"Known for his radiant orchestrations, his dramatic structures and his innovative guitar work, Canadian Tim Brady is a composer and guitarist who has created music in a wide range of genres ranging from chamber and orchestral music to electroacoustic works, chamber opera, contemporary dance scores, jazz and free improvisation. He has been commissioned and performed by numerous ensembles and orchestras in North America and Europe including the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec, The South Bank Centre, New Music Concerts, INA-GRM (Radio-France), the English Guitar Quartet, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the Esprit Orchestra (CBC), the Philadelphia-based Relâche ensemble, the Australian group Topology, and the New York groups Newspeak and the Trinity Wall Street Choir.

Since 1988 he has released 24 CDs as both a composer and a performer on Justin Time Records and Ambiances magétiques, and, more recently, on ATMA Classique, Centrediscs and Starkland labels. His most recent CDs are: Music for Large Ensemble - with Bradyworks (Autumn 2018 - Starkland Records), The How and the Why of Memory, with Symphony Nova Scotia (Centrediscs - 2015) Atacama: Symphonie #3 (ATMA Classique - Feb. 2013) - nominated for a JUNO Award in 2014, . His two most recent major orchestral works are The How and the Why of Memory: Symphony #4, commissioned by Symphony Nova Scotia, and The Absence of Shelling is Almost Like Music, for cello, video and orchestra, commissioned by the Orchestre symphonique de Québec.

In June 2018 his work "While 100 Guitars Gently Weep: Concerto for George", for 100 guitars, was premiered at the Luminato festival in Toronto to over 1,400 people. The work was commissioned by Luminato from Tim Brady, with Brady as guitar soloist.

Other recent touring success include the premiere of the chamber opera Ghost Tango in Halifax and Kitchener (Sept. 2015), and the New York premiere of Atacama: Symphony #3, with Newspeak and the Trinity Wall Street Choir at the National Sawdust concert hall (Oct. 2015), under the direction of Julian Wachner. His work "Journal: String Quartet #2" has toured North America to great success, performed by the New Orford String Quartet, which commissioned the work in 2013. It was released on CD by the NOSQ in early 2018.

His electric guitar collective "Instruments of Happiness" presented shows for 100, 20 and 4 guitars to sold out houses across Canada in 2015 and 2016, and the first IoH CD was released in March 2016 on the American Starkland Records, to excellent reviews. The group has toured Canada twice (2017, 2018), presenting new works by a range of Canadian composers.

Other recent orchestral pieces include Viola Concerto (Orchestre symphonique de Laval, Requiem 21.5: Violin Concerto, commissioned by Symphony Nova Scoti and Amplify, Multiply, Remix and Redfine: in memory of Les Paul (for 21 electric guitars & orchestra), commissioned for the 2010 Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra New Music Festival. His most recent international success was the June 2010 production of excerpts from "24 Frames - Trance" at the Bang on a Can Marathon in New York City, as well as a 6-city East Coast US tour in September 2012.

Brady regularly tours North America, Europe, Asia and Australia as an electric guitar soloist, performing his own music as well as new works which he commissions from other composers in his effort to create a new voice for the electric guitar. He has performed at many leading venues including The South Bank Centre and the ICA (London), The Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), The Darwin International Guitar Festival (Australia), the Bang on a Can Festival (NY), and De Ijsbreker (Amsterdam), Radio-France (Paris), the Barcelona Contemporary Music Festival and BKA (Berlin). He has recorded extensively for Radio-Canada, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the British Broadcasting Corporation, Netherlands Public Radio, Radio-France, Spanish National Radio and National Public Radio in the USA. In 1999 his Strange Attractors World Tour took him to 10 countries for a total of 23 concerts. The ensemble's most recent tour in March and April 2014 took them to the USA and Australia, including a broadcast recording for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation show New Music Up Late.

