Contemporary Showcase Toronto 2024

Dorothy Francis is an active teacher, RCM examiner, and adjudicator. She has taught students from beginner levels to Licentiate levels within the Royal Conservatory of Music. Her students have excelled in their musical studies, with some competing at Provincial levels and receiving Gold Medal awards from the RCM.

Dorothy holds a Masters in Music in Piano Performance and Literature from the University of Western Ontario under the tutelage of James Anagnoson. She was the recipient of a Western Graduate Research Scholarship during her Masters degree, and she accompanied choirs and collaborated with singers and brass bands. Dorothy also completed a certificate in Early Childhood Music Education focusing on Kodaly, Orff and Dalcroze methodologies to better understand musical education for young children.

Dorothy enjoys engaging with students of all ages and levels. She combines technical training with musical exploration and imagination. Her aim is to cultivate each child’s appreciation of music while developing their technical and musical ability.

Brett Kingsbury is a multi-faceted performer, active in both a solo and collaborative musician. He is he has worked with many ensembles and performers including the Madawaska String Quartet, Magisterra Soloists, London Symphonia, the Cathedral Bluffs Symphony Orchestra, and members of the Hamilton Philharmonic and Toronto Symphony Orchestras. He is very active as an adjudicator and masterclass clinician, working frequently with pianists across the province. His doctoral dissertation was written on Busoni’s Fantasia Contrappuntistica, a rarely heard work he has performed on numerous occasions. He has also been involved in the world of opera as a repetiteur for Vancouver Opera, TrypTych concert and opera, Opera York, and other companies in Ontario.

Brett is an assistant professor at the Don Wright Faculty of Music at Western University, where he teaches studio piano, Performance Research, and undergraduate and graduate level Piano Literature. Brett is also a former sessional lecturer at the University of Toronto Scarborough and at Brock University. He is in demand as an adjudicator for music festivals across the province. While a student at the University of British Columbia, he was named R. Howard Webster Fellow at Green College.

Canadian Violinist Conrad Chow has forged a multifaceted career across two decades, distinctive in the Arts industry as both a leading educator and compelling performer. He currently teaches on the faculty of The Phil and Eli Taylor Performance Academy for Young Artists, at The Royal Conservatory, Canada, and is also Adjunct Professor of Violin and String Pedagogy at the University of Toronto.

His debut CD, PREMIERES, was released in 2012 on the Cambria/Naxos label and reached the #1 spot on Nielsen Soundscan’s Classical Album Charts.

“Chow shows off a nice balance between technique and musicality in a program that alternates between fireworks and sweet expressiveness.”
– The Toronto Star

Dr. Chow has concertized extensively across North America, Europe, and Asia, offering a mix of solo concerts, chamber music, masterclasses, and even pedagogical lectures in his engagements.  An active chamber musician, he honed his craft with the Emerson String Quartet, and has been a principal member of the iPalpiti Chamber Orchestra since 2008.

Dr. Chow earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Indiana University, studying with Miriam Fried; his DMA is from SUNY, Stony Brook, where he studied under Pamela Frank, Ani Kavafian, and Philip Setzer. He later pursued post-doctoral work with Eduard Schmieder in Philadelphia. He has appeared on the juries of various national and international competitions, including recently at the Kocian International Violin Competition, Czech Republic. Students of Dr. Chow have won international competitions in Canada, USA, Romania, and the Czech Republic and performed with major symphony orchestras.

Soprano Nathalie Paulin has established herself in the United States, Canada, Europe and the Far East as an interpretive artist of the very first rank. Winner of a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Opera Performance, she is an alumna of the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio, and has collaborated with internationally renowned conductors including Harry Christophers, Jane Glover, Michael Christie, Robert Spano, Kent Nagano, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Antony Walker, Bernard Labadie, Sir Roger Norrington, Andrew Parrott, David Agler, Jacques Lacombe, Graeme Jenkins, and Andrew Litton on both the concert platform and in opera. As well, critics have been lavish in their praise. Reviewing in the Chicago Tribune, John van Rhein noted that “Paulin in particular is a real find; her rich, agile voice possesses great depth and allure, her manner radiates sensuous charm,” and for the New York Times, Steve Smith noted that “Paulin [sings] with rich tone and compelling emotion,” while Renaud Machart from Paris’ Le Monde writes: “Nathalie Paulin was impeccable in diction, musicality and style.” Ms. Paulin debuted for L’Opéra de Montréal as Mélisande in Pélléas et Mélisande and for Chicago Opera Theater as Galatea in Acis and Galatea. She was re-engaged by Chicago Opera Theater for the title role in Semele and for Mary in La Resurrezione, both by Handel. She has also been heard as Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro for Cincinnati Opera, and the Dallas Opera featured her in Bizet’s Carmen, Massenet’s Manon and Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen.

