Biographies of Musicians
Anne Bourne
Anne Bourne is interested in each musical expression being an experience of sonic activism, in the sense of resolution between tones, people, and individual paradoxes, through listening.
Anne has performed and recorded extensively, and internationally, with artists in the fields of songwriting, dance and film including Loreena McKennit, Blue Rodeo, Sarah MacLachlan, Atom Egoyan, Peter Mettler, Fred Frith, John Oswald, Andrea Nann, Sashar Zarif, Yvonne Ng, and Pauline Oliveros.
Anne's sound work contains in varied array, the integration of voice, text, dance, film, experimental context, visual media, and impromptu meetings. Anne improvises musically with the streams of sound in her voice, and the natural overtones and inherent in between sounds of the cello. Her composition explores the architecture of improvisation and invitation, in all senses of time.
'Anne Bourne is an earthy unrestrained musical force, who accompanies her cello with otherwordly vocalizing' Coda Magazine.
Ariel Brink
Ariel Brink is the lead singer of The Dull-Eyed Llamas and the author of 147 songs. He plays 13 musical instruments with varying degrees of ability, and has been improvising music for dancers for more than five years, most commonly at Kathleen Rea’s Wednesday Jam. He is an avid Contact dancer; he also attends and occasionally deejays ecstatic dances. Fascinated by the interplay between movement and music, Brink is also a dedicated improviser, in music, dance, and in his work as a substitute teacher and music therapist. www.myspace.com/thedulleyedllamas
Links: www.myspace.com/murmursongs
Jeff Burke
Jeff Burke Toronto's premier multi stylistic Bassoon player. Jeff Burke (Bassoon, Penny Whistle) has been playing the bassoon in numerous Toronto groups and in various music styles for nearly 30 years. A founding member of the 90's Toronto folk-rock group The Shadow Puppets. While he is trained and accomplished in modern and traditional forms, Jeff is also a master of improvisation in many styles. The Subtonic Monks group (improvised world-beat), Belladonna & The Awakening (Hip Hop), Mystic Rhythm (Traditional World forms and fusions), Friendly Rich & the Lollipop People (Avant Pop Cabaret Orchestra) and the Sun Ra Arkestra are some of the groups Jeff has brought his special Bassoon flavoured extemporized stylings to. Jeff Burke has performed with numerous performers, among them. Over the last 20 years Jeff has played for many forms of dancing: medieval and renaissance dances, traditional English Morris, Irish, Breton, Latvian and Macedonian Folk dances, Middle eastern and Modern dance. He has had the pleasure of collaborating and improvising with various dancers and choreographers. Jeff Burke has just come out with a new CD "The Black CD" the mixture of Christmas and non-seasonal originals with a improvised twist. Sometimes you may find him playing in the subway combining Jazz with Irish jigs, Zepplin, and Rage against the Machine, Folk and Metallica in his own unique way.
Links:
http://i5.tinypic.com/20rpit5.jpg
http://i5.tinypic.com/20rpj5f.jpg
Aviva Chernick
Aviva is a singer recording, performing and touring a fusion of World Music styles while singing in Hebrew, Judeo-Spanish, Yiddish and English. Aviva’s first solo album In the Sea, an eclectic mix of World Cabaret music, features Toronto Jazz and Improvisational greats Tania Gill and Andrew Downing. Aviva recently released her second album Under the Canopy (a collection of Jewish love songs) with The Huppah Project and in March 2009, she will join her bandmates from the Global Fusion ensemble Jaffa Road as they release the project’s first recording at The Lula Lounge. Aviva is also a Cantorial Soloist, lending voice to Jewish Spiritual practice throughout Toronto. www.avivachernick.com
http://www.avivachernick.com/projects.html
Shara Claire
Shara Claire, founder of FindingRhythm, is a hand-drumming & rhythm instructor, drum circle facilitator, corporate speaker/presenter, performer, and expressive arts therapist. She has been studying music since her young childhood in British Columbia, and has studied multi- cultural hand-drumming and percussion since 1998. Some of her teachers include Chris Bertin, Arthur Hull, Ubaka Hill, Famoudou Konate, Afia Walking Tree, members of the late Babatunde Olatunji’s ensemble and Steve Mancuso. Having moved east in 2002 to train as an expressive arts therapist at ISIS-Canada, Shara now offers regular classes, workshops and private lessons in the Toronto area, provides percussion for local dance and yoga classes and facilitates rhythmic experiences for staff training days, corporate events, family gatherings, festivals, schools, camps and conventions. She balances tradition and experimentation, and always aspires to build rhythm-based community at her events. Shara has done rhythm work with toddlers, elders, and everyone in between. She is a gently directive facilitator who believes in everyone's rhythmic capabilities. Shara’s textured artistic background in dance, creative writing, improv theatre, piano and arts-based psychotherapy all influence her work with rhythm and people. She has practiced yoga and meditation seriously since 1997, and is trained as a certified bodyworker.
