TANIA GILL, TorontoTania Gill is a Toronto-based pianist and composer. Her work is centred in jazz and improvised music, and is influenced by earlier classical training and performance of diverse genres. “All aboard for first-class and fanciful Toronto pianist!” (Globe and Mail). Over the past ten years, she has accompanied several silent films for TIFF, Revue Silent Sundays, and with Andrew Downing’s Melodeon Ensemble. She leads the Tania Gill Quartet, with current members Lina Allemano, Rob Clutton and Nico Dann. Her ensemble recorded the “quirky, wonderfully listenable” CD Bolger Station and has toured Canadian jazz festivals and clubs. Tania is also a regular member of the Brodie West Quintet, Rebecca Hennessy’s FOG Brass Band, the Woodshed Orchestra, and former member of The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band, Deep Dark United, The See Through Trio, Charles Spearin and the Happiness Project among many other projects. She has performed with numerous other world class musicians including Steve Reich, Anthony Braxton and Mary Margaret O’Hara. Tania teaches at her home and Humber College.
JORDAN KLAPMAN, Toronto
Jordan Klapman is a multi-talented pianist, accompanist, bandleader, popular music lecturer, arranger, composer and music producer. He has over thirty years’ worth of experience performing multiple genres of music including jazz and swing standards, The American Popular Songbook, Broadway, Latin, R&B, Klezmer, and Jewish music of all kinds. He also regularily performs with the Wintergarten Orchestra. He is equally at home in festivals, clubs, concert halls and theatres, and has appeared throughout the Toronto area and internationally, on CBC national television and radio, and JazzFM as a guest co-host with the late Jeff Healey.
Jordan leads several of his own bands and performs and records with many award-winning jazz, cabaret, and pop musicians including Adi Braun, Julie Michels, Judy Marshak, Sharon Smith, Donna Greenberg, Tony Quarrington, Richard Underhill, Jon Seiger, Henry Heillig, Tom Skublics, Glenn Anderson, and many others.
He has recently added silent film accompaniment to his repertoire. He is the regular pianist for the Toronto Jewish Film Society, the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, Silent Revue, and the Vintage Film Festival. He made his debut with the Silent Film Festival in 2014 and was a key member of the team of musical accompanists for the 2014 Canadian premiere of the Hitchcock 9. www.jordanklapman.com
Marilyn Lerner –Toronto
Genre defying pianist/composer/improviser Marilyn Lerner performs to acclaim internationally, from her native Montreal to Havana, from Jerusalem to Amsterdam and the Ukraine. Her intimate knowledge of the piano, combined with a fearless experimental and passionate spirit, renders her a true original. Lerner’s work spans the worlds of jazz, creative improvisation, Klezmer, and 20th century classical music. Her ground breaking recordings have garnered much recognition, including 3 solo CDs: Miss Overboard, Luminance, Romanian Fantasy, a duo with guitar legend Sonny Greenwich called Special Angel, and most recently, Lerner/Filiano/Grassi, Live at Edgefest, ( 2016, NoBusiness Records), Strange Attractors (2017, Ugly Beauties Trio (Matt Brubeck and Nick Fraser) and Réunion, the Queen Mab Trio (2017, Lori Freedman, Ig Henneman, Microclimat). She regularly accompanies silent film in Toronto at the Silent Revue and at TIFF. Website: marilynlerner.com/
Morgan-Paige Melbourne - Toronto
Morgan-Paige Melbourne is a Toronto based pianist who has competed and won numerous classes in the Kiwanis Music Festivals, (OMFA – Ontario Music Festival Association), including placing third in the national Canadian Music Competition 2017 for under-23 category. Morgan has performed extensively in Toronto, GTA, Guelph, Bahamas, and recently Montreal and France. She also performed at Koerner Hall during Culture Days celebrations, the 21C Music Festival, Burdock Piano Fest in Toronto, Château d’Orquevaux Artist Residency in Orquevaux, France, the Cinéclub Film Society silent film festivals in Besançon, France, and Montreal, Québec, and Alexina Louie’s award ceremony at the Arts and Letters Club in Toronto. She is the newly appointed board member of the Guelph Symphony Orchestra, and works as a collaborative pianist, assistant choir director, and teacher at Sistema Toronto and The East End Music Project.
