Artist Spotlight: Dr. Spy Dénommé-Welch

By Unsettled Scores / On / In Artist Spotlight, Blog post, Chamber, Indigenous artist, Music

Leading up to our show at Celebration of Nations on September 7 we will be featuring each of our artists! Today’s second Artist Spotlight is Unsettled Scores’ Artistic Director, Composer and Librettist Dr. Spy Dénommé-Welch.


Photo by Lady Luck Photography

Dr. Spy Dénommé-Welch (Anishnaabe) is a multi-disciplinary scholar, composer, producer, and librettist/playwright. He wrote and co-composed the Dora Mavor Moore-nominated opera Giiwedin. Other credits (as writer and co-composer) include: Contraries: a chamber requiem (2018, premiered at the Royal Conservatory of Music), Sojourn (2017; commissioned by Signal Theatre for the dance opera Bearing, premiered at Luminato Festival); HATE MAIL & Irreconcilable Trolls (2017; premiered at Native Earth’s Aki Studio); Bottlenecked (2017); Victorian Secrets (2014, presented at Native Earth’s Aki Studio); Spin Doctors (2014); Bike Rage (2013). 

Spy’s academic research focuses on Indigenous topics in education, arts, and decolonizing through music and performance. He is Principal Investigator of two SSHRC-funded projects. His project, Beyond the Rainbow: Investigating representations of gender and sexuality in Indianist music and production, received SSHRC-Insight Development Grant funding (2016-2019), and examines the implications of gender and sexuality representation in historical Indianist music and cultural production. His second project, Sonic Coordinates: Decolonizing through land-based music composition, received the inaugural New Frontiers in Research Fund Award (2019-2021), and explores land-based approaches to Indigenous music, visual culture, and decolonization.  

Spy is Artistic Director of Unsettled Scores, an Associate Composer with the Canadian Music Centre, a member of the Canadian League of Composers and the Playwrights Guild of Canada, and an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at Brock University.


Spy will be appearing in RADAR and Contraries: a chamber requiem as part of a presentation of Unsettled Scores at Celebration of Nations on September 7 starting at 7:30PM at FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre.

Tickets are $5 for high school students, $20 for adults, and can be booked by visiting the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre website.

Artist Spotlight: Catherine Magowan

By Unsettled Scores / On / In Artist Spotlight, Blog post, Chamber, Music

Leading up to our show at Celebration of Nations on September 7 we will be featuring each of our artists! Today’s first Artist Spotlight is Unsettled Scores’ Managing Director, Composer and Conductor Catherine Magowan.


Composer and bassoonist Catherine Magowan is principal bassoonist of the Sudbury Symphony Orchestra, the Southern Ontario Lyric Opera orchestra (SOLO), and regularly freelances throughout Ontario.  Catherine is co-founder of the world’s first electric bassoon band, DFM, and has appeared at festivals including Pride Toronto, World Pride, Buskerfest, and the Northern Lights Festival Boreal.

She was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore award for the opera Giiwedin (Native Earth Performing Arts/Unsettled Scores, 2010) which she co-composed with her collaborator, Dr. Spy Dénommé-Welch. Together they premiered Contraries: a chamber requiem at the Royal Conservatory of Music in 2018, and their work for voice and orchestra Sojourn premiered at the Luminato Festival as the finale of the dance opera Bearing (Signal Theatre, 2017). Their chamber work Bike Rage took first prize by audience vote in Baroque Idol (Aradia Ensemble, 2013), and their comedy duo Professor Quack & Grunt has lectured at cabarets, poetry festivals, book launches, and universities. Magowan and Dénommé-Welch are currently completing their second full-length opera.

Together she and Dénommé-Welch have presented at conferences on topics such as decolonization and intercultural collaboration in music, and run workshops for youth and young adults on music creation and the politics of music.

Catherine is a member of the Canadian League of Composers, and an Associate Composer with the Canadian Music Centre.

She’s a doggy mama to hound dogs Maeve and Samson, and in her spare time she likes fidgeting with databases and spreadsheets, and her vegetable garden.


Catherine will be appearing in RADAR and Contraries: a chamber requiem as part of a presentation of Unsettled Scores at Celebration of Nations on September 7 starting at 7:30PM at FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre.

Tickets are $5 for high school students, $20 for adults, and can be booked by visiting the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre website.

Artist Spotlight: Jean Becker

By Unsettled Scores / On / In Artist Spotlight, Blog post, Chamber, Indigenous artist, Music

Leading up to our show at Celebration of Nations on September 7 we will be featuring each of our artists! Today’s second Artist Spotlight is our Project Knowledge Carrier/Project Grandmother Jean Becker.


Jean Becker is Inuk and a member of the Nunatsiavut Territory of Labrador. Jean has lived in Ontario for forty years and has been involved in grassroots urban Indigenous community building throughout that time in Wellington and Waterloo regions. As the Senior Advisor Indigenous Initiatives at Wilfrid Laurier University, Jean is responsible for overseeing the strategic direction of the university related to Indigenous activities. She continues to be involved in Indigenous ceremonies and advocacy work for Indigenous people outside of the academy and is actively engaged with local Indigenous communities.


Jean has been invaluable to the artists and creative team of RADAR and Contraries: a chamber requiem, and will be part of a presentation of Unsettled Scores at Celebration of Nations on September 7 starting at 7:30PM at FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre.

Tickets are $5 for high school students, $20 for adults, and can be booked by visiting the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre website.

Artist Spotlight: Benjamin Stein

By Unsettled Scores / On / In Artist Spotlight, Blog post, Chamber, Music

Leading up to our show at Celebration of Nations on September 7 we will be featuring each of our artists! Today’s first Artist Spotlight is guitarist and Assistant Music Director Benjamin Stein.


Benjamin Stein is a singer, lutenist, pianist, guitarist composer, music director and writer. He has played or sung for ensembles as such Tafelmusik Baroque Chamber Choir, Opera Atelier, Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, Elora Festival Singers, Toronto Masque Theatre and Soundstreams Canada. He has an MA in Musicology/Theory from the University of Toronto, a Bachelor of Music in voice and classical guitar from McGill University, and is currently pursuing a PhD at York University, focusing on the re-emerging art of Western classical music improvisation. He is the proud founder of Musicians on the Edge, an initiative devoted to creating opportunities for classical musicians to reintegrate improvisation practice into music education and concert performance.  He works an associate music director at Metropolitan United Church of Toronto, and has written articles on music and culture for the Toronto Star and Wholenote Magazine.   More information on his activities can be found at benjaminstein.ca.


Benjamin will be appearing in RADAR and Contraries: a chamber requiem as part of a presentation of Unsettled Scores at Celebration of Nations on September 7 starting at 7:30PM at FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre.

Tickets are $5 for high school students, $20 for adults, and can be booked by visiting the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre website.

Artist Spotlight: Nicole Joy-Fraser

By Unsettled Scores / On / In Artist Spotlight, Blog post, Chamber, Indigenous artist, Music

Leading up to our show at Celebration of Nations on September 7 we will be featuring each of our artists! Today’s second Artist Spotlight is singer Nicole Joy-Fraser.


Nicole Joy-Fraser (Bear Clan/ Dene Zaa, Métis, European) has had the opportunity to work across Turtle Island with many celebrated companies such as Mirvish Productions, Factory Theatre, Native Earth, Red Sky, Nightwood, YPT, Stratford Festival, Blyth Festival, Charlottetown Festival, Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, TSO, National Ballet, Nathaniel Dett Chorale and most recently Carousel Players as Mary Jane Mosquito. She also enjoyed performing across the pond in the multi-award-winning musical “Jerry Springer-The Opera” (West End) and in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” (UK and Athens Tour). Nicole is grateful and honoured to be collaborating with these talented artists and loves storytelling with Spy and Catherine. She still cherishes singing in their Dora-nominated, premiere production of “Giiwediin” which helped kickstart the reclamation of her Indigenous identity and healing journey. She currently lives in Niagara-On-The Lake with her partner and son.


Nicole will be appearing in Contraries: a chamber requiem as part of a presentation of Unsettled Scores at Celebration of Nations on September 7 starting at 7:30PM at FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre.

Tickets are $5 for high school students, $20 for adults, and can be booked by visiting the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre website.

Artist Spotlight: Colin Maier

By Unsettled Scores / On / In Artist Spotlight, Blog post, Chamber, Music

Leading up to our show at Celebration of Nations on September 7 we will be featuring each of our artists! Today’s first Artist Spotlight is oboist Colin Maier.


Born and raised in Calgary, Colin Maier graduated from the University of Calgary in 1997 with a degree in oboe performance studying with David Sussman. Since 2009, Colin has been the oboist for the internationally renowned and critically acclaimed ensemble “Quartetto Gelato” playing 50-70 international concerts a year. During that time he has been heard on international radio broadcasts, seen on the BRAVO network, received the 2010 INDIE award for best classical ensemble. He has released 3 albums with Quartetto Gelato and 2 solo albums and has been a guest lecturer/recitalist at universities in Canada, US, Mexico and Bahamas.