Recent and upcoming seasons of the Canadian soprano include Brahms’ Requiem with Victoria Symphony; four of Bach’s Cantatas with Les Violons du Roy (Montréal and Québec); Mahler Symphony #4, with Symphony New Brunswick; the world premiere of L’Orangeraie by Zad Moultaka with Chants Libres (Pauline Vaillancourt – Montréal and Québec); Canadian composer, Zosha di Castri’s Dear Life and Claude Vivier’s Lonely Child for the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa and the extensive European Tour which followed; the title role in Beethoven’s Leonore (1805) for Opera Lafayette (D.C); Vivier’s Lonely Child and Mozart’s Requiem for the Vancouver Symphony; Handel’s Messiah for the Vancouver Chamber Choir; and she curated a programme for Montréal’s Ensemble Arion. Other engagements have included Blow’s Venus and Adonis for Clavecin en Concert, Lonely Child for Symphony Nova Scotia, Goercki’s Symphony No. 3 for the Winnipeg Symphony, and Cherubini’s Stabat Mater for Ottawa’s Thirteen Strings. Of special interest was her rendition of scenes featuring the lead characters from late eighteenth century French operas by Sacchini, Cherubini and Martini for Opera Lafayette in D.C. and New York City, about which critic Jacquelyn Claire writes: “Her Antigone was a strong yet subservient woman, serving the needs of her ailing father. She was sensual and sad as the tragic lover, Sapho, and she was aflame as the unhinged mad mother, Médée. A triumph of a performance!(…) She was utterly spellbinding. Bravo!”.

Other credits in the USA and Canada include Handel’s Messiah for Portland Baroque, Naples Philharmonic, New Jersey Symphony, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony and the orchestre symphonique de Montréal; Fauré’s Requiem for the Vancouver Symphony; Carmina Burana for Festival de Lanaudière; Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 for the Kingston and Ottawa symphonies; Bach Cantatas for Stratford Summer Music; the title role in Theodora for Vancouver Early Music; the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro for Opera Lyra Ottawa; and Beethoven’s Mass In C with Tafelmusik.

Ms. Paulin is highly regarded for the breadth of her musical curiosity and she has been engaged for works ranging from Canadian composer Jacques Hétu’s Les Clartés de la nuit with the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Handel’s Orlando with Washington Concert Opera to Micaela in Carmen with Opera Tampa to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 for the Seattle Symphony. She has been featured by the Handel and Hayden Society, Cincinnati Opera, Atlanta Symphony, Boston Baroque, Music of the Baroque, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Arizona Opera, Phoenix Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Mercury Baroque and the Colorado Symphony, as well as all the major orchestras and opera companies of Canada. On the festival circuit, she has been heard with the Bard Summerscape in New York State, Wexford Festival in Ireland, the Fredericton Chamber Music Festival, the Elora Festival, Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, and the Scotia Festival in Halifax.

Frequently heard on both the French and English CBC networks, she is a past winner of the Montréal Symphony Competition and holds a Master’s Degree from the Université de Montréal. She won the Dvorak prize and has also received awards and prizes from the George London Foundation in New York, the Young Mozart Singers’ Competition in Toronto, and the Canadian Music Competition. Nathalie Paulin has been teaching voice as well as French Mélodie for undergraduate students, and Advanced French Lyric Diction for graduate students, at the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto since 2008. Nathalie has also been on faculty at VISI (Vancouver International Song Institute, Canada), Orford Music (Quebec, Canada), the Barachois Summer Music Academy (New Brunswick, Canada) and at the Stratford Summer Music Vocal Academy (Ontario, Canada).

First-Prize Winner of the 32nd CBC/Radio-Canada National Competition for Young Performers, Canadian flautist Stephen Tam is in demand as soloist, chamber musician and orchestral player, performing repertoire ranging from the baroque to the contemporary.

Tam has appeared as concerto soloist in recent seasons with the Canadian Sinfonietta and the Ontario Philharmonic.  Past concerto engagements included collaborations with the Calgary Philharmonic, the Banff Festival Orchestra, the Toronto Senior Strings and Mooredale Festival Orchestra.  His solo performances have been broadcast on multiple occasions nationwide on CBC Radio and on Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK).

As chamber musician, Tam has performed at The White House, the Hong Kong Government House, the Toronto Summer Music Festival, the Ottawa Chamberfest, Stratford Summer Music and Confluence Concerts. He also frequently appears in chamber concerts at the University of Toronto’s Thursday Noon Series, Western University’s Faculty Concert Series and the Canadian Sinfonietta’s Wine and Cheese Series.

Highly regarded as interpreter of contemporary music, Tam is a regular guest of the Array Ensemble, Contact Contemporary Music, Soundstreams, New Music Concerts, Toca Loca, the Toronto New Music Projects and 5-Penny New Music Concerts (Sudbury).  Recently, he has recorded two digital EPs featuring the new flute music of Canadian composer Robert Lemay for the Centretracks label.

Tam regularly serves as principal flute with many orchestras and choral groups around Ontario, including the Canadian Sinfonietta, the Ontario Pops Orchestra, the Toronto Mozart Players, Pax Christi Chorale and Cantores Celestes.  He has also appeared as guest principal flute with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, the London Symphonia, the Kingston Symphony, the Niagara Symphony, the Brantford Symphony, the Toronto Concert Orchestra, the Toronto Operetta Theatre and the Theatre of Early Music.

A dedicated and passionate educator, Tam is a flute faculty member at both the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music and at Western University’s Don Wright Faculty of Music.  In the summer, he serves on the faculty at Interprovincial Music Camp (IMC).  He maintains a year-round private studio in Thornhill, Ontario.  Also active as adjudicator, he has been on the judging panel in competitions at the national, provincial and local levels.

Tam received his Master of Music in Orchestral Performance degree and the Professional Studies Certificate from the Manhattan School of Music, where he was a student of Jeanne Baxtresser and Michael Parloff.  He also studied with Douglas Stewart at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music, where he obtained his Bachelor of Music in Performance with Honours.