Mark Adam is a drummer and percussionist who performs, records, composes and teaches from his home base in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. He is an associate professor of music at Acadia University, where he has taught since 2004. Originally from Calgary, he studied at the University of Calgary and continued his studies at the Banff Centre for the Arts before completing a Master’s Degree at the University of Toronto. He is a recipient of an Acadia Students’ Union Award for teaching excellence and was granted a Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Award for his work in the community as an educator and contributor to the arts. He has sat on various juries for Arts Nova Scotia and FACTOR and acts as an advisor to many artists in their grant application processes.
As a performer, Mark has shared the stage and studio with many of Canada’s leading artists, including Phil Dwyer, Mike Murley, Dave Restivo, David Braid, Bob Brough, Carol Welsman and Laila Biali. He has performed at most major jazz festivals across the country. His jazz recordings include the 2007 ECMA nominated album Live in Wolfville with ERA (Dave Restivo and Tom Easley) and an upcoming trio release with Phil Dwyer. He has played on award-winning recordings of country artists George Canyon and Dave Gunning. As a classical musician, he has performed with the Calgary Philharmonic, New Works Calgary, Symphony Nova Scotia, the Toronto Wind Orchestra. His score for Two Planks and a Passion’s production, Beowulf, was nominated for a 2012 Merritt Award, and he won the 2015 ECMA for Classical Album of the Year with Juno award winning composer/flutist Derek Charke for their duet recording, Kitchen Party.
Mark Adam’s work as a music producer out of his studio, The Woods has included the freshman releases of Laurenn Marchand (2016 Music Nova Scotia nominations for Solo Recording of the Year, Folk Recording of the Year and New Artist Recording of the Year), Carmen Braden (2017 WCMA nominee for Classical Composition of the Year), and multiple WCMA and Juno nominated artist Kim Barlow (Indie Folk/Pop).
Petr Cancura is a saxophonist, mandolinist, composer, and producer. Born in the Czech Republic, Petr attended the New England Conservatory in Boston, which led to a 10-year residency in Brooklyn, New York. Now based in Ottawa, Petr was the 2015-16 Artist-In-Residence of Carleton University, and is the current Program Director of the Ottawa Jazz Festival and the Musical Director of the National Arts Center’s Crossroads Series, reimagining the songs of current Canadian Songwriters for an all-star jazz cast.
Petr’s Down Home was nominated for the 2015 Best Instrumental Album JUNO, and awarded the Independent Music Award for Best Instrumental Album of the Year. He is set to release a new solo record this coming fall.
Petr has performed and recorded with Danilo Perez, Julian Lage, Bob Moses, Joe Morris, Richie Barshay, The Ghost Train Orchestra, Kathleen Edwards, The Mighty Popo, Matt Wilson, Tony Scherr, Kenny Wollesen.
Lieutenant-Colonel Fran Chilton-Mackay has recently retired from the Canadian Armed Forces, having served as the Senior Staff Officer Army Bands responsible to the Commander of the Army and as the Director of Music of the Governor General’s Foot Guards Band from 2005 - 2016. Prior to this she taught instrumental music for over twenty years in London, Brampton and Ottawa, Ontario. She was the 1999 recipient of the City of Nepean Distinguished Service Award for Arts & Culture, the City of Nepean 2000 Medal, and the 2000 Ottawa-Carleton District School Board’s Director’s Citation. Her concurrent military career began in 1976 as a Reserve musician with the 7th Toronto Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery Band in Toronto. Upon moving to Ottawa in 1986, and subsequent commissioning as an officer in 1987, she held various positions with the Canadian Forces at National Defence Headquarters. For her lifetime commitment to music and the advancement of musical pursuits within the Canadian Forces, she was invested as an Officer in the Order of Military Merit in May 2007, and was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal in May 2010; both honours bestowed by the Governor General. Fran is a clarinettist and is currently the Director of the Centralaires Concert Band in Ottawa.
Colin Clarke is in great demand as a conductor, clinician, adjudicator, and composer/arranger. Colin’s credits include collaboration with the US Air Force Band of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, Orchestra London Canada, the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, the New Symphony Orchestra of Sofia, Bulgaria, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, Ballet Jörgen, trumpet virtuoso Allan Vizzutti, the Canadian Brass and the U.S. Army Herald Trumpets.
