The Mentorship Project is a program aimed at helping emerging composers bridge the gap between student and professional by developing their artistic and professional skills. Each of the participants is matched with a mentor for a six-month period. During this time, the composers receive access to tools and resources, attend both group and private sessions, work intensively with a performer or ensemble on a new composition, and participate in workshops from experienced members of the new music community, including performers, composers, presenters, and various experts in relevant skills (technology, website skills, promotion, marketing, law, accounting, grant writing, publishing, etc.). The project culminates in a final concert featuring newly composed premieres by the emerging composers, alongside works by more established Canadian composers, to provide a showcase of Canada’s composers to the wider new music community. Given the success of the pilot Mentorship Project in Vancouver in 2011, the second project is currently in session in Vancouver with plans to expand to other cities in 2013.

Announcing the 2012 CMC/CLC Emerging Composers Mentoring Program Recipients (Vancouver)

The Canadian Music Centre British Columbia Region (CMC ‐ BC) and the Canadian League of Composers (CLC) are pleased to announce the selected recipients of the 2011 Composer Mentoring Program. Three emerging composers, Kathleen Allan, Daniel Brandes and Iman Habibi were selected from an impressive pool of applicants to take part in an innovative three‐month residency.

Each participant will receive tools, resources, and expert guidance to help them connect with the music community and achieve their goals. The program is designed to assist emerging composers as they navigate the challenging passage from emerging to professional composer. In 2011, the pilot project succeeded immensely, culminating in a wonderful concert in collaboration with Redshift at the Vancouver Art Gallery featuring the mentees’ compositions.

“We are excited by the response to the second year of the program,” says Bob Baker, Director of the CMC BC Region. “The caliber of talent and the maturity that these three composers display assures me that the program will continue to gain momentum and become a fixture for emerging BC composers of the future.”

The first project the composers tackled was to compose original music for MOA’s HIROSHIMA exhibit closing concert, featuring both Chor Leoni’s MYVoice and the BC Girls Choir. The concert took place on Sunday, February 12th, 2012. Please consult www.moa.ubc.ca for more information.

About the Recipients

Kathleen Allan
A native of St. John’s, Newfoundland, Kathleen Allan moved to Vancouver in 2007, and has quickly made an enviable reputation as a composer, conductor and soprano. She has received commissions from ensembles and soloists from across Canada including Chor Leoni Men’s Choir, the Vancouver Chamber Choir, Redshift Music Society, the Eastern Wind Ensemble, flutist Gillian Sheppard, mezzo-soprano Debi Wong, Zing! Children’s Choir, Lady Cove Women’s Choir, Altantic Voices of Ottawa, and Newman Sound Men’s Choir. She has a particular passion for renewing Newfoundland folk songs in choral arrangements, and her commissioned interpretation of The Maid on the Shore was performed in Argentina in Summer 2011 at the World Symposium on Choral Music. She has received two Newfoundland and Labrador Arts and Letters Awards for her compositions, and in 2006 won CBC’s national composition contest in honour of Mozart’s 250th birthday. Her choral works can be found in the catalogues of Alliance Music Publications, Inc. (Houston, TX) and Cypress Choral Music Publishing (Vancouver, BC). She holds a degree in composition from the University of British Columbia, where she studied with Dorothy Chang and Stephen Chatman.

Equally accomplished as a singer, she is a member of the Vancouver Chamber Choir and is in demand as a soloist and new music specialist. Her recent recital, featuring premieres of new vocal music as well as performances of her own works, received national media attention and was featured on CBC’s Saturday Afternoon at the Opera. In June 2011, she performed as soprano soloist with the National Broadcast Orchestra and Berkshire Choral Festival Choir in Richard Einhorn’s Voices of Light at the Chan Centre. Other major solo credits include Arvo Pärt’s Passio at the Chan Centre in 2009, and the lead role of Ann in the premiere North American tour of Stephen Hatfield’s chamber opera Ann and Seamus, including performances at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, and Harbourfront Centre in Toronto.

Kathleen is the director of the Chorales of the Vancouver Bach Children’s Chorus, and is on faculty at the Vancouver Academy of Music.

Daniel Brandes
Daniel Brandes is a composer, cyclist and community gardener. He lives in Victoria, British Columbia with his wife, Laura, and cat, Jack. He is a resoundingly bad, but earnest, five string banjo player. He plays and sings on the street with his wife for money. It works.

