The Arts & Letters Membership of Toronto has introduced the winners of the very first Rising Canadian Composers Competitors. The Ezra Duo (viola and piano) carried out works composed by the three finalists at a live performance on December 8.
The location of the three finalists emerged:
- First Prize: Luiz Ramirez
- Second Prize: Simon Alami
- Third Prize: Fiona Marchetto
The jury was made up of Soundstreams Creative Director (and oboist) Lawrence Cherney, and Canadian composers David Jaeger and Alexina Louie.
The Winners
Luis Ramirez, First Prize for his work Azure ($1,000)
A local of Aguascalientes, Mexico, Mexican-Canadian composer Luis Ramirez (b. 1992) is as we speak based mostly in Mississauga. His work Azure consists in 4 actions that evoke the rhythms of a fast highway journey throughout the Manitoba prairies, incorporating its seasonal adjustments.
Luis started taking part in the piano as a baby, with an early curiosity in modern music and composition. Since coming to Canada, he’s been acknowledged as a TSO NextGen Composer, and served as a Composer Fellow with the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. Accolades embody first prize within the Giant Ensemble SOCAN Awards and the CMC Prairie Area Rising Composer Competitors, amongst others.
Ramirez’ work is characterised by its rhythmic textures and evocative and cinematic sensibility, one that includes parts of Mexican folklore. His music has been carried out throughout North America by ensembles such because the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México, Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, and Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, and at festivals from Ottawa’s Chamberfest to the Competition Cervantino in Mexico, the Casalmaggiore Competition in Italy, together with factors in between.
He graduated from Brandon College, the place he studied each piano and composition, and is at the moment finishing his doctorate beneath Randolph Peters at York College.
Simon Alami, Second Prize for his work Tea with Debussy & Pärt in Casablanca ($600)
A local of Fez, Morocco, composer Simon Alami (b. 1966) relies in Montréal. As a musician and composer, he’s largely self taught, and has been exploring his ardour for music by way of singing, instrumental efficiency, and composition since he was a baby.
He went on to check and profit from mentoring by Grammy nominated composer Robert Paterson, together with acclaimed Peruvian composer Antonio Gervasoni and composer/orchestrator Thomas Goss (Billy Ocean, Nikki Yanofsky), and numerous masterclasses. His skills have been acknowledged by awards resembling the first prize in Composition on the sixth Swiss Worldwide Music Competitors in Lugano, Switzerland.
Simon’s voice as a composer blends various influences, incorporating numerous traditions, together with these of Morocco. He makes use of unconventional harmonies and each impressionistic and minimalist strategies. In his prize-winning work, he imagines an intimate Moroccan type tea with Arvo Pärt and Claude Debussy in a musical dialog.
Fiona Marchetto, Third Prize for her work Thunderstorm ($400)
Fiona Marchetto grew up in Calgary, Alberta, however is now based mostly in Montréal, the place she is finding out at McGill’s Schulich College of Music. The multi-genre composer and violinist just lately launched a single with vocalist Kalika Thibodeau.
Her prize-winning work Thunderstorm relies on the poem by Emily Dickinson of the identical identify. Just like the poem, Marchetto’s composition goals to recreate the gathering energy of a coming storm, from the rising winds to the violent flash of thunder and lightning.
As a violinist, Fiona was a member of the Nationwide Youth Orchestra of Canada in 2024, and went on their acclaimed tour of Ontario and Western Canada.
Congratulations to all three, and to the Arts & Letters Membership of Toronto for his or her help of Canadian expertise.
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Anya Wassenberg is a Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. She is an skilled freelance author, blogger and writing teacher.
