Councilors

Tyler Versluis

President

Tyler Versluis is an Ontario-based composer and conductor. His music has been commissioned and performed by a growing list of Canadian ensembles and organizations, including the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Soundstreams, ArrayMusic, Caution Tape Sound Collective, the Toy Piano Composers, and VIVA! Youth Singers of Toronto. His music is also performed internationally, with premières and repeat performances in the USA, France, the Netherlands, Czechia, Poland, Slovakia and Lithuania.

In addition to his composition work, Tyler has worked as an organist and choirmaster in various liturgical settings since 2008, and works as a mentor specializing in music creation and theory. In 2021 he co-founded the VIVA! Singers Creation Workshop with Laura Menard, which introduces young people to the world of composition, music programming and songwriting. Since 2020, he is the Programming Director of the Canadian Composers Orchestra, which currently produces high-quality digital content of Canadian classical compositions, including video performances, score-videos and educational work.

Originally from St. Catharines, Tyler now lives and works in Toronto.

Cecilia Livingston

Vice-President

Canadian composer Cecilia Livingston specializes in music for voice. She is in residence at Glyndebourne (2019-21), where her work is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and builds on her 2015-17 Fellowship at American Opera Projects in New York, and she is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellow in Music at King’s College London.

Winner of the Canadian Music Centre’s 2018 Emerging Composer Award, the 2018 Mécénat Musica Prix 3 Femmes for female opera creators in Canada, and a winner in the SOCAN Foundation Awards for Young Composers, her music has been heard at Nuit Blanche, the 21C Music Festival, World Choir Games and with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

She has published on contemporary opera in The Opera Quarterly, Cambridge Opera Journal, and Tempo. She is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre and holds a doctorate in composition from the University of Toronto.

Associated Committees:

Nathalee Jacques

Secretary

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.

Lesley Hinger

Alberta/Northern Region Representative

Lesley writes acoustic music that shimmers and glows and floats and crunches and spins out, among other things. Her works have been performed across North America and Europe by various ensembles including the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Arditti String Quartet, Sound Icon, Land’s End Ensemble, Ensemble Resonance, Ensemble l’Arsenale, Strata Ensemble, UltraViolet, Caution Tape Sound Collective, and Vertixe Sonora.

Her works have been showcased in numerous festivals including Third Practice (Virginia), the National Arts Centre Summer Music Institute (Ottawa), the Composit New Music Festival (Italy), the Strata Festival (aka Sask New Music), the Toronto Creative Music Lab, New Music Edmonton’s ‘Now Hear This’ Festival, Ensemble Evolution at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and as a soundtrack to a haunted house at École Westlock Elementary. 

Lesley lives in Calgary AB, and received her Doctorate in Composition from Boston University in 2014, studying under Joshua Fineberg. She has her Bachelor of Music in Composition from the University of Calgary, and Masters of Music from the University of British Columbia, and co-founded the Boston-based Acoustic Uproar concert series with Heather Stebbins. 

Lesley teaches music theory and composition in the School of Performing & Creative Arts at the University of Calgary, and was the co-Artistic Director of New Works Calgary alongside Rebecca Bruton from 2020-2022. She’s also an arts administrator, working as the General Manager for Calgary Arts Development. 

Laurence Jobidon

Quebec Representative

Canadian composer and organist, Laurence Jobidon has written for a variety of ensembles, notably chamber, solo, vocal, and orchestral music. Hailed for her inventiveness (Jeu), powerful lyricism (Avant-Scène Opéra) and for the richness of her language (Folia Organologica), her works have been performed in North America and Europe and recognized through many national and international competitions, published at Productions d’Oz and New Music Shelf editions and have also been the focus of musicological and stylistical analysis in Québec, France and Poland. Her music has been commissioned and performed by the Atelier Lyrique of l’Opéra de Montréal, Tapestry Opera, Les Violons du Roy, l’Orchestre de l’Agora, Paramirabo, Choros, ensemble 3 femmes, the Canadian International Organ Competition and many more.

Laurence has notably benefited from the guidance of Canadian composer Andrew Paul McDonald through her compositional journey. She is an affiliate composer at the Canadian Music Centre and at the Canadian League of Composers.

Sasha Leger

Atlantic Representative

Sasha Louis Leger is a Canadian composer and sound designer who elegantly blends his musical roots in folk and rock with accomplished classical training. His music explores the duality of depth and vulnerability, which seems to accurately reflect the complex nuances of our lives. 

Sasha’s fascination with music began at the age of four years old, eyes closed and unconsciously head bobbing to Sabotage by the Beastie Boys (really, there is video proof). Fast forward to more recent times, his enjoyment of music has translated to an undergraduate degree in classical music composition from the University of Moncton and a Master’s degree in Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games from the prestigious Berklee College of Music. .  

Sasha’s works have been recorded by various professional ensembles and orchestras at notable studios around the world, such as AIR Studios in London, Studio 22 in Budapest, and BNR Recording Studios in Bulgaria.

A member of the Screen Composers Guild of Canada, he has had success with major television networks (Unis TV, Télé-Québec, CBC, Radio-Canada, etc.) and his music has been heard in cinemas and festivals all around. Particularly, his recent work on documentary series such as Les Chemins de Travers has been recognized by SOCAN with an Emerging Screen Composer Award.

Rodney Sharman

President, ISCM Canadian Section

Rodney Sharman lives on traditional Musqueam territory in Vancouver, Canada. He is the Victoria Symphony’s Composer-Mentor-in-Residence, and has been Composer-in-Residence of Early Music Vancouver’s “New Music for Old Instruments”, the Victoria Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, National Youth Orchestra of Canada, and Composer-Host of Calgary Philharmonic’s Festival, “Hear and Now”. In addition to concert music, Sharman writes for cabaret, opera and dance. He sings, conducts, plays recorders and flutes. Sharman was awarded First Prize in the CBC Competition for Young Composers, Kranichsteiner Music Prize (Darmstadt), Dora Mavor Moore Award (Toronto), and the Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts.