realize his vision of promoting and investing in new Canadian work.
For more information about Life Reflected and how to support the National Arts Centre Creation Campaign, please contact the NAC Foundation at 613 947-7000 x315 or nacfoundation@nac-cna.ca.
The Gail Asper Family Foundation
The Azrieli Foundation
Kimberley Bozak & Philip Deck
Bonnie & John Buhler
Alice & Grant Burton
The Canavan Family Foundation
The Right Honourable Joe Clark, P.C., C.C., A.O.E. & Maureen McTeer
Michel, Anju, Roman & Angelica Collette
Barbara Crook & Dan Greenberg, Danbe Foundation
Thomas d’Aquino & Susan Peterson d’Aquino
Ian & Kiki Delaney
Amoryn Engel
Mohammed A. Faris
Susan Glass & Arni Thorsteinson
Ressa Greenberg
Shirley Greenberg, C.M.
Dr. Dianne Kipnes, C.M. & Mr. Irving Kipnes, C.M.
Dr. Kanta Marwah
Janice & Earle O’Born
Gail O’Brien, LL.D. & David O’Brien, O.C.
Onex Corporation
Power Corporation of Canada
The Alan & Roula Rossy Family Foundation
John & Jennifer Ruddy
Alexander Shelley & Zoe Shelley
Dasha Shenkman, OBE, Hon RCM
Carolyn & Scott Shepherd
Eli & Philip Taylor
Donald T. Walcot
Famille Zed Family
Anonymous (1)
The National Arts Centre would like to thank:
Alice Munro and Family
Joe Family
Community of Eskasoni
Carol Todd
Roberta Bondar
CBC
Canada’s Walk of Fame
Repertoire
Qiksaaktuq
Qiksaaktuq is the Inuktitut word for grief. This piece is dedicated to missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, and to those who grieve for them.
Qiksaaktuq is written in five movements based on the Kübler-Ross model of the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. We sought to create a work that combines improvisation and notation, and captures the methods and spirit of a Tanya Tagaq performance.
Jean Martin created an orchestral score (with the invaluable assistance of Christopher Mayo) comprising ideas from tracks and loops that have been part of Martin’s work with Tagaq over the years. To this, we have added hand cues with which Christine Duncan will freely conduct the brass section, cues she regularly employs with the Element Choir, the improvising vocal ensemble that has performed with Tagaq since 2014. Within this framework, Tagaq will create her part in real time. She will improvise a powerful lament for those women and girls who have been lost.
All of these components are essential in the creation of the composed/improvised – or ‘comprovised’ – piece, Qiksaaktuq.
— Christine Duncan
Qiksaaktuq was commissioned by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra with financial support from the Government of Canada for performance in March 2017, during the 150th Anniversary of Confederation of Canada.
Dear Life, based on the short story by Alice Munro (adapted by Merilyn Simonds)
I received the invitation to write Dear Life just days before giving birth to my first child. Although my better judgment told me that composing an orchestral work of this proportion in the early months of motherhood was total insanity, there was something about the project that lured me in. Perhaps it was the story. Munro’s words struck a chord: a portrait of a mother-daughter relationship over a lifetime, an artist coming into her own, realizing her “Otherness” but also the universality of lived experience. I admired Munro’s flow, her flashes of memories half-recalled, perhaps fictional, perhaps autobiographical – ambiguous and at times startlingly straightforward.
And so, I have attempted to tell the story in my way: through music, sound, and experimentation. Martha Henry’s voice guides us through the adapted text as our trusted narrator. The singer, however, is treated differently. Her material is made of fragmented text and invented sounds, a visceral response bridging the divide between the abstractness of the music and the concreteness of the spoken word. Her presence comes in and out of focus both musically and dramaturgically. At the beginning, her voice is fused with the orchestra, but gradually she emerges as a distinct, independent entity.
The orchestra wavers between absolute music (non-representational textures, sometimes static, sometimes spastic), and what I think of as archetypal music – music from our collective unconscious; memory music, rusty warped hymns, the sound of migrating flocks, a melody sung to oneself, the embodiment of nostalgia via the re-orchestrated sound of phonograph static. This is the spectrum from which I work to try to create different musical spaces, from the story within the story (the Netterfield fable), to the doggerel poem sung near the end of the work. Under the pastoral beauty of these reminiscences lurks the thrill of danger, violence, misfortune, and yet forgiveness and acceptance is what we walk away with. There is something so fundamentally human about this story.
Alice Munro once wrote: “A story is not like a road to follow…it’s more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth […]. And you, the visitor, are altered as well by being in this enclosed space, whether it is ample and easy or full of crooked turns, or sparsely or opulently furnished. You can go back again and again, and the house, the story, always contains more than you saw the last time.”1
It is in this way, I hope, that listeners will experience my house of sound.
— Zosha Di Castri
1 Introduction to the Vintage Edition, Selected Stories, 1968–1994 (New York: Vintage Books, 1996).
My Name is Amanda Todd
The late Jocelyn Morlock (1969–2023) was one of Canada’s leading composers, who wrote compelling music that has been recorded extensively and receives numerous performances and broadcasts throughout North America and Europe. Born in Winnipeg, she studied piano at Brandon University, and later earned a master’s degree and a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of British Columbia, where she was recently an instructor and lecturer of composition. The inaugural composer-in-residence for Vancouver’s Music on Main Society (2012–14), she took on the same role for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra from 2014 to 2019.
Jocelyn had close ties with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, who in 2015, commissioned My Name is Amanda Todd, a powerful work about the teen from Port Coquitlam, BC, who took her own life due to cyberbullying. It subsequently won the 2018 JUNO Award for Classical Composition for the Year.
Here’s her description of the work:
When I first approached writing this piece, I was focused on what happened to Amanda, and was feeling how devastating it must be to have people endlessly sharing bad messages and comments about you, especially at such a young age. That negativity seemed overwhelming. When talking to her mother, Carol Todd, and to the NAC Orchestra’s Christopher Deacon, I became aware of how transformational and empowering it would be for this young girl, Amanda, to take control and to tell her own story on this very same platform that people were using against her.
When I met Carol, she told me about all the places that she would be speaking, because people finally recognize the need to do something to stop cyberbullying. She told me about the kids who reach out to her and are looking for help, or who reach out to her to tell her that Amanda’s videos and her story have helped them; kids who, because of Amanda and Carol, found hope in their situation. I’m left with a feeling of profound joy in Amanda’s bravery, and Carol’s message.
Musically, the opening of the piece My Name is Amanda Todd draws first on overwhelming sorrow, which grows into a furtive, somewhat frenzied negative energy, like the uncontrolled proliferation of negative comments and images. I then use almost the same musical material (very similar small gestures, pitches, and rhythms) and gradually modify it to create increasingly powerful, positive music.
Bondarsphere
This work is the result of immersing myself in hours of footage from Dr. Roberta Bondar’s collection, at once becoming enthralled, mesmerized and deeply moved. The soundtrack is built from the material extracted from this footage: the pitch inflection in Dr. Bondar’s voice as she describes the view of Canada from space (her filtered voice – the otherworldly sound of ‘speaking from space’), the poetry expressed in her acceptance speech at Canada’s Walk of Fame, the nostalgia of the resonances and timbres of iconic Canadian news anchors, and the exalted celebration of the children gathered in Sault Ste. Marie to welcome her back after her time in space. These are captured and shaped into musical building blocks; stretched, pitchshifted, spliced, and woven together to create themes, basso continuos, chants, canons and chorales with which the live orchestra engages – colouring, enhancing and harmonizing.
Referencing Dr. Bondar’s eight days in space, my intention for each of the eight movements is to harness the sounds and sights – to stop time for a moment, dive into each scene and build an experience. To realize the emotion inherent in Dr. Bondar’s incredible achievements while using my language and aesthetic to sonically and visually express the impact that these accomplishments have had on the world.