Daniela Gesundheit
Daniela Gesundheit’s studied in composition with Anthony Braxton, and in South Indian Classical Vocals, her experience with performance-art and dance troupes in Los Angeles, and her published poetry bring complexity to the deceptively simple quiet folk-song form. Daniela has toured throughout the US and Canada, playing a breadth of venues, from small house concerts to opening for Patti Smith and Rogue Wave. Her back-up band has had several ncarnations, the first of which, in 2005, included MGMT as boy backup singers. To record Long Live, she enlisted Thom Monahan (Devendra Banhart, Brightblack Morning Light) and Toronto’s David Travers-Smith. Sean Moeller at Daytrotter described Snowblink’s “gorgeous words... terrifyingly beautiful... lines of a story that appear before us as startlingly as new colours or languages would.” Read more about Daniela online at
www.snowblink.org
Jennifer Gillmor
Jennifer's musical exploration has covered vast territory. She is a multi-instrumentalist with a musical family that includes bass guitar, cello, kamel n'goni, various percussion, found and made objects, flutes and sample-based sequencing. She has performed and recorded in projects ranging from funk to folk, rock to reggae, music influenced by traditions of Africa and Celtic cultures as well as experimental projects that can draw few comparisons. Jennifer has composed and recorded for film, video, dance and multimedia projects. She has toured internationally and appeared in nationally broadcast music videos and on various local and national television shows. Her main group projects are currently improv trio Triune, reggae-ska band Random Order and cello-didgeridoo duo Dreamfire with William Pipher. She accompanies celtic fiddler Eric Nagler on cello and singer-songwriter Peter J Slack on fretless bass and cello. Besides the aforementioned, she has either recorded, performed and/or toured with: Brazen Crush, Amy Campbell, Kelly and the Kellygirls, Roach Motel, Amer Diab, Yala, Evalyn Parry, The Wetspots, Tucker Finn, Lyndell Montgomery, Dropdeadbeats, The Matriphiles, Women Ah Run Tings, Tamara Williamson, The Kitchen Sink Project, Meryn Cadell, Snowdogs, Amy Fritz and The Nancy Sinatras. A member of AIM Toronto (association of improvising musicians toronto) Jen is an avid improviser who has performed as part of Toronto's longstanding Ambient Ping, provided live music for Tribal Dance Community, Nia classes and other events with Gary Diggins She creates soundscapes regularly for Kathleen Rea's Contact Dance Jams.
For the full story visit her website Sound & Vision Design
Dan Goldman
“combining avant-garde sound collage with the melodies and emotional forthrightness of pop, Dan Goldman's Through A Revolution is one of 2004's most intriguing Canadian albums."
-Michael White, The Westender, Vancouver
Singer-songwriter Dan Goldman grew up in Montreal and moved to Toronto in 1998 shortly after graduating with distinction from Concordia University's Jazz program, where he studied mainly under guitarist and composer, Roddy Ellias. Shortly after relocating to Toronto, Dan headed-up kitchenmusik, an experimental chamber-pop group for which he was the principal songwriter.
Dan also played guitar and sang mainly in the bands of Mia Sheard, Justin Haynes and Rob Piilonen – all of whom had a major impact on Dan’s writing and improvisation skills. In spring of 2004, Dan released his self-produced debut CD entitled Through a Revolution, a collection of songs, which featured Haynes, Sheard Owen Pallett, and Susanna Hood, among others. Since its release, the album has garnered many a fan and generated critical praise nation-wide. The Globe and Mail called it “inventive, witty and intimate;” Hamilton's View magazine said that “Through a Revolution collects ten masterfully-built little ditties...” and demonstrates “songwriting at its finest;” while Calgary's Fast Forward writes that the recording “lulls the listener into a gentle state of musical bliss..."