WILLIAM O’MEARA, Toronto
William O’Meara has performed throughout North America, South America and Europe. Among his many solo engagements are included St. Paul’s Cathedral (London, UK), Toronto International Bach Festival, Trnava Organ Days (Slovakia), Warsaw International Festival of Organ Music (Poland), Turin International Organ Festival (Italy), Sao Bento International Organ Festival (Sao Paulo, Brazil), Harvard University Organ Society (Cambridge, USA), Perm Organ Festival (Perm, Russia), Fédération québécoise des amis de l’orgue (Québec), Jack Singer Hall (Calgary), Roy Thomson Hall (Toronto), International Congress of Organists (Montréal), Maison Symphonique de Montréal. From 1990 to 2003, he toured regularly throughout North America with the Laughton & O’Meara trumpet and organ duo.
O’Meara has commissioned and premiered many Canadian compositions and performed the Canadian premieres of many works by foreign composers. In 2006 he performed with the German choir RIAS Kammerchor in a concert honouring the 75th birthday of Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina, with the composer in attendance. The same year he gave the world premiere in Toronto of Paul Frehner’s Lila for two orchestras and organ with Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal and Norway’s BIT20 orchestra. In 2013, O’Meara premiered and recorded a new organ concerto, Cathedral Architecture, dedicated to him by the composer, John Burge.
O’Meara’s interest in improvisation led him to study silent films and their musical accompaniment. He has accompanied on piano and organ over 300 silent films from Europe, Russia, North America, China and Japan for such organizations as Cinematheque Ontario, Toronto International Film Festival, Perm International Festival (Perm, Russia) , Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (Pordenone, Italy), Jack Singer Concert Hall (Calgary) Goethe Institute (Toronto), Toronto Silent Film Festival and Piccolo Spoleto Festival (Charleton, S.C.).
In addition to his concert and silent film performances, O’Meara is Cathedral Organist at St. Michael’s Cathedral, Toronto and accompanist for the choirs of St. Michael’s Choir School. www.williamomeara.com
LAURA SGROI, TorontoLaura Sgroi is a composer, improvisor, pianist and DJ in Toronto and holds a Doctorate of Music Composition from the University of Toronto. A classically trained musician with a passion for popular and electronic music, Laura’s unique style explores popular music idioms adapted to the sonic and structural complexity of traditional classical ensembles. “My music is a unique blend of classical and electronica – two different genres together as one voice. I hope to bring contemporary classical music to a younger and more diverse audience by combining it with popular electronic styles.”
In 2015, Laura was included in CBC's list of the 30 hottest classical musicians under 30.
Laura is the youngest composer featured on the album "Woman Runs with Wolves" (Centrediscs, 2013) by percussionist Beverley Johnston. She is also the youngest composer featured on the 2016 Juno Nominated Album "Spin Cycle" (Centrediscs, 2015) performed by the Afiara String Quartet and DJ Skratch Bastid. One of her pieces on this album, “Dirty Laundry – Heavy Load” was the featured music for the National Ballet’s Sharing Dance 2017 – a signature Canada 150 project.
Laura is currently on faculty at the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Taylor Academy for Young Artists teaching composition and is the composer-in-residence for the Cantabile Chamber Singers.
Laura was thrilled to have her first symphony commissioned and performed by both the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony and Symphony Nova Scotia in 2019. She was recently awarded her third Ontario Arts Council Grant for a new composition for two cellos and piano, to be premiered in November, 2020.
Laura has been playing silent film accompaniment at Toronto Silent Film Festival and TIFF Bell Lightbox since 2010