— Nicole Lizée
I Lost My Talk, based on the poem by Rita Joe
In fifteen lines of poetry, Rita Joe’s poem I Lost My Talk captures the discombobulating fear of being forced to leave one’s culture. Just as the poem is divided into four stanzas, the composition is divided into four uninterrupted movements. A bucolic flute solo captures the narrator’s life prior to attending Shubenacadie residential school. Strings play a hymn that suddenly transforms into a harsh musical environment; the flute melody is now fractured and lost within a foreign tonal soundscape. Throughout the second movement, as shattered musical themes recover, the percussion and lower brass frequently interrupt, forcing the melody to regroup and move forward into an atmosphere that becomes relentlessly oppressive. With the words “you snatched it away,” an aggressive third movement begins; the solo flute returns, swept up in frantic momentum. A percussion solo ushers the return of the hymn, now fraught and anguished. With the text “two ways I talk,” the hymn is played in two different keys simultaneously. With “I offer my hand,” the noble fourth movement begins; here, an anthem for reconciliation soars as the narrator finds the courage to act as an ambassador, bringing peace and understanding to two different cultures as well as her own life.
— John Estacio
Artists
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“A natural communicator, both on and off the podium” (The Telegraph), Alexander Shelley performs across six continents with the world’s finest orchestras and soloists.
With a conducting technique described as “immaculate” (Yorkshire Post) and a “precision, distinction and beauty of gesture not seen since Lorin Maazel” (Le Devoir), Shelley is known for the clarity and integrity of his interpretations and the creativity and vision of his programming. He has spearheaded over 40 major world premieres to date, including highly praised cycles of Beethoven, Schumann and Brahms symphonies, operas, ballets, and innovative multi-media productions.
Since 2015, he has served as Music Director of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra and Principal Associate Conductor of London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. In April 2023, he was appointed Artistic and Music Director of Artis–Naples in Florida, providing artistic leadership for the Naples Philharmonic and the entire multidisciplinary arts organization. The 2024–2025 season is Shelley’s inaugural season in this position. In addition to his other conducting roles, the Pacific Symphony in Los Angeles’s Orange County announced Shelley’s appointment as its next Artistic and Music Director. The initial five-year term begins in the 2026–2027 season, with Shelley serving as Music Director-Designate from September 2025.
Additional 2024–2025 season highlights include performances with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Colorado Symphony, the National Philharmonic in Warsaw, the Seattle Symphony, the Chicago Civic Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra (Ireland). Shelley is a regular guest with some of the finest orchestras of Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Australasia, including Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Helsinki, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, Malaysian, Oslo, Rotterdam and Stockholm philharmonic orchestras, and the Sao Paulo, Houston, Seattle, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Montreal, Toronto, Munich, Singapore, Melbourne, Sydney, and New Zealand symphony orchestras.
In September 2015, Shelley succeeded Pinchas Zukerman as Music Director of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, the youngest in its history. The ensemble has since been praised as “an orchestra transformed ... hungry, bold, and unleashed” (Ottawa Citizen), and his programming is credited for turning the orchestra “almost overnight ... into one of the more audacious orchestras in North America” (Maclean’s). Together, they have undertaken major tours of Canada, Europe, and Carnegie Hall, where they premiered Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 13.
They have commissioned ground-breaking projects such as Life Reflected and Encount3rs, released multiple Juno-nominated albums and, most recently, responded to the pandemic and social justice issues of the era with the NACO Live and Undisrupted video series.
In August 2017, Shelley concluded his eight-year tenure as Chief Conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, a period hailed by press and audiences alike as a golden era for the orchestra.
Shelley’s operatic engagements have included The Merry Widow and Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet (Royal Danish Opera), La bohème (Opera Lyra/National Arts Centre), Louis Riel (Canadian Opera Company/National Arts Centre), lolanta (Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen), Così fan tutte (Opéra national de Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon), The Marriage of Figaro (Opera North), Tosca (Innsbruck), and both Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni in semi-staged productions at the NAC.