In 2010, Daniel completed his Masters of Music at the University of Victoria where he studied composition with Christopher Butterfield and Daniel Biro. Daniel’s works are often an exploration of austere, fragile and delicate landscapes that examine the potential of, and depth of expression within, very limited musical materials. His graduating work Different Windows or Possible Trajectories, a twenty-five minute chamber work for nine players, explores issues of time, memory and perception. These issues are at the heart of Daniel’s current creative research.

Daniel composes music that walks tight ropes – tight ropes between nothing and something, fragility and fierceness, beauty and ugliness. He likes art that makes the listener/viewer/reader come to it. He likes artists that try even if they fail, as long as they try.

His music has travelled across Canada, being performed in concerts, reading sessions and workshops by the Windsor Symphony Orchestra, the Windsor Community Orchestra, the Victoria Symphony Orchestra, the Brave New Works Ensemble, the ECM+ and the Quatuor Bozzini. Current and upcoming projects, collaborations and commissions include a new work for Canadian singer and electroacoustic artist Andrea Young, a tuba solo for Berlin based Canadian tubist Max Murray and a work for Toronto keyboard collective JuncQin. June 2011 the Quatuor Bozzini recorded his piece the rooms are furnished in a most peculiar fashion for their newest CD A chacun sa miniature, due for release this December.

In the fall of 2010 Daniel co-founded The Collective, a group of emerging composers and sound artists in Victoria BC dedicated to writing and performing exploratory music in alternative venues. In July 2012 Daniel will be traveling to Düsseldorf Germany for an intensive period of private study with Wadelwieser composer Antoine Beuger, co-founder of the Wandelweiser Composer’s Collective and Publishing Company.

Iman Habibi
Iman Habibi’s music and performances are heard regularly across North America, in cities such as New York, London, Oslo, Toronto, Tehran, Nashville, Ottawa, and Vancouver. His music has been programmed by prestigious concert organizations such as The Marilyn Horne Foundation (New York), The Canadian Opera Company (Toronto), Tapestry New Opera (Toronto), Vox Novus (New York), Atlantic Music Festival (Maine), the BCScene Festival (Ottawa), and the Powell Street Festival (Vancouver).

He has received numerous awards including First Prize at the SOCAN Foundation’s Awards for Young Audio Visual Composers, and The Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Awards for Emerging Artist in Music (2011). He also received second prize at the 2008 Vancouver Bach Choir’s national Competition for Large Choir Works for his work “Erroneous Kudos,” and first prize for his work “Black Riders” at the 2009 Guelph Chamber Choir’s national competition. His music and interviews are broadcast regularly on radios across North America, such as CBC radio one, CBC radio two (Canada), and WQXR (New York). He has received numerous commissions including a commission to compose his first piano concerto for The Prince George Symphony Orchestra (PGSO). In Feb. 2010, Mr. Habibi appeared as the piano soloist to premiere this concerto with the PGSO. He completed his Masters degree at the University of British Columbia under the instruction of Dorothy Chang. Other teachers include Jeffrey Ryan, and Stephen Chatman. Mr. Habibi is an associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre, and is represented by SOCAN in Canada.

As a pianist, Iman has had the privilege of working with many great musicians, ensembles, and orchestras, He appeared as the piano soloist with the Prince George Symphony Orchestra to premiere his piano concerto in Canada, and later played it with the Atlantic Music Festival’s Orchestra in the United States. Iman was a finalist at the Inaugural Knigge National Piano Competition, and is also well known for his collaborations with pianist Deborah Grimmett. The two pianists formed a duo in 2010, which at its debut won third prize, and the audience choice award at The International Northwest Piano Ensemble Competition.

2010-2011 Pilot Mentorship Project

The Canadian Music Centre, BC Region and the Canadian League of Composers are pleased to present a pilot Mentoring Project that will run from 1 January to 31 March 2011 in Vancouver, BC. This program aims to give participating composers tools and resources to help connect them with the music community, develop their professional and artistic skills, and navigate the challenging passage from student to professional.

Three participants have been selected to participate in the 2011 Mentoring Project:

Elizabeth Knudson

James O’Callaghan

Christopher Reiche

Each participant receives:

- a stipend of $3,000;

- access to tools and resources, as well as mentors—people who are active and experienced in the community, including performers, composer, presenters, and experts in relevant skills (possibly including technology, web skills, promotion, marketing, law, accounting, grant writing, publishing, etc.);

- the opportunity to work intensively with a performer, and to write that performer a work, which will be played or work-shopped at the end of the program.

For more information, please contact Bob Baker, Director, Canadian Music Centre, BC Region at (604) 734-4622, or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

This program is made possible through funds granted from the Creators’ Assistance Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage, as administered by the SOCAN Foundation.