His new music ensemble Bradyworks has toured Canada six times (1991, 1994, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2009), performed in the United States, and records regularly for both the CBC and Radio-Canada. The ensemble released its first CD in 1991, entitled Inventions, and released its second recording, Revolutionary Songs, in 1996 to coincide with its performance at the Festival international de musique actuelle de Victoriaville. In the autumn of 2003 the group released its third CD, entitled Unison Rituals, and presented its first European tour, including a radio performance for the BBC Radio 3 programme "Hear and Now", along with concerts in Aberdeen, Dublin and Cork. The ensemble recently presented Brady's two chamber operas in highly successful productions: Three Cities in the Life of Dr. Norman Bethune (Montreal, 2003 / Toronto, 2005), and The Salome Dancer (Kitchener, 2005). In May 2008 it presented 5 performances of the multi-media work My 20th Century in a tour across Québec, including a performance at the Festival international de musique actuelle de Victoriaville. My 20th Century's success continued in 2009, with a 10-city Canadian tour, to rave reviews.

In January 2013 his work "Atacama: Symphonie #3" was named "Best new composition of the year" at the Prix OPUS. In 2004 he was awarded the Prix OPUS for "Composer of the Year" by the Conseil québécois de la musique, for the outstanding quality of his work as a creative artist. In Nov. 2006 he was awarded the Jan V. Matejcek Award by SOCAN, for the most concert music performance royalties in Canada for 2005 (francophone category). From 2008 to 2013 he served as the "composer-in-residence" with the Orchestre symphonique de Laval, working with music director Alain Trudel to build a creative music presence in the orchestra and in the city of Laval.

In addition to his work as a composer and guitarist, from 1994 to 2004 he served as the Artistic Director of Innovations en concert, a company which he founded. It is one of Montreal's main new music producers, and during his tenure as director he produced over 100 concerts of contemporary music from across Canada and around the world. He also has written for Musicworks Magazine, and has served on the boards of Codes d'accès, The Canadian League of Composers and the Music Gallery. He was the founding president of the Canadian New Music Network, serving from 2005 to 2014."

"Jean Derome. Born Montréal, Québec, 1955. esidence: Montréal, Québec. Composer, Performer (saxophones (alto, baritone, soprano), flutes (flute, bass flute, piccolo, alto flute, recorders), keyboards, small wind instruments (ocarinas, jew's harp, game calls, toys...), percussion, invented instruments, voice)

One of the most active and eclectic musicians on the Canadian creative music scene, Jean Derome has managed to earn the recognition of a larger public, a rare feat in that field. Thanks to his large-scale musique actuelle projects, his compositions, his work as an improviser, his jazz groups and his music for the screen and the stage, Derome ranks as a major creative force, in Québec and abroad. He is experienced and innovative on both saxophone and flute, and his unique writing style cannot be mistaken for anyone else's. Sensitive and powerful, his music often features a funny strike that makes its complex nature more inviting.

Ever since Nébu (one of Québec's first avant-garde jazz groups) in the early '70s, Derome has been consistently renewing and diversifying his approach of composition. He impressed audience and critics first with the flute, then with the saxophone, as a lead character in the musique actuelle underground. He took part to the various artists' collectives looking for new ways to express themselves freely, without esthetic or social constraints, including the Ensemble de musique improvisée de Montréal. Later, in the early '80s, he co-founded Ambiances Magnétiques, a collective and record label that raised his profile at home and introduced his name to the outside world. Among his numerous projects, let us mention the duos Les Granules, Nous perçons les oreilles and Plinc! Plonc!, the dynamic group Jean Derome et les Dangereux Zhoms, and the large-scale projects Confitures de gagaku, Je me souviens - Hommage à Georges Perec and Canot-camping. Most of these projects are based on a unique form of synergy between composition, structured improvisation and genuine creative madness, all this articulated with unmatched playfulness. In 1992, Derome became the second artist to be presented with the Freddie Stone Award (bassist Lisle Ellis was the first).

