The Canadian League of Composers is pleased to welcome Christopher Reiche as its new President. Reiche replaces Brian Harman mid-term, who held the post since June 2014.
Please join us in welcoming Christopher!
CHRISTOPHER REICHE is a performer, composer, and instructor living in Victoria, British Columbia. His compositions range from pieces for solo performer to works for larger ensembles and have been performed by Quatuor Bozzini, Emily Carr String Quartet, Thin Edge New Music Collective, Negative Zed Ensemble, Pembroke Symphony Orchestra, 7090, and orkest de ereprijs. His string quartet, The length of this piece is not arbitrary – Painting a Portrait of Glass, was recorded by Quatuor Bozzini and released on their CD, À chacun sa miniature.
In Victoria, he performs frequently at A Place to Listen on piano and other objects. He can also be heard performing on Lodge no1 recorded by the Glass Tables. In 2013 he gave a solo performance of Erik Satie’s Vexations, completing all 840 repetitions in just under 24 hours.
When not composing or performing he is the New Music Coordinator for Open Space Arts Society, an artist run centre that prioritizes the presentation of all disciplines of contemporary art including, visual arts, music, performance art, and literary arts. He also works with the Canadian Music Centre to share the work of Canadian composers as the Victoria Outreach Coordinator at the Victoria Creative Hub.
In addition to a new President, the CLC has also appointed two new councillors in the Ontario region. Cecilia Livingston and Afarin Mansouri will be replacing Brian Harman and Anna Höstman, who have chosen to step down mid-term. Harman remains on Executive Council as Past President in a non-voting, advisory role.
Please read about our new councillors below, and join us in welcoming Afarin and Cecilia to the CLC National Council!
Known across Canada and the US for intensely dramatic chamber and vocal music, CECILIA LIVINGSTON is a Composition Fellow at American Opera Projects in New York and will begin postdoctoral research in musicology with Roger Parker at King’s College London in the fall of 2016. A winner in the 2014 SOCAN Foundation Awards for Young Composers, and a 2014 Composition Fellow at Bang On a Can’s Summer Music Festival, her music has been heard at the 21C Music Festival, World Choral Games (Latvia), Eastman’s Women In Music Festival, Vancouver International Song Institute, Scotia Festival of Music, Tapestry Opera, Bicycle Opera Project, Kingston Symphony, Thin Edge New Music Collective, and at Soundstreams’ 2016 Emerging Composer Workshop. Her articles and reviews have appeared in Tempo, Canadian Music Educator, Notations, Musical Toronto and at the International Conference on Music Since 1900.
AFARIN MANSOURI is an award-winning composer whose works have been performed in Canada, the United States, England, Iran, and South America. She received Music Creation Grants from the Toronto Arts Council for her children’s operetta To whom shall I give my heart?, based on a Persian story by Nader Ebrahimi in 2014, and her multidisciplinary work Doors, in 2015. Afarin has also appeared as solo soprano, singing new music in Farsi language at Toronto Culture Days 2014, Tirgan Festival 2015 and ICOT’s The Thirtieth Act in 2016.
Currently Afarin is a PhD candidate at York University finishing her research on children’s opera while teaching undergrad courses in music. She has presented her research at the Institute of Musical Research, London, UK (2013), and the 25th annual conference Mid-Atlantic Popular and American Culture Association, Baltimore (2014).
Afarin is very active in her community as musician and entrepreneur. She is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Iranian-Canadian Composers of Toronto (ICOT), and has curated many seasonal programs with them since 2011. She is also founder and director of MUSIC NEST, an organization dedicated to educating and inspiring families through musical programs. She is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre and board member of North York Arts.
