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Wanuskewin

Details

Saturday, May 9th 2026 @ 7:30pm

Venue

The Playground
388 Carlaw Ave, Toronto

Experience a moving evening of music, storytelling, and connection at WANUSKEWIN: Seeking Peace of Mind. This concert features acclaimed Indigenous artists—including acclaimed cellist and composer Cris Derksen—alongside instrumental ensemble and choir. Inspired by the Cree word “Wanuskewin,” meaning “seeking peace of mind,” the performance explores themes of reconciliation and harmony. Audiences will be immersed in powerful new works by Sherryl Sewepegaham, Andrew Balfour and Cris Derksen, including a new arrangement of Cris Derksen’s Mass for Nîpîy: A Prayer for Water.

Special Guest

Cris Derksen, a Juno-nominated Indigenous cellist and composer, is internationally renowned for her genre-defying music that bridges the traditional and contemporary. Hailing from Treaty 8 territory in Northern Alberta, Derksen comes from a lineage of chiefs from the NorthTall Cree Reserve on her father’s side and strong Mennonite homesteaders on her mother’s. Her work intricately weaves together her classical training and Indigenous heritage with modern electronic elements.

As a soloist-composer, Derksen has performed with most symphonies and chamber orchestras across Canada and has been commissioned by prestigious ensembles such as the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Thunder Bay Symphony, and Orchestre Métropolitain under Yannick Nézet-Séguin. In 2022, she composed for the Canadian Pavilion at the World Expo in Dubai. Her work on the podcast “Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s” by Connie Walker and Gimlet Media earned both a Pulitzer Prize and a Peabody Award. Upcoming engagements in 2024 include a performance at Carnegie Hall and collaborations with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.

Derksen is also a dedicated advocate for diversity in classical music. She founded the Indigenous Classical Gathering at the Banff Centre for the Arts, serves as the Artistic Advisor for the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, and chairs the Equity Committee for Orchestras Canada. Through these roles, she strives to make classical music more reflective of Canada’s diverse population, opening doors for BIPOC composers and performers.

Derksen’s performances take her across the globe, with recent concerts in Norway, Chile, Hong Kong, Australia, Mongolia, and throughout Europe. Despite her international acclaim, she proudly calls Canada home, continuously enriching its cultural landscape with her innovative and heartfelt music.

Simmie Patoka

Composer

Simmie non-binary soprano who is looking to change the narrative by creating art that questions life and power. Simmie encourages audiences to not be afraid of being uncomfortable, because that is when the best learning happens. Their “why” is because they have something to say. Simmie sees how the world can be improved for all people to live equitably, and they stand strong in these beliefs. Equity amongst people, kindness and compassion, learning from those we don’t understand and fighting for those who cannot fight for themselves. The best way they know how to evoke change is with music. They know this is possible because music has changed them. It has changed their opinions, views, the way they see the world. It is the best way they know to change the world around me. A “why” is subject to change and already has many times, but Simmie has found the importance of their “why” right now.

Kai Leung

Composer

Kai Leung holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Toronto, where he studied voice and composition. He is the Artistic Director of MSC Choirs, where he conducts Concreamus, Sehnsucht, and Frisson. He also serves as the Associate Conductor with the Orpheus Choir of Toronto, the Assistant Conductor with the Toronto Youth Choir and TCC’s Coro, and as the Assistant Conductor and Composer in Residence at St. Clements Church. Kai sings baritone with the TMSingers and the Schola Cantorum of St. Basil’s Catholic Church. Kai is also the conductor and choir manager of the Toronto Festival Singers, the professional synagogue choir at the Song Shul.

Kai is the 2020 recipient of the prestigious William and Phyllis Waters Graduating Award from the University of Toronto Faculty of Music. This award is presented each year to one graduating student from any stream who is deemed to have the greatest potential to make an important contribution to the field of Music. Kai has also been awarded the 2019 Arthur Plettner Scholarship, the 2019 Richard I Thorman Award, and the 2018 Lloyd Bradshaw Prize.

During his undergraduate years, Kai studied composition with Roger Bergs. His works have been performed by the Vancouver Chamber Choir, Resonance Youth Choir, Jokolo, Mississauga Tranzzit, Concreamus Chamber Choir, the Vancouver Youth Choir, the Mississauga Summer Chorale, the Oakville choir for Children and Youth, and the Orpheus Choir of Toronto.