Dan has composed scores for the Corpus Dance Company and for the Toronto Dance Theatre, as well as engineering and producing recordings for Snowblink, Breaking Sounds and Jack Breakfast. He’s toured the UK, Ireland and Canada with Mia Sheard; across Canada several times and the US both solo and with his musical partner, Snowblink; he's performed on numerous recordings by artists such as Veda Hille, Mia Sheard, Beyond The Pale, and has shared stages with kindred spirits Veda Hille, Kurt Swinghammer, Bob Snider, Martin Tielli, John Southworth, Great Aunt Ida, and Snailhouse.
Dan has recently finished recording a CD of new songs featuring the St.Kitts string quartet arranged
Darren Hall
Darren Hall (L.Ac. BA Hons) received his Diploma of Acupuncture from the Institute of Traditional Medicine. Along with Chinese Medicine, he has studied a variety of other traditions of medicine having trained in Qi Gong (a form of energy meditation) and martial arts while living in China, indigenous forms of medicine with First Nations teachers and is conducting a two-year mentorship with Chinese Medicine vanguard, Lonny Jarrett. He is also an accomplished Sound Therapist, working primarily with crystal singing bowls and intuitive singing. His beautiful and powerful SHEN: Sound Healing Energy performances and workshops have become highly popular and one of the must see events of our modern era. Darren engages his patients in evolutionary ways of being to make certain their lives are inspired and aligned with purpose. Along with treating a wealth of physical ailments, Darren also specializes in the treatment of psychological and spiritual issues, helping stuck lives move forward. An educator and writer on spirituality and health, Darren has appeared in Vitality Magazine, PreventDisease.com, and AlternativeMed.ca. He also performs popular Sound Healing events in the city with his quartz crystal singing bowls and intuitive singing under the name SHEN: Sound Healing ENergy. He also plays his crystal bowls in accompaniment of yoga classes at Kula Yoga Annex, The Yoga Sanctuary, Downward Dog, 889 Yonge and many more. He was a featured performer at 2010’s Global Mala event and was the opening speaker at last year’s Freedom Festival held at Queen’s Park. When not working, Darren can be found meditating under trees, liberating consciousness and inspiring integrity in all. For more info about his work and his upcoming SHEN events, Health & Spirituality lectures and profound writings please check out his website at www.InnerTraditionsHealing.com.
Blake Howard
Blake started his career in a cupboard under the sink and has since emerged as an empathetic drummer as well as a slightly skewed composer. He was 14 when he first began accompanying dance classes for susan bush haberman’s dance workshop in alliston, Ontario and after moving to Toronto in 1991 he fell in with a continually foliating group of musicians known as GUH. He was also afforded the opportunity to study with Master drummer Jim Blackley, investigating just what was running through those drainpipes in the kitchen. It has been his good fortune to have worked with choeographers William yong, tara blue, leslie linsay, jen bell, Julia aplin and jenn Goodwin participating in fFIDA (’94, ‘98) and Dusk dances(00, 01, 04, 05) and in the fall of 2004 he accompanied Christopher house and the company of the Toronto dance theatre on their tour of western Canada . I wonder what he’s doing now?
Michelangelo Iaffaldano
Michelangelo Iaffaldano is a Toronto-based, Italian-born musician, instrument builder and visual artist who collaborates with many musicians associated with AIM Toronto. He plays in the bands Odradek, Anamorphic Heat and Satanist Daycare, and leads AIM's Large Improvising Ensemble.
Link: http://www.aimtoronto.org
 Nur Intan Murtadza
Nur Intan Murtadza is a pianist and an accomplished musician in the gamelan tradition of Central Java, Indonesia. She works collaboratively with musicians, dancers and movement artists in improvised and choreographed settings. She has played in a number of contact improvisation events such as the International Contact Festival Freiburg as well as dance workshops in Toronto and Guelph.
