Performers
Alondra Vega-Zaldivar Soprano
Soprano Alondra Vega-Zaldivar has found a passion in organizing and performing recitals since her University years. Based in Toronto, Ontario, Alondra balances teaching 5 days at 88Keys with composing pieces for her students, her project and various performers.
Alondra holds a B.Mus and M.Mus in Composition from the University of Western Ontario and has been actively curating and organizing her own solo recitals since then.
She has dedicated the past five years to the creation and development of The Art Song Collaborative Project. Since 2016 she has organized, produced and perform in 4 different Operas through Art Song.
Gwenna Fairchild-Taylor
Soprano
Ottawa-born soprano Gwenna Fairchild-Taylor holds an M. Mus. Opera (University of Toronto) and a B. Mus. Voice Performance (Western University) and is a 2019-2021 fellow at Opera Omaha.
A four-time recipient of Government of Nunavut Culture & Heritage Grants in support of her music and drama programs in communities in the Arctic. Gwenna also wrote the curriculum for “Learn English Through Song”, a program run by The Corporation of Roy Thompson Hall and Massey Hall in Toronto that facilitates language learning and community building for newcomer women through singing.
Gwenna has conducted choirs for Regent Park School of Music and Sistema Toronto. She has also worked as a teaching artist and consulted on curriculum development for education programming at the Canadian Opera Company.
Maryam Soufisiavash - Pianist
Maryam Soufisiavash first became involved with piano at age 10. She holds a Master of Music in Performance from University of Tehran. She is now a Doctorate candidate in Piano Performance at the University of Alberta under the supervision of Dr. Jacques Depres.
From 2015, Maryam has performed in various festivals and recitals as a soloist and an accompanist, such as Fadjr International Music Festival and Classic to Contemporary Music Festival. She has participated as finalist in several piano competitions among which is the National Youth Music Festival from 2016 to 2017, and the Barbad Piano Competition in 2017.
Besides classical repertoire, she is also interested in contemporary and experimental music.
Maryam is one of the co-founders of the Contemporary Music Ensemble of the University of Tehran.
Joel Tangjerd - Cello
A native of London, Ontario, Joel Tangjerd began cello studies at the age of 4, and piano studies at the age of 5; achieving a Bachelor of Music and a Master of Music from Western University. He is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Historical Performance at the University of Toronto.
Joel has received scholarships to attend the Kincardine Summer Music Festival, the Southern Ontario Chamber Music Institute, the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute, the Domaine Forget Music and Dance Academy and the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute.
He was also a finalist in the LMSF competition and the winner of the Maritsa Brookes Concerto competition at the Don Wright Faculty of Music.
He was formally organist and music director of St. Luke’s Anglican Church as well as the principal cellist in the London Youth Symphony under the direction of maestro Len Ingrao.
Joel has served as principal cellist of the University of Western Ontario Symphony Orchestra under maestro Alain Trudel.
Joyce To - Percussion
Joyce To is an Australian percussionist, improviser and new media/sound artist, who explores relationships between aesthetics and ecology through experimental art making. She considers the tensions between aesthetic representations of the natural world in digital media and the material consequences of art-making practices. She aims to create pathways of reflection on contemporary environmental and social discourse through artistic investigation, and interdisciplinary collaborations.
She considers the tensions between aesthetic representations of the natural world in digital media and the material consequences of art-making practices.
She aims to create pathways of reflection on contemporary environmental and social discourse through artistic investigation, and interdisciplinary collaborations.
Her performance career spans across the globe, having performed in Australia, Japan, America, and Canada. Joyce’s output includes presenting works at conferences and international festivals, premiering 50+ new works, and collaborating with improvisers, artists, composers, dancers, and writers.
Kevin Vuong - Conductor
Equally comfortable on the podium, in the pit, and in the classroom, Kevin Vuong is a GTA-based conductor-educator whose diverse resumé includes serving as Music Director for numerous musical theatre productions, as a freelance studio and concert conductor, and as a conductor-clinician working with school and community groups.
Most recently, Kevin served as Music Director for the Patron’s Pick-winning production of Nam Nguyen’s A Perfect Bowl of Pho at the 2022 Toronto Fringe Festival, and conducted the premiere of the new chamber opera UNION (Nunes/Sinclair) for Green Room Music Toronto.
Kevin is currently a high school music teacher with the York Region District School Board, and holds a Master of Teaching from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and a Bachelor of Music in Music Education from the University of Toronto, where he studied clarinet with Peter Stoll and conducting with Dr. Gillian Mackay.