Winner of the ECHO Music Prize and the Deutsche Grunderpreis, Shelley was conferred with the Cross of the Federal Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in April 2023 in recognition of his services to music and culture.
Through his work as Founder and Artistic Director of the Schumann Camerata and their pioneering “440Hz” series in Dusseldorf, as founding Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen’s “Zukunftslabor” and through his regular tours leading the National Youth Orchestra of Germany, inspiring future generations of classical musicians and listeners has always been central to Shelley’s work.
He regularly gives informed and passionate pre- and post-concert talks on his programs, as well as numerous interviews and podcasts on the role of classical music in society. In Nuremberg alone, over nine years, he hosted over half a million people at the annual Klassik Open Air concert, Europe’s largest classical music event.
Born in London in October 1979 to celebrated concert pianists, Shelley studied cello and conducting in Germany and first gained widespread attention when he was unanimously awarded first prize at the 2005 Leeds Conductors Competition, with the press describing him as “the most exciting and gifted young conductor to have taken this highly prestigious award.”
The Music Director role is supported by Elinor Gill Ratcliffe, C.M., ONL, LL.D. (hc).
Donna Feore is one of Canada’s most versatile creative talents and has been highly praised for her work with the Stratford Festival. She directed and choreographed last season’s smash hit, The Sound of Music, which enjoyed an extended run. This came on the heels of her 2014 production of the popular and critical hit Crazy for You, which itself followed her hugely acclaimed production of Fiddler on the Roof.
She returns to the NAC, having recently acted as Creative Producer & Director for the NAC-commissioned Dear Life and Director for Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Other directing credits include Tom Stoppard’s Rock & Roll and It’s a Wonderful Life for Canadian Stage, and Lecture on the Weather by John Cage and A Soldier’s Tale with F. Murray Abraham for the Detroit Symphony.
Selected opera credits include staging and choreography for the Canadian Opera Company’s Siegfried, which she remounted for the Opéra National de Lyon. Also for the COC: Tosca, Red Emma and Oedipus Rex, which earned her a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Best Choreography.
Selected film and television credits include Mean Girls, Eloise, Treading Water, Politics is Cruel, Martin and Lewis and Stormy Weather. In 2016, Ms. Feore will direct and choreograph a completely reimagined version of A Chorus Line for the Stratford Festival.
Zosha Di Castri is a Canadian composer/pianist living in New York. Her work (which has been performed in Canada, the U.S., South America and Europe) extends beyond purely concert music, including projects with electronics, sound arts, and collaborations with video and dance.
Ms. Di Castri's orchestral compositions have been commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony, New World Symphony and Esprit Symphony, and have been featured by the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Amazonas Philharmonic and the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, among others. She has also worked with many leading new music groups including Talea Ensemble, Wet Ink and the NEM.
Zosha Di Castri was the recipient of the Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music for her work Cortège in 2012. She completed a Bachelor of Music at McGill University, and in 2009, participated in the NAC Composer Program as part of the Summer Music Institute. She has a doctorate from Columbia University in composition. She is now Assistant Professor of music at Columbia.
Alice Munro was born on July 10, 1931 and raised on a farm outside of Wingham, Ontario. She attended the University of Western Ontario where she studied English and published her first short story in the university’s literary magazine. She married James Munro in 1951 and moved to Victoria, British Columbia where she had three children and co-owned a bookshop with her husband.
Her first book of short stories was published in 1968 and since then she has published fifteen more. Her work frequently appears in magazines including The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Paris Review. She divorced in 1972 and moved back to Ontario to take up a post as writer-in-residence at the University of Western Ontario, a position she later held at the university of British Columbia and at the University of Queensland.
She married Gerald Fremlin in 1976 and moved to his hometown of Clinton, Ontario, not far from Wingham. Gerald died in April 2013. On December 10, 2013, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Ms. Munro has recently announced her retirement from writing and continues to live in Clinton.