Ian Jamieson
Ian Jamieson is a guitarist, singer and composer from the Toronto area. He is currently working as a band teacher with the Toronto District School Board, and works freelance as a musician for modern, contact and improv. dancers around the city. In 2006, his guitar work "In Dreams" was used by dancer/ choreographer Takako Segawa in a dance tour of Japan. In 2003, Ian worked with an ensemble of international musicians at the Banff Centre for the Arts in a realization of his composition "Shore Pieces", created as part of a Master's of music composition obtained from York University. When playing for the Toronto contact jam, Ian will be using electric and acoustic guitars with effects.
 Guilherme Koeppel
Guilherme Koeppel is a musician and dance improviser from Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Since graduating in classical guitar at UFMG, have been perfoming classical music with chamber groups and solo recitals. With Micromegas Trio , recorded a Cd that was published as part of the book " Musica e Direito : Uma metafora " by Monica Sette Lopes. Before coming to Canada was playing with two baroque flutists in trio Ponto de Fuga.From 1998 on,taught guitar and chamber music at the Universidade Estadual de Minas Gerais and at Fundaçao de Educaçao Artistitica. In 1995 began dancing contact improvisation, having studied with Tica Lemos, Dudude Hermann, Nita Little ,Oleg Soulimenko, among others. Since 2008 is riding the TTC to take classes at TTC ( teachers training course ) at the Toronto School of the Alexander Technique.
Tova Kardonne
Tova Kardonne is a Toronto-based composer, singer, violist and bandleader. Her voice and viola studies fed into interests in South African, South Indian, Cuban, Brazilian, Balkan, and Klezmer music, and her composition includes elements of each. She studied viola with Mary McGeer, and Jazz Performance, Composition and Arranging at Humber College with Shannon Gunn, Christine Duncan, John Macleod and Don Palmer. Tova’s compositions have toured North America and Europe as part the Vox Novus 60X60 project, and she was the Toronto producer of 60x60 Dance Toronto, with New York-based founder Robert Voisey and Toronto choreographer Viv Moore. Her compositions have scored film installation and accompanied works of theatre, dance, and performance art in Toronto and internationally. As a vocalist, she has shared the stage with, among others, Ravi Naimpalli, Bill McBirnie, Ted Quinlan, David Restivo, and Jim Vivian. Her original a cappella performance art has been included in every Nuit Blanche since 2007, including her large-scale live choral performance installation, “Sound Forest” in 2008. She has led Klezmer bands, the Samba Elegua tambourim section, currently sings in Alex Samaras’ Grex choir and the Toronto Heliconian Choir, sings bebop standards in a daringly instrument-like way with bassist Ross MacIntyre and drummer Nick Fraser, and plays Brazilian music with multi-instrumentalist Amy Medvick. Tova sings her original compositions with The Thing Is, her 8-piece Balkan-Jazz fusion band, and makes guest appearances singing her originals with Christian Overton’s Composer’s Collective Big Band.
www.myspace.com/thethingismusic
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Amy-and-Tova-play-Bossa-Nova/112235382168915
www.voxnovus.com
Nilan Perera
Nilan has been a consistent presence on the creative
music scene in Toronto, Canada since 1984.
Since then he has produced concerts and festivals in
Toronto, had a radio show at CIUT-FM for 16 years
(serving as Program Director and Station Manager as
well as other duties) as well as being involved in
many of the cutting edge music, dance and interdisciplinary ensembles that have achieved recognition and notoriety in Toronto and beyond. He has performed and recorded with Jandek, Martin Tétreault, Susanna Hood, Vinnie Golia, Don Preston,
Sarah Peebles, David Toop, Roswell Rudd, Sumihisa Arima, John Butcher, Evan Parker, John Oswald, Michael Snow, Michael Ondaatje, Mary Margaret O'Hara, and Don Thompson. He has also a writer of reviews and articles for the
national music periodical: Exclaim!
