Councilors

Sophie Dupuis

Treasurer, Atlantic Region Representative

Sophie Dupuis is a composer from New Brunswick interested in interdisciplinary art music and music for small and large ensembles. She is recognized for her impressive technique and endless imagination. She finds her voice in her childhood spent in the picturesque scenery of the Maritimes and, conversely, by her attraction to raw, electrical and harsh sounds. Her works have been played in workshops by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Symphony Nova Scotia, and in concerts by ensembles including duo aTonalHits, the Array ensemble, Toy Piano Composers Ensemble and Architek Percussion. She has been commissioned and performed by Caution Tape Sound Collective, Thin Edge New Music Collective, and most recently by ECM+ for their Generation2018 tour.

Sophie received the Karen Kieser Prize in Canadian Music 2016 from the University of Toronto for her piece Perceptions de La Fontaine and received several prizes for her studies in music including the University Medal in Music from Dalhousie University, an Ontario Graduate Scholarship, the John Weinzweig Graduate Scholarship and the Theodoros Mirkopoulos Fellowship in Composition two years in a row. She took part in workshops such as highSCORE Festival, UPbeat Summer Course for Composers, Orford Arts Centre Creation Program, the Array Young Composers Workshop and Vocalypse’s Opera from Scratch. Sophie recently completed her Doctor of Musical Arts in composition at UofT and is now working on a set of hardware electroacoustic percussion instruments made with recycled material, in view of the upcoming performance of a commission by The Arts Song Project. Aside from her activities as a composer, Sophie works as a violinist, arranger and passionate music teacher of violin, piano, theory and ear training in Ottawa.

Associated Committees:

Steven Webb

Ontario Region Representative

Originally from South Africa, Steven Webb (b.1989) is a Toronto based composer and sound designer, with his artistic works being filtered through the personal lens of his own battle with mental illness. Webb creates new music and video art from an eclectic mix of influences including retro science-fiction, horror, 1990s computer software and video game culture, and the orchestral cinematic tradition.

His current compositional work is concerned with examining the human experience, with the disorientation, confusion, and dread that arises from living in a world dealing with a climate crisis, growing conflict and marginalization towards minority groups, and the increasing isolation of the individual in spite of our hyper-connectivity.

Steven’s artistic output ranges from works for orchestra, to choirs, to glitch electronica scores for video games, with his compositions and arrangements having been performed by: The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, The Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra, The Thin Edge Music Collective, Pro Coro Canada, The Hamilton Children’s Choir, Exultate Chamber Singers, and Prairie Voices, among many others.

As a film composer, Steven’s credits include: ‘Chopin’s Heart’ for The National Screen Institute, ‘Period Piece’, winner of the best Canadian Short Film at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival, and ‘Scheduled Violence’ for MTS On Demand. As a producer and audio engineer, Steven has worked with bands including: The Lytics, Vikings, and Moses Mayes, and has done audio work for Harper Collins, Strata Studios and Astron 6 Video International. 

In addition to completing his Doctorate degree at the University of Toronto, he currently works as a full-time composer, sound designer and collaborative pianist.

Gordon Fitzell

Prairie Region Representative

Gordon Fitzell is a Canadian composer, improviser and sound artist. His music, described as “eerie, throbbing and trancelike” (New York Times), tends to explore peculiar points of connection between classical and popular elements of culture, freely inhabiting acoustic, electroacoustic and interdisciplinary performance environments. His compositions have been conducted by Robert Aitken, Reinbert de Leeuw and Bramwell Tovey, and performed at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (England), the Tanglewood Music Festival (USA) and the Winnipeg New Music Festival (Canada). His music is featured on various albums, including GRAMMY-winning, Opus Award-winning, JUNO-nominated and West Coast Music Award-nominated recordings. Gordon is a professor of composition at the University of Manitoba Desautels Faculty of Music in Winnipeg, and an artistic co-director of the new music organization Groundswell.

Nathalee Jacques

Nathalee Jacques is a composer and arranger from Ottawa, ON. Her work embodies aspects of her life, creating pieces that are reflective and accessible. Her focus is to reflect on current issues, such as feminist issues and the reflection and inclusion of the BIPOC community. Her purpose in writing music is to further education and conversation, addressing topics that are not often openly reflected.

Nathalee completed her Honours Bachelor of Arts in Music in 2018 and her Master’s of Music Composition in 2021, both at the University of Ottawa. She has written solo work and music for numerous ensembles, such as chamber ensembles, marching band, and string orchestra. She has also been continuing to build her electroacoustic repertoire.

William Kuo

BC Representative

William Kuo is a Canadian composer of experimental music.

His music has been presented at Gaudeamus Muziekweek (Netherlands), Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik (Austria), Cluster New Music Festival (Winnipeg, Canada), Festival Voix Nouvelles (France), and ManiFeste Festival (France).

Notable collaborators in recent years include TAK Ensemble, NIKEL, Quasar Quatuor de Saxophones, Ensemble Klang, Asko|Schönberg, Ensemble Multilatérale, Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Ensemble InterContemporain, Ensemble Paramirabo, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Heather Roche, Eva Zöllner, Juliet Fraser, and Juliette Adam.

He received his Bachelor’s in Composition from McGill University in 2013, under the guidance of Brian Cherney, Chris Paul Harman, and John Rea. In 2015, he earned his Master’s in Composition from the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, where he received valuable insight from Michel Gonneville, Serge Provost, and Louis Dufort. In 2018-19, he participated in the Cursus computer music program at IRCAM in Paris, France. He was a finalist for the Gaudeamus Award in 2018.

Bekah Simms

Vice-President, ISCM Canadian Section

JUNO award-winning Composer Bekah Simms hails from St. John’s, Newfoundland and is currently based in Glasgow after nine years living and working in Toronto. Her varied musical output has been heralded as “cacophonous, jarring, oppressive — and totally engrossing!” (CBC Music), “visceral contemporary music that enfolds external inspirations with dazzling rigor and logic” (Peter Margasak), and lauded for its “sheer range of ingenious material, expressive range and sonic complexity” (The Journal of Music.) Propelled equally by fascination and terror toward the universe, her work is often filtered through the personal lens of her anxiety, resulting in nervous, messy, and frequently heavy electroacoustic musical landscapes. Recent interests in just intonation and virtual instruments have resulted in increasingly lush and strange harmonic environments.

Bekah’s music has been widely performed across North America and Europe. She has worked with some of the top interpreters of contemporary music internationally, including Crash Ensemble – with whom she is currently an artist-in-residence – Riot Ensemble, Eighth Blackbird, and l’Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal. Bekah has also been the recipient of over 35 awards, competitive selections, nominations, and prizes, including the 2019 Barlow Prize and the 2023 JUNO Award for Classical Composition of the Year. Her piece “metamold” was nominated for the 2022 Gaudeamus Award. She has received three JUNO nominations for Classical Composition of the Year in 2019, 2020, and 2023. Her music has thrice been included in the Canadian Section’s official submission to World Music Days (2016, 2019, & 2021), and in 2016 the CBC included her among their annual 30 hot classical musicians under 30.

Bekah is a Lecturer at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, following previous academic positions at the University of Toronto and University of Western Ontario. She holds a D.M.A. and M.Mus in music composition from the University of Toronto, and a B.Mus.Ed. and B.Mus in theory/composition from Memorial University of Newfoundland. Her principal teachers during academic studies were Gary Kulesha and Andrew Staniland, alongside significant private study with Clara Iannotta and Martin Bédard.