Colin is best known for his work with the multi-award winning Toronto Youth Wind Orchestra, a group he started as a high school student. For over two decades, this ensemble has earned a reputation nationwide as one of the leading performance ensembles of its kind in Canada. Under Colin’s baton, the Wind Orchestra made its Carnegie Hall debut in 2006 to much acclaim and returned in 2016 to mark its 25th anniversary. In addition to the Wind Orchestra, Colin serves as Music Director for the Hamilton Philharmonic Youth Orchestra and the Oakville Symphony Youth Symphony.
Colin has also conducted numerous bands, orchestras and choirs throughout Canada and the U.S., and has led the Provincial Honour Bands of Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Prince Edward Island. In the spring of 2008, he served as conductor of the prestigious National Youth Band of Canada. Abroad, Colin has lead performances in the United States, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Austria and China.
School music teacher. As Head of Department at Canterbury High School in Ottawa, Christine helped initiate and administer the specialty music portion of the successful Eastern Ontario Programme of the Arts at Canterbury. After her retirement from secondary school teaching, Christine taught Intermediate and Senior Music courses in the University of Ottawa Education Faculty. She continues to guest lecture at the University, adjudicate at Music Festivals and conduct workshops and clinics with Concert Bands.
Christine, an Ottawa native, obtained Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Education degrees at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario and her Master of Music Education at State University, Potsdam, New York. She is an affiliate member of C.M.E.A., O.M.E.A., C.B.D.A., O.B.A. and Phi Beta Mu.
Currently, Christine performs on French Horn with the National Capital Concert Band and the Manotick Brass Ensemble in Ottawa.
Born and raised in Toronto, Michele holds a Bachelor of Music in Performance from the University of Toronto and a Master of Music in Performance from Northwestern University in Chicago. She is equally at home as a saxophonist and flutist. She regularly performs with symphony orchestras and opera companies across Ontario, as well as in theatre pit orchestras, including Mirvish Productions and the Shaw Festival. Michele is currently the Artistic Director of Toronto’s Wychwood Clarinet Choir and is a Vandoren Artist and a Yamaha Canada Spotlight Artist.
Michele maintains a busy timetable, teaching privately, presenting workshops, adjudicating, and designing and leading instructional woodwind clinics for school music teachers. Michele was an itinerant music instructor for the Toronto District School Board for seven seasons, specializing in beginning band. She maintains an active schedule of performing, conducting, adjudicating, teaching and concert production. Michele was extremely honoured to be the Associate Conductor for Canadian musical icon, Howard Cable, and has appeared as guest conductor of the Sudbury Symphony and Symphony Nova Scotia.
Andrew Jones is active in the Toronto jazz, classical and commercial scene as a teacher, composer, clinician and trombonist. Beyond his work in Toronto’s professional jazz scene, Andrew is in demand as an adjudicator and has worked on faculty at the University of Toronto’s Jazz Performance and Music Education programs. In January 2008, he was recipient of the SOCAN/IAJE Phil Nimmons Emerging Jazz Composer Award, and was commissioned to debut a piece at the International Association of Jazz Educators Conference in Toronto. His music has been featured by Musicfest Canada’s Yamaha All-Star Band and by many of the finest secondary and post-secondary programs across Canada.
Andrew continues his development of jazz pedagogy and composition at the secondary school level through the arts program at Cawthra Park Secondary School, where he has directed ensembles and developed curriculum for 13 years, and as an instructor at numerous summer jazz programs across Ontario. Since 2010, he has served as the Artistic Director of the Jazz Mechanics Big Band, an organization that prides itself in its mandate to showcase the finest in Canadian Jazz repertoire.
Ed Lister is a professional trumpeter, band leader, composer, arranger and educator from London, England. Ed has made is home in the great city of Ottawa, Canada where he has lived since 2011. Ed currently runs 7 bands of his own including an 11 piece Big Band called 'The Prime Rib Big Band', a 7 piece fusion group called 'ERU-ERA' and numerous larger Theatre show tribute acts including an 11 piece tribute to Sly & the Family Stone and a 7 piece tribute to Hall & Oates. As well as his own groups Ed also performs in a further 15 ensembles in Town. Ed also runs an entertainment agency called 'London Gentleman Records' which has been active since 2014.