The late Jocelyn Morlock (1969–2023) was one of Canada’s leading composers, who wrote compelling music that has been recorded extensively and receives numerous performances and broadcasts throughout North America and Europe. Born in Winnipeg, she studied piano at Brandon University, and later earned a master’s degree and a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of British Columbia, where she was recently an instructor and lecturer of composition. The inaugural composer-in-residence for Vancouver’s Music on Main Society (2012–14), she took on the same role for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra from 2014 to 2019.
Jocelyn had close ties with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, who in 2015, commissioned My Name is Amanda Todd, a powerful work about the teen from Port Coquitlam, BC, who took her own life due to cyberbullying. It subsequently won the 2018 JUNO Award for Classical Composition for the Year.
“With its shimmering sheets of harmonics” (Georgia Straight) and an approach that is “deftly idiomatic” (Vancouver Sun), Morlock’s music has received numerous national and international accolades, including Top 10 at the 2002 International Rostrum of Composers, the Mayor’s Arts Award for Music in Vancouver (2016) and the JUNO award for Classical Composition of the Year (My Name Is Amanda Todd, 2018).
Most of Morlock’s compositions are for small ensembles, many of them for unusual combinations like piano and percussion (Quoi?), cello and vibraphone (Shade), bassoon and harp (Nightsong), and an ensemble consisting of clarinet/bass clarinet, trumpet, violin and double bass (Velcro Lizards). Cobalt, a concerto for two violins and orchestra, was her first commission for the National Arts Centre Orchestra, in 2009. Her first full-length CD, also titled Cobalt, was released on the Centrediscs label in 2014.
Called a “brilliant musical scientist” and lauded for “creating a stir with listeners for her breathless imagination and ability to capture Gen-X and beyond generation”, Montreal based composer Nicole Lizée creates new music from an eclectic mix of influences including the earliest MTV videos, turntablism, rave culture, Hitchcock, Kubrick, 1960s psychedelia and 1960s modernism. She is fascinated by the glitches made by outmoded and well-worn technology and captures these glitches, notates them and integrates them into live performance.
Nicole’s compositions range from works for orchestra and solo turntablist featuring DJ techniques fully notated and integrated into a concert music setting, to other unorthodox instrument combinations that include the Atari 2600 video game console, omnichords, stylophones, Simon™, and karaoke tapes. In the broad scope of her evolving oeuvre she explores such themes as malfunction, reviving the obsolete, and the harnessing of imperfection and glitch to create a new kind of precision.
In 2001 Nicole received a Master of Music degree from McGill University. After a decade and a half of composition, her commission list of over 40 works is varied and distinguished (the Kronos Quartet, BBC Proms, l’Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal, CBC, Radio-Canada, the San Francisco Symphony, NYC’s Kaufman Center, Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, So Percussion, Eve Egoyan, Gryphon Trio, MATA Festival, TorQ Percussion, Fondation Arte Musica/Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, ECM+, Continuum, Soundstreams, SMCQ, Arraymusic, Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony). Her music has been performed worldwide in renowned venues including Carnegie Hall (NYC), Royal Albert Hall (London), Muziekgebouw (Amsterdam) and Cité de la Musique (Paris) – and in festivals including the BBC Proms (UK), Huddersfield (UK), Bang On a Can (USA), All Tomorrow’s Parties (UK), X Avant (Canada), Luminato (Canada), C3 (Berlin), Ecstatic (NYC), Switchboard (San Francisco), Casalmaggiore (Italy), and Dark Music Days (Iceland).
Nicole was awarded the prestigious 2013 Canada Council for the Arts Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music. She is a Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellow (New York City/Italy). In 2015 she was selected by acclaimed composer and conductor Howard Shore to be his protégée as part of the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards Mentorship Program.