Kai also works as an audio engineer and video editor. He enjoys using his multi-disciplinary skills to find creative intersections between musical creation, the choral arts, teaching, and technology. Over the past three years, he assisted 20 choral organizations in creating 180+ projects for digital dissemination.

Steven Lambke

Poet

Steven Lambke is a writer of songs and poems. He has been described by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson as “a working musician – that is, someone who is embedded in, responsible to, and who holds space for a community of artists that create against the odds of the music industry, without contracts, awards, and acolytes.” His most recent album Volcano Volcano was saluted by Pitchfork as “a battle cry for romantic radicals.”

Steven Lambke is also a member of the Constantines: young hearts be free tonight. He sings in the punk band Spider Bite and will see you in the (mosh) pit. In 2009, Steven Lambke and Daniel Romano co-founded the independent record label You’ve Changed Records. From 2017-2021 was the Creative Director of Sappyfest in Sackville, NB.

Steven Lambke lives in Toronto, ON or Sackville, NB depending on the season.

Emily Hiemstra

Composer

Emily Hiemstra (b.1991) is a real life viola mom. She is a violist, composer and mom to three boys under 5.

A JUNO nominated composer with music that has been deemed “superb” and “extremely resonant” (George Elliott Clarke, Canadian Poet Laureate), she has had her music performed at festivals throughout the UK, USA and Canada. Such festivals include the Impulse New Music Festival (Los Angeles, USA) and the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology (Cambridge, UK). Her orchestral and operatic background as a performer has deepened her understanding of colour and texture which she readily applies in her compositions to create clear and innovative works. Her desire is to create relevant and engaging music for the next generation and future generations to come.

A dedicated community member, Emily creates opportunities for new music such as the New Works for Solo Viola Project. She also strives to bring new music to a wider community through the In The Shadow of Your Wings concert series and performing family-friendly chamber concerts around the GTA. She also on the board of the Association of Canadian Women Composers as the Outreach & Publicity Officer.

As a violist she has been heard on CBC Radio’s About Time with Tom Allen (2022), performed at festivals around the world including Banff Centre for the Arts (Banff, CAN) and the German-Scandinavian Youth Orchestra (Berlin, GER). She performed the Stamitz Viola Concerto with the Charis Collective in 2017, and has played with ensembles such as the Canadian Opera Company and the Magisterra Soloists.

You can find her playing concerts around London, ON or writing music when her boys are napping.

Adebe DeRango-Adem

Poet

Adebe DeRango-Adem is a writer and former attendee of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics (Naropa University), where she mentored with poets Anne Waldman and Amiri Baraka. She is the author of three previous full-length poetry books to date: Ex Nihilo, a finalist for the Dylan Thomas Prize; Terra Incognita, nominated for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award; and The Unmooring. A poem from The Unmooring was featured in the 2019 Poem-In-Your-Pocket anthology, co-created by the League of Canadian Poets and the Academy of American Poets. Adebe served as the 2019-20 Barbara Smith Writer-in-Residence with Twelve Literary Arts (Cleveland, Ohio) and was selected by Sonia Sanchez as the winner of the 2021 Boston Review Annual Poetry Contest. She lives in Toronto.

Gavin Barrett

Poet

Poet Gavin Barrett is the author of Understan (Mawenzi House, 2020), a CBC Books recommendation. He has been published in Joao Roque Literary Journal, The Beacon, Fresh Voices, Ranjit Hoskoté’s anthology of 14 contemporary Indian poets, Reasons for Belonging (Viking Penguin, India); The Pen India Journal; The Folio; The Independent; The Toronto Review of Contemporary Writing Abroad; and Bombay Poetry Circle’s Poeisis and I to I. He curates the Tartan Turban Secret Readings, which promote IBPOC writers, serves on the Canadian Authors Association (Toronto) Advisory Board and is Board Chair for the immigrant journalism non-profit New Canadian Media. He is also a creative entrepreneur. He is the founder of Barrett and Welsh, a Toronto agency that uses branding and advertising to create inclusion and access for racialized Canadians and persons with disabilities.

Kathleen Allan

Artistic Director and Workshop Coordinator

The Amadeus Choir’s Artistic Director, Kathleen Allan, is equally recognized for her work as a conductor and a composer. Her compositions have been commissioned, performed and recorded by ensembles throughout the Americas and Europe and have been performed at two World Symposiums on Choral Music. From Carnegie Hall, Massey Hall, and Canada’s National Arts Centre, to concert halls in Helsinki, Vienna, Buenos Aires, New York, St. John’s, and Los Angeles, Ms. Allan’s compositions receive dozens of performances annually. Her work is published by Boosey & Hawkes (New York), Cypress Choral Music (Vancouver), and she is a member composer of MusicSpoke.com (Kansas City).

