Adi started “singing sideways” in the late ‘90s and returned to the music she loves – which she calls “cabarazz” – drawing on aspects from both cabaret and jazz. After winning a local competition in 2001, she was catapulted to centre-stage as one of Canada’s leading jazz vocalists. In 2007, Adi was nominated as Best Major Jazz Vocalist of the Year by the Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs (MAC). Adi’s repertoire ranges from the Great American Songbook, to European cabaret, to contemporary songs by Canada legend’s Shirley Eikhard and Gordon Lightfoot as well as her own originals. Whether she is singing in English, French, Spanish or German, Adi Braun is “a power-frau who gives jazz standards a unique touch, telling stories that are miniature life moments” (Rheinische Post, Düsseldorf, Germany).

He has collaborated with Glenn Gould and Aaron Copland and toured with over 35 string quartets, including the Guarneri, Amadeus and Vermeer. Of his over 40 recordings, the BBC and the Times of London rated his recording of the Brahms Clarinet Quintet as the best available and his CD Stolen Gems (Marquis Records) won a JUNO.

He has been named Canada’s Artist of the Year, awarded the Queen’s Gold and Diamond Jubilee Medal, an Honourary Doctor of Law, and the Order of Canada. James Campbell has been Artistic Director of the Festival of the Sound since 1985 and was Professor of Music at the famed Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University from 1988-2019 and continues to give masterclasses worldwide.

Beny Esguerra arrived as a child to Tkaronto (Toronto, Canada) from Bacatá
(Bogotá, Colombia) as a political refugee with his parents, who were involved in
cultural work and human rights activism. Today, he is an award winning multi-
instrumentalist/producer, spoken-word poet, arts educator and community worker.

In 2021, he was chosen as the laureate of the 2020 Ontario Arts Foundation Arts
Educator Award. Most recently, his songs–from the 2022 JUNO nominated album
Northside Kuisi–have been nominated for collaboration of the year at the 2022
International Indigenous Hip Hop Music Awards and have won Music to Life’s
Hope Rises II song writing contest and international call for songs for social
justice. Visit www.newtraditionmusic.com for more information.

Recent seasons’ solo and chamber music highlights have included a summer tour with the
Swiss Piano Trio, the Toronto premiere of a new work by Alexina Louie with the Gryphon
Trio, and performances for visits by world-renowned composers Kryzstof Penderecki, Chen
Yi and Anders Hillborg. Peter was flown to Tokyo, Japan to take part in the international

Yamaha “Junior Original Concert” at Bunkamura Hall, and the following year saw a three-
city tour of mainland China and Hong Kong as part of an exchange of composers and
performers organized by the University of Toronto. Peter recently performed the Canadian
premiere of noted American wind ensemble composer Brian Balmages’ concerto
“Escapades” with the composer conducting.

Peter teaches clarinet, chamber music, performance studies and “The Business of Music”
at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto. He is also the Winds Area Specialist for the
Royal Conservatory of Music’s National College of Examiners, and was the chief compiler
of the 2014 Clarinet Syllabus. Peter is much sought after as an adjudicator at music
festivals across the country, and his website is www.peterstoll.ca.

Wolfgang has given concerts with world renowned orchestras (Vienna Symphony, Niederösterreichische Tonkünstler Orchestra, Budapest Symphony, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonics of Graz, Lodz, Poznan, Katowice, Kosice, the Baltic Philharmonic, the Slovenian Soloists Orchestra, the Adriatic Philharmonic Ancona, Arthur Rubinstein Philharmonic, Opera Orchestra Ljubljana etc.) and is a sought guest of international festivals.

He has recorded for different labels, is juror of many international competitions and teaches masterclasses all over the world.

Mario Hossen is an Austro-Bulgarian soloist, considered as one of the leading interpreters of Paganini’s Music. As a soloist of international acclaim, Mario has performed with renowned orchestras such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio, the Orchestra della Scala di Milano, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Sofia Philharmonic. The complete oeuvre of Paganini for solo violin and for violin with orchestra are available as a historical-critical edition by Doblinger Verlag, the oldest music publishing company in Vienna.

Hossen is a prolific recording artist. Several acclaimed albums with the world première recordings of the most famous pieces of Paganini in their original version were edited by the leading Italian CD Label „Dynamic“ Genova. The 19 feature albums for Doron Music Switzerland and Dynamic have all received international recognition and are distributed by Naxos in more than 70 countries.

Mario Hossen holds several prestigious Awards, among them the City of Sofia, Musician of the Year award. The oldest Bulgarian Music Festival the “Varna Summer International Music festival”(1926), under Prof. Mario Hossen as Artistic Director, was the European Festival Association (EFA), EFFE laureate for the 2019-2020-season and the winner of the European Audience Award.

When he was 17, Mario Hossen performed all 24 of Paganini’s Capricci. Since then, he has given concerts in prestigious international halls of more than 40 countries. As a conducting soloist, he leads the Vienna Chamber Orchestra in the concert series “Concert Spirituel” in Vienna. Mario Hossen plays a G.B. Guadagnini Violin (1749), which is loaned to him by the Austrian National Bank.

Performer, composer, activist, musicologist — these roles are all infused into his art and way of life. His music, too, transcends boundaries: unapologetically playful in its incorporation of classical influences, full of reverence for the traditional songs of his home,and teeming with the urgency of modern-day struggles of resistance.

A member of Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick, Jeremy first did music studies in Halifax before taking a chance to work in the archives at the Canadian Museum of History, painstakingly transcribing Wolastoq songs from 1907 wax cylinders. “Many of the songs I’d never heard before, because our musical tradition on the East Coast was suppressed by the Canadian Government’s Indian Act.” Jeremy heard ancestral voices singing forgotten songs and stories that had been taken from the Wolastoqiyik generations ago.

As he listened to each recording, he felt his own musical impulses stirring from deep within. Long days at the archives turned into long nights at the piano, feeling out melodies and phrases, deep in dialogue with the voices of his ancestors. These “collaborative”compositions, collected together on his debut LP Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, are like nothing you’ve ever heard. Delicate, sublime vocal melodies ring out atop piano lines that cascade through a vibrant range of emotions. The anguish and joy of the past erupt fervently into the present through Jeremy’s bold approach to composition and raw, affective performances enhanced by his outstanding tenor techniques.

“I’m doing this work because there’s only about a hundred Wolastoqey speakers left,” he says. “It’s crucial for us to make sure that we’re using our language and passing it on to the next generation. If you lose the language, you’re not just losing words; you’re losing an entire way of seeing and experiencing the world from a distinctly indigenous perspective.”