This Will Not Be Televised, her seminal piece for chamber ensemble and turntables, placed in the 2008 UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers’ Top 10 Works. Her work for piano and notated glitch, Hitchcock Études, was chosen by the International Society for Contemporary Music and featured at the 2014 World Music Days in Wroclaw, Poland. Additional awards and nominations include a Prix Opus (2013), two Prix collégien de musique contemporaine, (2012, 2013) and the 2002 Canada Council for the Arts Robert Fleming Prize for achievements in composition.
John Estacio ranks as one of Canada’s most frequently performed composers. His symphonic and operatic works have been praised for their assured command of lyricism, depth of expression, and brilliant dynamism.
He has served as Composer in Residence for the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. His orchestral music has been performed in Singapore, China, Europe, the United Kingdom, and throughout the United States. His first of five operas, Filumena, was filmed for television and commemorated on a stamp issued by Canada Post.
His orchestral writing has caught the ear of choreographers and the film world. The Cincinnati Ballet commissioned a full-length score for King Arthur’s Camelot, and his music for The Secret of the Nutcracker earned him an Alberta Media Production Industries Association award for best original film score.
His Trumpet Concerto, commissioned by an unprecedented consortium of 19 Canadian orchestras, was recorded by the Mulhouse Symphony Orchestra in France. He has finished his fifth opera, The Cipher Clerk, and has recently completed new works for the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, and the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.
The five-time Juno-nominated composer was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2021 and is a recipient of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Award for Arts. He recently received an Honorary Doctorate in Music from Wilfrid Laurier University.
Monique Mojica (Guna and Rappahannock nations) Actor/ playwright Monique Mojica is passionately dedicated to a theatrical practice as an act of healing, of reclaiming historical/ cultural memory and of resistance. Spun directly from the family-web of New York’s Spiderwoman Theater, her theatrical practice embraces not only her artistic lineage through mining stories embeded in the body, but also the connection to stories coming through land and place.
Monique’s first play Princess Pocahontas and the Blue Spots was produced in 1990 and is widely taught in curricula internationally. She was a co-founder of Turtle Gals Performance Ensemble with whom she created The Scrubbing Project, the Dora-nominated The Triple Truth and The Only Good Indian. In 2007, she founded Chocolate Woman Collective to develop the play Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milky Way, a performance created by devising a dramaturgy specific to Guna cultural aesthetics, story narrative and literary structure.
Monique has taught Indigenous Theatre in theory, process and practice at the University of Illinois, the Institute of American Indian Arts, McMaster University and is a former co- director of the Centre for Indigenous Theatre. She has lectured on embodied research and taught embodied performance workshops throughout Canada, the U.S., Latin America and Europe.
She was most recently seen onstage in Kaha:wii Dance Theatre’s world premiere of Re-Quickening choreographed by Santee Smith and with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in I Lost My Talk as part of the Life Reflected series.
Upcoming projects include Side Show Freaks & Circus Injuns co-written with Choctaw playwright, LeAnne Howe and directed by Jorge Luis Morejón with an illustrious collaborative team of Indigenous artists from diverse disciplines.
Rita Joe was a famous Mi’kmaw poet who celebrated her language, culture and way of life. Rita Bernard was born in 1932 in Whycocomagh, Nova Scotia. Orphaned at the age of ten, she soon found herself at the Shubenacadie Residential School. Forbidden to speak her language, she endured mental and physical abuse and left at age 16. She soon met Frank Joe and they married and started a family.
Rita Joe began writing in the mid-1970s. She wrote seven books, including Poems of Rita Joe (1978), Song of Eskasoni (1988) and The Blind Man’s Eyes (published posthumously in 2015).
In 1989, Rita Joe was inducted into the Order of Canada and in 1992, she became a member of the Queen’s Privy Council. She received an Aboriginal Achievement Award in 1997 and doctorates from several East Coast universities. Rita’s husband, Frank, died in 1989 and a year later she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. She kept writing until her death in 2007, five days after her 75th birthday.
Upon her death, the Globe and Mail named her the Poet Laureate of the Mi’kmaq people.