As a conductor and soprano, Ms. Allan is a strong proponent of new music. She has commissioned over 15 works for choir and has premiered over two dozen works for solo voice. As co-artistic director of Arkora, a 16-piece electric vocal chamber consort dedicated to blurring lines between the music of our time and masterworks from the ancient repertoire, she works regularly with composers and multi-disciplinary artists.

In addition to her roles with the Amadeus Choir and Arkora, Ms. Allan is the Artistic Director of Canzona, Winnipeg’s professional Baroque choir, and a Visiting Professor of Choral Music at Western University. She holds a bachelor’s degree in composition from the University of British Columbia and a master’s degree in conducting from Yale University.

Luke Hathaway Poet

Luke Hathaway

Poet Mentor

Luke Hathaway is a poet, librettist/lyricist, and performer, who makes his home in Kjipuktuk/Halifax. He collaborates with artists and ensembles near and far in the work of collective storytelling, bringing mythopoeic word-worlds to page, screen, and stage. He is particularly passionate about telling the trans and queer stories that are close to his heart. His book The Affirmations: poems was recognized in The Times, London, as a best book of 2022.

Notable musical collaborations include The Temple (with Daniel Cabena/ANIMA, Spiritus Ensemble, and composer Zachary Wadsworth); Years, Months, and Days (with Inter Arts Matrix / Menno Singers and composer Colin Labadie); and The Sign of Jonas (with Arkora and composer Benton Roark).

Luke Hathaway also works in opera and music-theatre creation: current projects include the collaborative work Eurydice Fragments (with re:naissance opera) and a new work of music-theatre, Caeneus (with ANIMA and composer James Rolfe).

Luke Hathaway has worked with the Choral Creation Lab as an artist-mentor since the lab’s founding season in 2020. He loves experiencing the magic that happens — new every time — when a poet, a composer, and a choir come together to create.

Andrew Balfour

Composer Mentor

Of Cree descent, Winnipeg composer Andrew Balfour is an innovative composer, conductor, singer, and sound designer with a large body of choral, instrumental, electro-acoustic and orchestral works including Take the Indian (a vocal reflection on missing children), Empire Étrange: The Death of Louis Riel, Bawajigaywin (Vision Quest) and Manitou Sky, an orchestral tone poem. His new Indigenous opera, Mishaboozʼs Realm, was commissioned by LʼAtelier Lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal and Highlands Opera Workshop.

Andrew is also the founder and Artistic Director of the vocal group Camerata Nova, now in its 22nd year of offering a concert series in Winnipeg. Andrew has become increasingly passionate about music education and outreach, particularly on northern reserves and in inner-city Winnipeg schools where he has worked on behalf of the National Arts Centre, Camerata Nova, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and various Winnipeg school divisions.

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Jennifer Petrilli

Jennifer Petrilli

Director of Marketing and Communications

Jennifer Petrilli is grateful to have a career that spans more than 20 years working in a sector that she loves – the arts! She is passionate about helping arts organisations of all shapes and sizes thrive by attracting more audience members with solid marketing strategies, increasing budgets through grant writing and targeted fundraising, and making things run smoothly with adept project management.

After receiving her degree in Journalism, Jennifer began her career with ten years at The Royal Conservatory of Music culminating in the role of Marketing Manager for The Learning Through the Arts division. Since then, Jennifer has gone on to lead marketing and communications strategies with a variety of performing arts and arts education organisations, specialising in e-newsletter creation and a variety of other digital marketing platforms.

Jennifer loves working with the dynamic team at the Amadeus Choir and is blown away by their dedicated and skilled group of volunteers, the inspired artistic leadership, and the ambitious and fun projects she has worked on. She is also a lifelong performer and has sung in choirs, rock bands, bossa nova trios and community theatre productions.

Joy Lee

Collaborative Pianist

Dr. Joy Lee is an accomplished Canadian pianist celebrated for her vibrant and multifaceted career as a collaborative pianist, teacher, vocal coach, soloist, and adjudicator. Driven by her deep passion for music and education, she has graced prestigious stages and events, including performances at the Canadian Embassy and Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., during President Barack Obama’s inauguration celebration, the Banff Centre for the Arts, and various locations across Canada’s Northwest Territories, including Inuvik and Yellowknife.