Outside of being a musician, Colin has also worked for over 20 years as a dancer, actor, stuntman, singer, choreographer, acrobat and martial-artist. Colin had the honor of playing the devil fiddler in the flying blue canoe for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Opening Ceremonies.” Colin had also been seen in; “Lord of the Rings” (Mirvish), Fire (CanStage), “Forbidden Phoenix” (LKTYP), “KA” (Cirque du Soleil), “Amadeus” (Alberta Theatre Projects), “That Dance Show” (Saltance Productions), “Cats” (Neptune Theatre), Joseph’s Dreamcoat (StageWest/Drayton), “A Chorus Line” (StageWest), Sarah Brightman’s World Tour, and TV’s “Honey I Shrunk the Kids!”.

This combination of music and theatre is quite unique and he continues to find new, exciting and ground breaking ways to combine his two passions.


Colin will be appearing in RADAR and Contraries: a chamber requiem as part of a presentation of Unsettled Scores at Celebration of Nations on September 7 starting at 7:30PM at FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre.

Tickets are $5 for high school students, $20 for adults, and can be booked by visiting the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre website.

Artist Spotlight: Rebecca Cuddy

By Unsettled Scores / On / In Artist Spotlight, Blog post, Chamber, Indigenous artist, Music

Leading up to our show at Celebration of Nations on September 7 we will be featuring each of our artists! Today’s second Artist Spotlight is singer Rebecca Cuddy.


 Métis/Canadian Mezzo-Soprano Rebecca Cuddy’s recent career highlights include performing La Métisse, in the world premiere of Riel; Heart of the North (Steele/Weissensel) with Regina Symphony Orchestra, Mercedes (Cover Carmen) in Carmen, Frau Viehmann in Brothers Grimm and Toronto Concert Orchestra’s tour of Voice of a Nation in which she premiered a Métis song cycle by Ian Cusson. 

Rebecca is proud of her Métis heritage and has a keen interest in Indigenous relations and music, along with contemporary composition. Earlier this season she joined Tapestry and Opera on the Avalon for the world premiere of Shanawdithit as Kwe/Spirit Chorus (Nolan/Burry). Rebecca is very pleased to join Unsettled Scores for Contraries and looks forward to her next Indigenous classical music performance in Soundstreams’ Two Odysseys in November 2019. 

Rebecca completed her MA in Voice at the Royal Academy of Music, UK in 2017. www.rebeccacuddy.com 


Rebecca will be appearing in Contraries: a chamber requiem as part of a presentation of Unsettled Scores at Celebration of Nations on September 7 starting at 7:30PM at FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre.

Tickets are $5 for high school students, $20 for adults, and can be booked by visiting the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre website.

Artist Spotlight: Laura Savage

By Unsettled Scores / On / In Artist Spotlight, Blog post, Chamber, Music

Leading up to our show at Celebration of Nations on September 7 we will be featuring each of our artists! Today’s first Artist Spotlight is percussionist Laura Savage.


Laura Savage splits her music career between performing and teaching. She is the drum instructor at Royal St. George’s College and co-owns the Mill House School of Music in East Toronto. As a freelance performer she has appeared with numerous ensembles, including the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. She has appeared many festivals and events including the Toronto International Film Festival, the Canadian National Exhibition, Luminato, the Northern Lights Festival, and at the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival. Laura performs regularly with Savage Groove Dance Band, the Regimental Band of the Queens Own Rifles of Canada, DFM Bassoon Quartet, and is the Principal Percussionist for the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra.


Laura will be appearing in RADAR and Contraries: a chamber requiem as part of a presentation of Unsettled Scores at Celebration of Nations on September 7 starting at 7:30PM at FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre.

Tickets are $5 for high school students, $20 for adults, and can be booked by visiting the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre website.

Artist Spotlight: Conlin Delbaere-Sawchuk

By Unsettled Scores / On / In Artist Spotlight, Blog post, Chamber, Indigenous artist, Music

Leading up to our show at Celebration of Nations on September 7 we will be featuring each of our artists! Today’s second Artist Spotlight is singer Conlin Delbaere-Sawchuk.


Conlin Delbaere-Sawchuk is a singer and steel-string guitarist who draws inspiration from his heritage, fusing Métis folk traditions with contemporary musical genres and styles. He holds a Bachelor of Music in classical voice performance from the University of Ottawa. In addition to his performance practice, he has worked extensively as a presenter and workshop facilitator, sharing his passion for Métis history, Canadian music, and creative processes. He is currently a JD candidate at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law. 


Conlin will be appearing in Contraries: a chamber requiem as part of a presentation of Unsettled Scores at Celebration of Nations on September 7 starting at 7:30PM at FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre.

Tickets are $5 for high school students, $20 for adults, and can be booked by visiting the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre website.