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Raum, Elizabeth
Person

Elizabeth Raum is a prolific composer and oboist. She lived with her husband in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she was principal oboe with the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, until 1975 when they moved to Regina, Saskatchewan. She was an oboist with the Regina Symphony Orchestra from 1975 onward, and principal oboe with the Chamber Players from 1986 until 2010.

Her composition repertoire includes: four operas, 90 chamber pieces, 18 vocal works, and a variety of choral works, ballets, concerti, and major orchestral works. Three of her operas have been filmed for the CBC. She has been commissioned as a composer by orchestras and music organizations across Canada, the US, Europe, China, and Japan, and has received numerous Canadian achievement awards for her work, including an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Mt. St. Vincent University, Halifax, in 2004 and the Saskatchewan Order of Merit in 2010.

Szlavnics, Chiyoko
Person · 1967 -

Chiyoko Szlavnics was born in 1967 in Toronto and is a composer and visual artist currently residing in Berlin. Her parents, maternal grandfather, and experiences from her childhood have greatly influenced her musical and graphical works. Born to two artists, her mother, Aiko Suzuki, worked with painting, textiles, sculpture, and designing dance sets, and was of Japanese descent; her father was a highly analytical artist, something Szlavnics says she inherited, and was of half-Serbian and half-Hungarian descent. Her maternal grandfather was an avid nature lover, and when Szlavnic would visit him they would often spend time at the beaches on the north shore of Vancouver where they would explore the life cycle of salmon. This time on the beach would influence her interest in beating sounds within her compositions, as she often reflected on how the light bounced and reflected on water.

Her musical endeavors started at the University of Toronto where she originally studied flute and saxophone in the Faculty of Music where she graduated in 1989. Post-graduation, she worked under the direction of Nic Gotham at Hemispheres, an improvising ensemble based in Toronto. In 1993, she was asked to compose a piece for Hemispheres, and that is when she used her line drawings for the first time to organize and create the sound. In 1994, she took private composition lessons from James Tenney, and during this time she began to start her own composing. She moved to Berlin in 1997 after winning a scholarship to attend the Akademie Schloss Solitude. There she began collaborating with various other musicians and developing her unique, experimental compositional approach to music. In her compositions she explores: states of harmonicity, beating and rippling sounds, exceptionally slow glissandi (gliding between pitches), intonation, and combing musical instruments with sinewaves. Her compositions are composed for violin, cello, flute, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, percussion, among others and can be found throughout her 30+ works. Szlavnics says her main goal when composing is to take risks and be surprised by her music.

As a visual artist, she predominately creates line drawings using a fine line pen. Drawing is an integral part of her compositional process, as a way to map her preliminary ideas for the music. The lines represent how the tones are extending though time, or could also represent specific instrumental intervals. These lines are an abstract way for her to represent her imagined sound world since she is not inclined towards the traditional graphic score. Similar to her musical compositions, the unexpected is central to Szlavnics’ drawings. The drawings consists of lines, dots, and how they connect; there are some drawings that are in a in a moiré fashion as well. Later in her drawing career, she focused more on the visual arts aspect of the drawings instead of drawing for musical composition.

Freedman, Lori
Person · 1958 -

Lori Freedman was born in 1958 in Toronto and is a composer and clarinetist. Having parents who were both musicians, from a very early age Freedman began to learn numerous musical instruments: piano, guitar, drums, and trombone. It is her mastery of the clarinet that has catapulted her to international acclaim and what she is most notably sought after and known for playing. Her compositions and performances have led Freedman to become a member of the international group known as “the renaissance musicians.”

Freedman studied clarinet at the University of Toronto, and after graduating in 1977 she continued her studies at the Academy of Woodwinds at the Banff Center for the Arts in Alberta. In 1981, two musicians, Pauline Oliveros and Eric Dolphy, would inspire her with their spontaneity and improvisation that would change her outlook on music completely. Their comfort with taking risks in their music would inspire her to begin studying with Larry Combs at the Chicago Civic Orchestra when she first started improvising with her own music. Improvisation would become a central component in her compositions and live performances of the clarinet and would bring her high acclaim.

Freedman has performed in over 100 cities in over 20 countries all around the world. With a packed touring performance schedule, it is not uncommon for her to have more than 75 shows in a single year. In the midst of her own full performance schedule tour, recording, and workshops, she also has been commissioned by numerous contemporary artists to create music for them to perform. She also composes musical scores for dance, theatre, cinema, and other visual arts. One of her accolades includes the Freddie Stone Award in 1988 for the “demonstration of outstanding leadership, integrity and excellence in the area of contemporary music and jazz.” In 2003, 2004, and 2006 she was awarded "Clarinetist of the Year" at the National Jazz Awards. Most recently, in 2017, she was elected to be a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada for “outstanding artistic achievement.” In addition, she has taught at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in Montreal where she conducted classes on bass clarinet and coached the contemporary/improvised music ensemble.

Narver, David
Person

Dr. David Wells Narver received a PhD in Marine Biology from the University of Washington in 1966. He worked as a researcher at the Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, various positions in fisheries research, management, and administration, including as Anadromous Fisheries Coordinator and Acting Chief of Fisheries Management for the BC Ministry of Environment, and became Director of the British Columbia Fisheries Branch in 1977, which position he held until his retirement in 1994. During his career he published many reports and papers about his area of expertise, the effects of habitat degradation on salmonids, and he was responsible for the ongoing Carnation Creek study.

Person · ?-1971

In 1927 Matthew Lindfors opened the Scandinavian School of English; then from 1939-1954, he operated the Scandinavian film service. In 1951 he founded the Swedish Cultural Society. He also served as correspondent for the Canadian International Service of the C.B.C. from 1947-1959 and editor of the Swedish Press from 1933 until his death in 1971.