Dr. Lee holds a Bachelor of Music and Master of Music in Solo Piano from the University of Toronto, where she studied under the celebrated pedagogue Marietta Orlov. Her love for vocal music and its rich repertoire inspired her transition to collaborative piano. This led her to pursue a second Master of Music in Collaborative Piano Studies with one of North America’s pre-eminent collaborative pianists, Martin Katz, at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and later earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the University of Toronto.

Currently a Lecturer in Music and Worship Arts at Tyndale University, Dr. Lee is devoted to mentoring and inspiring the next generation of musicians. Her expertise makes her a sought-after adjudicator, having served at competitions such as the Arcadia Academy of Music, OMFA Provincial Finals, Sudbury Music Festival, and the Toronto Kiwanis Festival. In 2025, she will join adjudication panels for the Peel Music Festival and the ORMTA Eastern Zone competition.

Dr. Lee’s artistry has been recognized with numerous accolades, including second prize at the 2017 Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition and the 2018 Gwendolyn Williams Koldofsky Prize for excellence in collaboration. In April 2023, she made her Carnegie Hall debut as part of the Canada at Carnegie concert series. Later that year, she and soprano Stéphanie McKay-Turgeon performed works by French composer Henri Dutilleux at Maison Dutilleux-Joy in Candes-Saint-Martin, France.

A passionate and dedicated collaborator, Dr. Lee has served as a faculty member for the University of Toronto Choral Conducting Symposium in 2022 and 2023. She currently works with the Amadeus Choir of Greater Toronto, the MacMillan Singers at the University of Toronto, and the Tyndale Community Choir. Additionally, she serves on the Board of Directors for the North Toronto Songbirds, demonstrating her unwavering commitment to fostering community engagement and celebrating the arts.

Nila Rajagopal

Associate Conductor

An experienced conductor and educator, Nila Rajagopal is passionate about bringing people together through music. She is delighted to join the Amadeus Choir’s artistic team as Associate Conductor! Nila’s collaborative spirit has granted her various positions within the choral world. Highly sought after for her choral expertise, she was recently appointed Conductor of Training Choir II for the Toronto Children’s Chorus and spends the summer months working with the Mississauga Summer Chorale as Associate Conductor. She has previously held positions with the St. Lawrence Choir in Montreal and the Oakville Choir for Children and Youth. Increasingly recognized for her promising musical excellence, Nila was the recipient of the 2016 Doreen Rao Choral Award, the 2019 Iwan Edwards Award, the 2019 Ken Fleet Choral Conducting Scholarship and most recently, the 2020 Helen Hall Prize.

A passionate lifelong learner, Nila holds a Master of Music degree in Choral Conducting from McGill University, where she studied under the tutelage of Dr. Jean-Sébastien Vallée. She previously earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Toronto, where she studied voice with internationally renowned soprano Nathalie Paulin, and choral conducting with Dr. Hilary Apfelstadt, Dr. Lori-Anne Dolloff and Zimfira Poloz. Committed to the future of choral music in Canada, Nila is also Office Coordinator at Choral Canada, Canada’s National Arts Service Organization for choral music.

Tristan Zaba

Bass

Tristan Zaba started as bass section lead with the Amadeus Choir in 2022 and is delighted to be returning again this coming season. He works professionally in a wide variety of musical capacities including as a singer, composer, production worker, multi-instrumentalist, and curator. Some of the most notable recent developments in Tristan’s career have included his beginning a music PhD at York University in 2022 and his co-founding of new vocal music concert series Slow Rise Music alongside McKenzie Warriner in 2021. A favourite Amadeus memory of Zaba’s is his first concert with the choir singing Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells at Metropolitan United.

Michael Sawarna

Michael Sawarna

Bass

Michael originates from Kemptville, Ontario a small town south of Ottawa. Now living in Toronto he is a Tenor Section Lead for the Amadeus Choir and St. Andrew’s United Church Choir. He is studying voice with Catherine Robbin at York University. In his spare time Michael hopes to become as good a hockey player as now-retired tenor Ed Wiens.

Allen Mahabir

Tenor

Allen has been in the Amadeus Choir for the past two years, the first as a volunteer chorister and most recently as one of the tenor leads. During his free time, Allen fully immerses himself in comedy TV, NHL statistics and studying pop music from the 1950s onwards. As a professional songwriter, he regularly releases his music for various media while contributing to local musical projects as a session instrumentalist. He recalls the Tubular Bells performance as his favourite Amadeus memory–heart-melting chords mixed with spooky costumes!