Besides improvising on a regular basis with Ambiances Magnétiques' members and appearing in their projects, Derome has also shared the stage with several musicians of international stature, among others Fred Frith, Lars Hollmer, Louis Sclavis and Han Bennink. He performs regularly all over Canada, in the US and in Europe. He received a Prix Opus in 2001 for his exposure abroad.

Lately, jazz circles have been praising his undisputable qualities as a jazzman, thanks to the Thelonious Monk tribute project Évidence, the Normand Guilbeault Ensemble (whose Mingus Erectus CD is devoted to Charles Mingus' music), and the much-lauded Derome Guilbeault Tanguay Trio.

Although Jean Derome writes tirelessly for his own projects, he is much in demand in the fields of film, theatre and dance. A short list of this side of his work would have to include his numerous scores for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), especially for films by John Walker, Jacques Leduc, Fernand Bélanger and animated films by Pierre Hébert, Michèle Cournoyer and Jean Detheux; his incidental music for Théâtre UBU, Théâtre de Quat'Sous and Théâtre du Nouveau Monde; not forgetting his work with several top choreographers, including Louise Bédard, Andrew de Lotbinière Harwood, Daniel Soulières and Ginette Laurin. Other music ensembles have commissioned works from him, including Tuyo, Bradyworks, the Hard Rubber Orchestra from Vancouver and Fanfare Pourpour. Incidentally, Derome is the musical director of the latter.

Over thirty years of music and 70 record credits later, Jean Derome still has sleeves bursting with tricks."

"Jean René. Born Victoriaville, Québec, 1956. Residence: Montréal, Québec. Performer (viola), Conductor.

Jean René has a Bachelor's degree in composition from the Université de Montréal. He has studied viola and conducting; Raffi Armenian, Michel Longtin, and Bruno Guiranna were his professors. From 1991 to 2002, he was associate principal violist with l'Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal. He still freelances with a number of ensembles. Since 1990 he has collaborated with many artists, including André Duchesne, Pierre Cartier, Jean Derome and René Lussier. He also headed the group from the Ensemble SuperMusique for the Symphony of the Millennium."

"Quebec City, Québec, 1956: Composer, Performer (drum set, percussion, voice)

A percussionist, composer and inveterate inventor, Pierre Tanguay is one of the most sought-after Montréal musicians on the Quebec scene. Since the beginning of the 80s, he has participated in an impressive number of ensembles, including Jean Derome and the dangereux zhoms, Évidence, Castor et compagnie, the Jean-François Groulx Trio, the ODD (a danse orchestra), Villemure Ô Carré, the Pierre Cartier Ensemble and Projet Riel. Among his collaborators are Jean Derome, Normand Guilbeault, Pierre Langevin, René Lussier, Karen Young, Fred Frith, Michel Donato, Daniel Mille, André Duchesne and Antoine Berthiaume. He is very active in the fileds of medieval and traditional music, jazz and musique actuelle. He is the co-founder of Strada, Midi Tapant, Derome/Tanguay.

He has composed works for dance (Lucie Grégoire, Andrew Harwood, Irène Stamou and Francine Gagné), as well as works for the theatre and film (Allan Booth, Imago and Roberto Ariganello). He regularly tours throughout Canada and Europe."

"Martin Tétreault. Born Saint-Jean-Baptiste-de-Rouville, Québec, 1957. Residence: Montréal, Québec. Composer, Performer (turntable), Artist.

Martin Tétreault is an internationally-renowned sound artist based in Montréal. He is a leading figure in improvisation using turntables, unusual vinyl surfaces and objects. Tétreault's trajectory includes various productions on compact disc and live performances with a range of collaborators: Diane Labrosse, René Lussier, Érik M, Michel F Côté, i8u, Otomo Yoshihide, Xavier Charles, Kid Koala, and many more. He is the composer and director of a turntable quartet Quatuor de tourne-disques founded in 2006. His work has appeared under several labels including Ambiances magnétiques, Erstwhile, Japanimprov, Oral, Victo and Vand'œuvre. Commissioned for music, dance, theatre, poetry and installation, Tétreault has been the recipient of many grants and awards."