Links:
www.humdansoundart.ca
www.sarahpeebles.net/smash
Kousha Nakhaei
Kousha Nakhaei is a violinist, improviser, and composer. He has studied improvisation, and classical performance, as well as Persian and South Indian musical traditions at York University where he graduated in 2005. Also a Contact dancer Kousha has a strong interest in movement and exploring interdisciplinary creation. He has collaborated with several choreographers, dancers, poets and directors, such as Lucie Carmen Gregoire, Patty Powel, Tracey Norman, Roger Greenwald, and Jean-Michael Malpeux. He has performed at numerous venues in Toronto and many festivals including fFIDA International dance Festival, Toronto Street Festival, and Under The Azure Dome.Currently he keeps busy studying, performing and teaching.
Tim Posgate
The Tim Posgate Hornband has released its debut, self-titled CD featuring its newest member, American jazz-tuba legend and multi-instrumentalist Howard Johnson. (Charles Mingus, Gil Evans, Miles Davis, Archie Shepp, John Lennon…) The Cd also features Howard on baritone saxophone and pennywhistle. () Leader, guitarist and primary composer Tim Posgate and trumpeter Lina Allemano have toured Canada extensively including work with Tim Posgate’s Jazzstory and were both recently nominated as top instrumentalists for Canada’s National Jazz Awards. Quinsin Nachoff is the fourth member playing tenor sax, clarinet and flute. Nachoff was the winner of Canada Council’s Jazz ID Competition as well as being a semi-finalist in the prestigious Thelonious Monk Tenor Sax Competition in Washington D.C. With only three horns and guitar this unique quartet creates a mélange of sound that will entertain and challenge the listener with it’s compositions drawing heavily on jazz, folk and “free improv” traditions. These three Canadians have all released numerous Cds as leaders as well as working with Joe Lovano, Don Byron, Steve Lacy, Kenny Wheeler, Mark Helias, Jim Black, and Jane Bunnett among others. Howard Johnson continues to perform with his popular tuba ensemble Gravity.
Links:
www.myspace.com/timposgatehornband
www.guildwoodrecords.com
Anthony Rapoport
Classical violist Tony Rapoport loves playing chamber music, especially with the Windermere String Quartet, now in its second season. One of the things that fascinates him about Contact is how much it has in common with chamber music: close physical and emotional interaction, trust... and he loves to improvise...
Link: www.windermere.braveform.com
Kirk Reed
Kirk Reed is a guitarist/singer/songwriter based in the toronto area. A lover of music his whole life, he understands the sacred value and power it has. He has been playing guitar for over 20 years and in his last band, recorded 3 full length cds and played numerous clubs in the gta. Kirk taught guitar for 8 years until an injury put out of commission for a few years. Now, in recovery mode, he is recording his first full length cd of his own songs and playing all the instruments other than drums. Kirk brings some soulful, bluesy guitar to his improvising and is currently supplying music for modern dance classes at George Brown (Kathleen Rea) as well as playing acoustic gigs throughout toronto.
Karim Rizkallah
As a jack of many trades who occasionally dabbles in commitment issues, Karim was drawn, after a few years of travelling, to Toronto's diverse and dynamic environment. His interests include photography, outdoor activities, movies, writing, music, debate, and eating, and he can do each of those things with some skill (especially eating). A hands on learner, Karim grasped Spanish and tango by living in South America for a year; to figure out how to sail, he sailed across the Atlantic. He was fortunate enough to stumble upon the beautiful instrument called the 'Halo' which allowed him to live off of music for a few years wandering through various cities, but eventually came back to Canada for a string of weddings (always a bridesmaid, never a bride).
David Sait
David Sait (1972), experimental guzheng artist and improviser from Brampton/Toronto, writes/records and performs on the long stringed Chinese zither (guzheng or zheng). David utilizes a variety of styles and disciplines crossing dysfunctional classical with avant garde and World music's. Sait brings a contemporary, free spirited mentality to this ancient instrument that dates back more than 3000 years paying respect to it's rich history, but honouring it by searching for a unique voice. His father was a jazz bandleader/composer/arranger, his grandmother a performing classical pianist. He is a member of AIMT (Association of Improvising Musicians Toronto) and the Guzheng One Club ( China ). A 20 year background in music studies, performance and recording balanced between guitar & guzheng. In performance and recording, David is a committed solo improviser, member of the duo project with Michael Keith: “CRACKER & SHOE” and eager to collaborate with any like-minded artists seeking limitless sounds.
Link: http://www.davidsait.com/
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