Ed picked up the trumpet at age 10 due to his parents’ love for great big band music and jazz. It was the powerhouse tones of the great Harry James and Duke Ellington big bands which inspired Ed to make music his life. Ed has toured extensively in Europe and North America with various ensembles including the Bromley Youth Orchestra and the South London Jazz Orchestra. Ed has shared the stage with great musicians including Kamasi Washington, Derek Watkins, Kenny Wheeler, Jann Arden, the Blue Man Group and Billy Cobham to name a few.
Visit www.londongentlemanrecords.com or www.slyhighmusic.com to see more of Ed's music.
Jeff Reynolds is Associate Professor in trumpet and conducting at the University of Toronto. Formerly Coordinator of the Performance Division and presently Brass Area Head, he has taught at the Faculty of Music for over 30 years, teaching undergraduate courses in instrumental education, chamber music, jazz education and jazz history, and conducting the Wind Ensemble and Wind Symphony. He has performed with the Victoria Symphony, the Calgary Philharmonic, the Orchestra of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and the Hamilton Philharmonic.Jeff’s articles have appeared in such journals as Canadian Winds, The Recorder and the Journal of Aesthetic Education; he is also the author of the pedagogy book Trumpet for Dummies. After degrees in philosophy and music, he received his doctorate from the University of Toronto in the philosophy of music education, with a focus on creativity in performance and pedagogy.
Dan Tremblay is an active freelance musician, clinician and private trumpet teacher in Quebec, the Maritime Provinces, the State of New York, and Ontario. Dan divides his time between the Dan School of Drama and Music at Queen’s University and the Crane School of Music, State University of New York in Potsdam, where he provides trumpet instruction and coaches chamber ensembles. Dan is Principal/ Solo trumpet with L’Orchestre Symphonique de l’Estuaire (Rimouski), and plays regularly with the Kingston Symphony Orchestra, Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal, among others. He has been Principal Trumpet with Orchestre de la Francophonie Canadienne, National Academy Orchestra in Hamilton, and with McGill Symphony Orchestra.
Since 2001, Mr. Tremblay has been a faculty member of the Queen’s University Dan School of Drama and Music where he is also Head of the brass and percussion studio. Dan is an avid conductor and currently leads the Queen’s University Wind Ensemble and Symphony Orchestra, Brass Choir and Trumpet Ensemble. He is also the Music Director of the Quinte Symphony in Belleville ON, a post he has held since 2015. Dan holds a Master of Music degree in Performance from McGill University and a Bachelor of Music in Performance from Université de Montréal.
Peter Tombler holds a Master of Music degree from the University of Northern Colorado where he studied trombone with Buddy Baker and conducting with Eugene Corporon. He retired from teaching in 2015, after a thirty-five year career with the Toronto District School Board. He spent his last ten years as the Head of Performing Arts at Sir Oliver Mowat Collegiate Institute in southeast Scarborough.
Peter continues a long career as trombonist, performing regularly throughout the Toronto area. He was a member of the Toronto Philharmonia Orchestra for 28 years. Peter enjoys work as a clinician and adjudicator throughout southern Ontario. He spends his time composing and arranging music and has a woodworking shop where he makes conducting batons.
Ron Westray was born in Columbia, SC, in 1970. From 1994 to 2005, he was the lead trombonist and arranger with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra (New York), directed by trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. Ron has played, toured and recorded with many other musicians such as Wycliffe Gordon, Benny Carter, Roy Haynes, Randy Brecker, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, and the Mingus Big Band. As leader or co-leader, he has released several critically acclaimed albums, e.g., Bone Structure (with Wycliffe Gordon, 1996), Medical Cures for the Chromatic Commands of the Inner City (2008), Live from Austin (with Thomas Heflin, 2011), Jimi Jazz (2014), or Magisteria (2015). From 2005 to 2009, he was an Assistant Professor of the Jazz Studies Department at the University of Texas at Austin. Since 2009, he had occupied the Oscar Peterson Chair in Jazz Performance at York University in Toronto (Canada), where he is an Associate Professor in the Music Department of the School of the Arts, Media, Performance & Design.