| CEO and Executive Artistic Director - Christopher Donison |
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Christopher Donison is a Canadian composer, librettist, conductor, pianist, lecturer, & inventor. A piano student of Winifred Wood and graduate in piano performance from the School of Music, at the University of Victoria at Victoria, British Columbia- he went on to win a Dora Mavor Moore Award for Music Direction in Toronto and to serve as Music Director of the Shaw Festival in Niagara- 0n-the-Lake, Ontario, for ten years (1988-1998) where he conducted over 1,000 performances, created a string quartet residency programme, and wrote more than a dozen scores for plays and orchestrations for many more. He continued to pursue graduate studies in composition at State University of New York at Buffalo and has composed choral, chamber, and orchestral works.
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In 1998 he finished an unfinished Gershwin musical for the Estate of George and Ira Gershwin to mark the centenary of George Gershwin's birth. In January 1999 he appeared as guest conductor with the Kingston Symphony where he premiered his own first symphony: Symphony Erotica. His concert works include Symphony Erotica, 7 Encounters for Soprano and Flute, the award winning Choral Prophecy performed by the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge , England, on their first North American Tour, Theme and Conversations for Orchestra, and The Little Match Girl for Orchestra, Narrator, and Dancer, choreographed adapted and narrated by Veronica Tennant, two string quartets, The Rashomon Quartet, and The Seagull Quartet for string quartet and distant oboe, and Music-by-the-Sea, quintet for clarinet and string quartet. The last five years have been primarily devoted to the creation of MBTS but most recently he has co-written and and conducted and orchestrated works for orchestra and Jorane, the phenomenal Québec cellist and singer/songwriter. Their collaborations have been featured as part of the BC Olympics Arts Festival and the 400 Year Anniversary of Quebec City concert with the Orchestre symphonique de Québec. In August of 2009 in Montréal, Donison conducted the Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand-Montréal and Jorane for Franco Follies.
He is also the inventor of the Donison-Steinbuhler Standard, a smaller 7/8 alternative piano keyboard which is hoped will become universally available for study, competition, and performance within a generation. He is a currently serving member of the Board of Trustees of the National Arts Centre of Canada and he is the Founding and Executive Artistic Director of Music by the Sea at Bamfield British Columbia, International Music Festival & School.
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| Artistic Advisor and Chamber Music - Marc Ryser |
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Marc Ryser has performed as a recitalist, concerto soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States, Canada, Switzerland and Bulgaria. He has collaborated with many distinguished artists including the cellists Paul Katz and Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, violist Marcus Thompson, violinists Gwen Hoebig and Peter Salaff, the Lydian and New Zealand String Quartets, among others.
He has taught at Pomona College, the San Francisco Conservatory, and Drake University, and given master classes in Edmonton and Lethbridge. From 2004 to 2005 he was a senior artist and resident collaborative pianist at The Banff Centre. He currently resides in Boston Massachusetts.
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Artist Co-ordinator - Lynne Huras
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Lynne was born and raised in the creative environment of the theatre town of Stratford, Ontario. She has, like many artists before her, found her artistic expression in the breathtaking beauty of nature. She is a graduate of the Art & Art History program at the University of Toronto/Sheridan College and, on what was to be a short stop in Banff in 1992, Lynne found endless fuel for her artistic passions in the trees, rocks and water of the Rocky Mountains.
She enjoys spending hours walking, sitting and sketching outdoors, absorbing the sensations of a natural experience and then taking those sketches and feelings home to translate them onto canvas. Her hope is to convey to the viewer the peace and awe she finds in, and the respect she has for, our magical home – this planet.
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Stage Manager - Kimberley Shepherd
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Kimberley Shepherd was born and raised in Victoria, B.C. Currently, she is working on her Bachelor's of Music Composition and Theory at the University of Victoria. She is very excited to be a part of the Music by the Sea team this year- a project that combines her great passion for music with her love of Vancouver Island's spectacular scenery.
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Administrative Assistant - Heather Cooper
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Heather Cooper moved to Bamfield with her husband, Joe, in the fall of 1999. Since then, she has been a very active member of several community volunteer organizations.
Through her job as Program Supervisor with the Bamfield Community School Association, Heather met Christopher Donison, the Executive Artistic Director for Music By the Sea when she interviewed him for the local paper, The Beacon, back in the summer of 2005. This was Music By the Sea's first print article!
The Bamfield Community School Association also became the home-away-from-home for Music by the Sea's operations during the summer festival. Heather assisted with the office needs of the festival staff and musicians, and also helped organize the chamber- music rehearsals, which are open free of charge to children and their families.
Now that Music By the Sea has a year-round office at the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre, Heather has been hired to work on a part-time basis as the Administrative Assistant and continues to be an avid supporter of all of Music by the Sea?s programs and initiatives.
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About Music by the Sea