Eric Mackeracher

Eric MacKeracher

Tenor

Eric MacKeracher has been the Music Director at Kingston Road United Church (located in the Beaches area of Toronto) since September 2000. Eric is an active member in the Greater Toronto community providing private lessons and master classes to many. He sings tenor in both the Elmer Iseler Singers and the Amadeus Choir. Eric graduated from the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto and continues his studies in both piano and voice.

Alison Roy

Alto

Alison Roy has been singing with Amadeus Choir since 2000!! Beyond singing, Alison also works as a Music Educator in Toronto. She loves hiking, being outdoors, travelling, and big dogs. Alison has many favourite moments in Amadeus Choir including both the Eastern and Western Canadian tours, singing Bach B-, and most recently the Nipiy’s Soundwalks in Edwards Gardens.

Rayna Crandlemire

Soprano

Rayna joined the Amadeus choir in 2022 as the soprano section lead and has loved being a member of the choir over the past year. As a recent graduate of the University of Toronto in Classical Voice Performance, she is currently working as a freelance artist in Toronto and has recently performed in the South African production Broken Chord presented by TO Live. Outside of choral music, she loves to enjoy music through dance, often attending salsa and bachata socials in the city. A favourite Amadeus memory of Rayna’s was performing Howard Shore’s Academy Award-winning score of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in collaboration with the FILMharmonic orchestra.

Nosferatu (1922)

Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (German: Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens) is a 1922 silent German Expressionist horror film about Count Orlok, a vampire who preys on the wife of his estate agent and brings the plague to their town.The film came to be regarded as an influential masterpiece of cinema and the horror genre.

Deantha Edmunds

Deantha Edmunds is Canada’s first Inuk professional classical singer. She was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in December, 2023 for her activity as a performer, writer, composer, and mentor, work which seeks to empower Indigenous people and share their stories. She is currently based in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. Her work has international reverberation as well as community integrity. She brings a level of professional excellence to Canada’s Indigenous art scene that is unique and important.

Deantha has released three albums. The most recent, Connections, won the 2022 Music NL awards for Classical Album of the Year, and Indigenous Artist of the Year. Connections was also nominated for a 2023 East Coast Music Award. Her EP My Beautiful Home (2019) and full-length CD Pillorikput Inuit: Inuktitut Arias for All Seasons (2016) also garnered ECMA nominations.

Her contribution to the internationally-acclaimed Messiah/Complex with Against the Grain Theatre and Toronto Symphony Orchestra helped garner the production a 2022 JUNO nomination, and the project also won the first ever Opera America Digital Excellence Award in 2022.

Deantha performs as a soloist with professional ensembles across Canada and abroad.

Notable appearances include singing at the opening ceremony of the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2021, performing for His Holiness, Pope Francis in Iqaluit at the official apology to Inuit residential school survivors in 2022, and singing the Nunatsiavut anthem for King Charles III at the St. John’s welcome ceremony of the 2022 Canadian Royal Tour which focused on Reconciliation.

Creating original music, collaborating with other musicians, contributing to Indigenous productions, and mentoring young artists, Deantha shares her voice and vision with her whole heart, and is drawing accolades from across Canada and the world.

Andrew Downing

Andrew Downing is a double bassist, composer/arranger, bandleader and music educator living in Toronto, Canada. He composes and arranges music for his own groups as well as various chamber groups, world music groups, jazz groups and orchestras in Canada. His compositions have been played by a vast and varied array of musical groups such as The Vancouver Bach Choir, Jayme Stone (banjo), Ensemble Made in Canada (piano quartet), Ensemble Polaris (Nordic/classical folk group), Toronto Masque Theatre (‘new’ early music) and VC2 (cello duo). He has arranged music for the Art of Time Ensemble, Patricia O’Callaghan, The Queer Songbook Orchestra, The Gryphon Trio, John Southworth and world music ensemble Kuné. He was recently nominated for the Louis Applebaum Composition award through the Ontario Arts Council.

As a bandleader, he has recorded ten of his own albums, four of which been nominated for Juno Awards, two of which won.

He is currently teaching materials, ear training, improvisation, double bass, composition, and ensemble classes at the University of Toronto.

Nîpîy's Songwalks

Our season finale is a project that has been years in the making: the premiere of a new major work about Indigenous water sovereignty from Cree cellist and composer Cris Derksen, preceded by an immersive outdoor prelude performance. 

Reserve Seats
Nipiy's SongWalks