“I was only a housewife with a dream to bring laughter to the sad eyes of my people”
Santee Smith / Tekaronhiáhkhwa is a multidisciplinary artist from the Kahnyen’kehàka Nation, Turtle Clan, Ohswé:ken/Six Nations of the Grand River. Transformation, energetic exchange and fostering mind-heart connections through performance and design is her lifelong work. Santee trained at Canada’s National Ballet School; holds Physical Education and Psychology degrees from McMaster University and a M.A. in Dance from York University.
Premiering her first production Kaha:wi – a family creation story in 2004, one year later she founded Kaha:wi Dance Theatre which has grown into an internationally renowned company. Santee’s work speaks about identity, teachings and way of life within Onkwehonwe:neha, creativity and Indigenous artistic process. She is a sought-after teacher and speaker on the performing arts, Indigenous performance, and culture.
Smith is faculty at the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity’s World Indigenous Dance Residency 2024 and curator and visionary of Inviting the Land to Shape Us series of land-based workshops and creation labs focused on Indigenous performance research.
Recently, she premiered Dora Award nominated multimedia production SKéN:NEN at TOLive 2024 and toured award-winning The Mush Hole embodying the truths of Canada’s oldest and standing Indian Residential School, The Mohawk Institute.
Normal is a visual design studio founded in Montreal in 2009 by Mathieu St-Arnaud and Philippe Belhumeur. The two creative directors joined forces to offer their television and performing arts clients both their expertise in integrated technology and their visual approach. They were joined in 2013 by Sébastien Grenier-Cartier as partner and managing director.
In 10 years, the studio has designed and produced more than 300 multimedia environments (combining video, staging and special effects) that are both groundbreaking and engaging, for shows and events in the performing arts, entertainment and architectural projection sectors.
At the forefront of its field in Montreal, Normal Studio is known for its boundless creativity and technological vision. The studio has collaborated with close to 200 local and international artists and companies to create the visual and technological environments of such works as the breathtaking settings of Cirque du Soleil’s Toruk – The First Flight and Sép7imo Día: No Descansaré, and the wildest imaginings of Michel Lemieux and Victor Pilon of 4D Art, creators of the Cité Mémoire projection circuit, the multimedia shows Temporel and Icarus, the exhibition Dreamscapes, and the film 360 Continuum at the Rio Tinto Alcan Planetarium in Montreal. Other notable projects include the visual design of the dystopian film Fahrenheit 451 by Rahmin Bahrani, produced by HBO Films; the projections for storyteller Fred Pellerin’s Christmas Tales with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal; and the set design for Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra’s contemporary symphonic concerts Life Reflected and The Man with the Violin, to name just a few.
Normal Studio is a team of 33 people and a dozen freelancers and external suppliers to the Quebec design and multimedia industry. Its team of experts is composed of multidisciplinary talents in animation, illustration, design, staging, technical direction, computer science and new technology who share a commitment to creative excellence and a desire to present the extraordinary to the audiences of multimedia works and experiences.
Kimberly is a Toronto-based lighting designer for theatre, opera, and dance. Her designs have been critically acclaimed across Canada, the U.S., the U.K., China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mongolia, as well as in Prague and Moscow. She has designed for the Stratford Festival, Shaw Festival, Canadian Stage Company, Soulpepper Theatre, Mirvish Productions, National Arts Centre, and the NAC Orchestra, as well as Pacific Opera Victoria, Opera Philadelphia, Arena Stage in Washington D.C., Tapestry Opera, Hamilton Opera, Edmonton Opera, Theatre Calgary, Manitoba Theatre Centre, Citadel Theatre, and Place des Arts, among many others. She has also designed productions for the Pan Am Games and the Vancouver and Beijing Cultural Olympiads.
Kimberly has been nominated for numerous awards for excellence in lighting design and has received three Dora Mavor Moore Awards, the Pauline McGibbon Award, a Montreal English Theatre Award, a Sterling Award, a Toronto Theatre Critics Award, and an Ottawa Critics Circle Award.
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees