 Dutch soprano Elly Ameling performed concert tours that led her regularly throughout the world. She has performed with most major symphony orchestras, and conductors such as Ernest Ansermet, Carlo Maria Giulini, Bernard Haitink, Rafael Kubelik, Wolfgang Sawallisch, André Previn, and Seiji Ozawa. She is a regular guest at the major festivals (Holland Festival, Edinburgh, Lucerne, Aix-en-Provence, Tanglewood, Flanders Festival, etc.) She also regularly receives invitations to give master classes. More than 150 CD’s document her extended repertoire. Many of them have been awarded the Edison Prize (4 x), the ‘Grand Prix du Disque’, the ‘Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik’, etc. Elly Ameling has been granted three honorarydegrees in the USA and Canada.
 In recent months, pianist Dr. Jocelyn Dueck has performed in New York (Steinway Hall, the Tenri Cultural Institute, and Symphony Space), in her native Canada (the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival), and in venues across China with sibling pianists Dueck Three. Her collaborative engagements include performances at Alice Tully Hall, Seiji Ozawa Hall, the Schubert Club Courtroom Concert Series, CBC Radio, and NPR’s Talking Volumes. In addition to being a founding member of the new music duo Two Sides Sounding, she is a frequent performer of new music, Jocelyn has been a collaborator on many of composer Daron Hagen’s premieres. She has debuted works by Lisa Bielawa, Corey Dargel, Les Six composer Louis Durey, Judd Greenstein, Edie Hill, and Gilda Lyons.
In the fall of 2003, Jocelyn was awarded a Doctoral Dissertation International Research Fellowship from the University of Minnesota Graduate School and traveled to Paris to meet with the family of French composer Louis Durey, a member of Les Six. Dueck is documenting the unpublished song cycles of Durey, a gracious gift of his daughter, Arlette Durey. Jocelyn has written articles for Opera America’s Perspectives book series as well as for their magazine. She is on the faculties of Mannes College The New School for Music and NYU.
 Baritone Tyler Duncan is the winner of the 2008 New York Oratorio Society Competition, the Bernard Diamant Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts and the 2007 Prix International Pro Musicis Award which included debut recitals at Carnegie’s Weill Hall, Salle Cortot in Paris and at Pickman Hall in Boston. British Columbia-born, his recent engagements include Die Schöpfung for Orchestre symphonique de Québec, a tour of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Berlin’s Philharmonie der Nationen (Justus Frantz), Blow’s Venus and Adonis for Boston Early Music, and Matthäus Passion for the Dresdner Kreuzchor and Dresdner Philharmonie. Further credits include Demetrius in A Mid Summer Night's Dream for the Princeton Opera Festival, and Hidraot in Armide for Mercury Baroque of Houston, Mendelssohn’s Elijah in Munich, Winterreise for the Montreal Chamber Music Festival, Dream of Gerontius for the Elora Festival, and Weihnachtsoratorium with Tafelmusik as well as performances with the Singapore Symphony, Berkshire Choral Festival, Festival Vancouver and the André Turp Recital Series in Montreal are among his credits. Tyler enjoys drawing cartoons in his spare time.
John Greer is an active conductor, accompanist, vocal coach, arranger and composer and is heard in these capacities throughout Canada and abroad, in recital and on various CBC broadcasts.
Mr. Greer has been fortunate to have worked in recital with many of Canada’s most talented young singers of his generation: Nancy Argenta, Tracy Dahl, Rosemarie Landry, Linda McGuire, Kevin McMillan, Mark Pedrotti, Catherine Robbin, and Michael Schade, to name a few, as well as the renowned American singers/teachers Carmen Balthrope, Linda Mabbs, Carmen Pelton, Ashley Putnam, William Sharp, Carol Webber and Delores Ziegler.
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 Already acclaimed not only as one of the foremost accompanists of our day but also for his major contribution to the development of the song repertoire, Graham Johnson has most recently completed his major recording project of the complete lieder of Schubert for the Hyperion label and has embarked on a similar project of recording the complete lieder of Schumann. He was made an OBE in the 1994 Queen's Birthday Honours list, and in 2002 he was created Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French Government. In June 2000 he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in recognition of his achievements. His encyclopedic knowledge of the song repertoire has also led to his literary achievements in the publishing world.
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 Soprano Robyn Driedger Klassen has performed with the Vancouver Opera, Pacific Opera Victoria, the Banff Centre and Seattle Opera, and the Britten-Pears Institute. She has sung with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and the Vancouver Bach Choir, Vancouver’s Music on Main, and the Regina Symphony Orchestra. Robyn can be seen in the upcoming season in performances of R. Murray Schaffer’s Arcana with The Turning Point Ensemble, Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte, and various recitals and concerts including Bach’s Cantata 51 and Handel’s Messiah. Robyn is a Founding member of the Vancouver International Song Institute where she teaches and performs.
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 Pianist Laura Loewen has appeared in concerts throughout North America and in Europe and Asia, and is a professor of Collaborative Piano and the Vocal Coach at the University of Manitoba. She is on the faculties of the NUOVA opera training program in Edmonton, Alberta, theContemporary Opera Lab in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and is a fouding member of the Vancouver International Song Institute, The Galileo Trio and Emerado. Her recordings include She Sings, She Screams, with saxophonist Richard Dirlam, and Roundabout (music of composer Robert Carl), with saxophonist Mark Engebretson. Ms. Loewen holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts degree in Accompanying/ Coaching from the University of Minnesota.
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 Baritone François Le Roux has appeared on most of the worlds operatic stages, and is known to critics as "the greatest Pelleas of his generation". Aside from his operatic recordings he has released several song discs for EMI, REM (e.g. complete songs of Duparc and Fauré), HYPERION (Saint-Saëns songs, Séverac Songs & Louis Durey Songs with Graham Johnson), and DECCA-Universal.
His first Book "Le Chant Intime”, published by Fayard, about the interpretation of French Song, has been awarded the 2004 René Dumesnil Award by the French National Académie des Beaux Arts. He has been awarded the grade of "Chevalier" in the French National Order of "Les Arts et Lettres" Western Canadian Music AwardsMr. Le Roux gives numerous recitals accompanied by such renowned names as Irwin Gage, Graham Johnson, Roger Vignoles, Noël Lee and Jeff Cohen, and also conducts master courses dedicated to the interpretation of French songs.
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 Elizabeth MacDonald has performed the role of Miss Jessel in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw and a last minute debut in the role of Elettra in Mozart’s Idomeneo with the Canadian Opera Company. On the concert and recital stage Elizabeth has sung David Del Tredici’s Child Alice, Beethoven’s Symphony #9 and Orff’s Carmina Burana. Elizabeth has presented recitals for the Queen’s University Faculty Recital Series, Eastman Faculty Recital Series, the Virginia Polytechnic University Chamber Music Series, the Toronto Mozart Society, the Brantford Opera Guild and the Off Centre Music Series in Toronto. She has taught applied voice at Queen’s University and the Queen‘s Conservatory of Music, and currently serves on the faculty at the University of Toronto where she teaches applied voice. She maintains a blog titled “from the voice of…” dedicated to informing and inspiring young Canadian singers, is currently serving as Co-Vice President of Special Projects for the Ontario Chapter of NATS. Elizabeth resides in Prince Edward County, Ontario with her husband and 2 children.
With a discography of twelve CDs, and numerous performances and broadcasts throughout North America and Europe, Jocelyn Morlock is fast becoming known as one of Canada's leading composers. Morlock's music has received numerous national and international accolades, including: Top 10 at the 2002 International Rostrum of Composers; Winner of the 2003 CMC Prairie Region Emerging Composers competition; and two nominations for Best Classical Composition at the Western Canadian Music Awards (2006, 2010.) In 2008, Morlock was a winner of the Mayor's Arts Awards in Vancouver. Upcoming projects include Turning Point's Firebird 2011, winner of the eleventh annual Rio Tinto Alcan Performing Arts Award, and a new double concerto for the Agassiz International Chamber Music Festival. Jocelyn's Blog can be found here.
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 Stephen Ralls began his musical career in England recording with Decca/London. This led to recital appearances with Sir Peter Pears at the Aldeburgh Festival and on the BBC, and to Mr Ralls’s appointment to the staff of the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh. In 1978 he was appointed to the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto, where he held the position of Musical Director of the Opera Division from 1996 to 2008. With Bruce Ubukata he founded the concert organization The Aldeburgh Connection in 1982. He has worked with the Canadian Opera Company, the Banff Centre and the National Arts Centre. His recordings include L’Invitation au voyage: songs of Henri Duparc (CBC Records), several releases with the Aldeburgh Connection including Benjamin Britten: the Canticles, Schubert among friends and Our own songs, and the Juno award winning Songs of Travel with baritone Gerald Finley. In 2007, with Bruce Ubukata, he co-directed the inaugural Bayfield Festival of Song and in October 2010 they were joint recipients of an Opera Canada “Ruby” Award for their work in opera and with young Canadian singers.
 Pianist Liza Stepanova leads a versatile career as a solo performer, chamber musician, and Lied accompanist. She has performed extensively in Europe, and in the United States, she has appeared in Weill and Zankel Recital Halls at Carnegie; Alice Tully Hall, Merkin and Steinway Halls in New York; The Smithsonian and German Embassy in Washington D.C.; and live on WQXR in New York and on WFMT in Chicago. Deeply committed to performance of new music, Ms. Stepanova has been a member of AXIOM, New Juilliard, and Mimesis ensembles, and worked with composers John Adams, Robert Beaser, Tom Cipullo, John Harbison, John Musto, Tobias Picker, and Steve Reich. Ms. Stepanova studied at the Hanns Eisler Academy in Berlin, and at The Juilliard School, where she currently is a doctoral candidate working with Seymour Lipkin and Joseph Kalichstein. As a Lied accompanist, Ms. Stepanova studied with Wolfram Rieger in Berlin and Brian Zeger and Margo Garrett in New York and was invited by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau to perform in two of his month-long workshops in Berlin and at the Hugo-Wolf-Tage Festival in Austria.
 A Professor of English Literature at the University of Massachusetts Boston, Taylor Stoehr is the author of half-a-dozen books on various cultural and literary topics, and editor of many volumes of the works of Paul Goodman and George Dennison, for whom he is literary executor. Professor Stoehr is currently writing a book about Changing Lives Through Literature. This is a program at the Dorchester District Court founded by himself and Presiding Justice Sydney Hanlon where probationers are recommended by their probation officers to participate in a 10-week program during which they read, write about, and discuss literature in groups that include Professor Stoehr, probation officers, and often a judge. He helps lead a group of 15 to 20 men per semester. About 3,000 men and women have completed it all through the state. "What they learn is faith and trust and self-esteem, not just book-learning. If their lives are changed, it's because they realize they are not alone. They realize that having ideas and thoughts and talking about them is not a bad thing." Professor Stoehr and his colleagues believe that the program has been effective in reducing further offenses by probationers.
Richard Turp has been the Artistic Director of the Montreal International Music Festival, Director of Special Projects at L'Opera de Montreal, Director of the Andre Turp Musical Society and Artistic Director of the Lachine Music Festival, a post he still holds today. He is a co-founder of the Canadian Vocal Arts Institute and director of the vocal program at the Orford Academy since 2009. He has lectured widely, hosted two editions of the Opera Canada Awards Gala (the Rubies), written program notes for musical organizations and record companies and has been a collaborator for Opera Canada. He has taught at L'Université de Montréal and McGill University.
 Bruce Ubukata has established a reputation as one of Canada’s leading accompanists, working with singers such as Mary Lou Fallis, mezzo Catherine Robbin, and soprano Donna Brown. In addition to a long association with the Canadian Children’s Opera Chorus, his activities have included performances with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, the Elmer Iseler Singers and the Canadian Opera Company, as well as regular engagements at the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh, England. He is also a noted organist and harpsichordist. His recordings include Liebeslieder and Folksongs for CBC Records, Benjamin Britten: the Canticles on the Marquis label and the Aldeburgh Connection’s most recent releases, Schubert among friends and Our own songs. He is co-founder and Artistic Director, with Stephen Ralls, of the Aldeburgh Connection and (in 2007) of the Bayfield Festival of Song. In October 2010 they were joint recipients of an Opera Canada “Ruby” Award for their work in opera and with young Canadian singers.
 Liz Upchurch is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music in London, England, where she won several prizes as solo pianist and accompanist. As a music director, vocal coach and repetiteur she has worked in 21st-century and traditional opera, music theatre and theatre. She has also covered a wide range of working techniques with singers, actors and instrumentalists in community and educational projects. For many years she worked with young artists at the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh where she played for masterclasses with artists such as Anthony Rolfe Johnson, Suzanne Danco, William Pleeth and Dame Joan Sutherland. Upchurch has also worked at the Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg festival in Germany and the National Theatre in London. She held a faculty position in the 20th-century Opera and Song program at the Banff Centre for the Arts and was repetiteur and chorus director at Edmonton Opera. As a pianist she has performed all over Europe and has been broadcast with the BBC, Norwegian Radio and the CBC. Upchurch also appeared as a judge on Bravo’s hit series, Bathroom Divas: So you want to be an opera singer!
 Susan Youens is the author of many respected books on German lieder. A noted musicologist, her work on Franz Schubert and Hugo Wolf is considered some of the most scholarly and useful material on these composers, and musicologists and performers often cite her work. She writes program notes for vocal recitals at Carnegie Hall in NYC and currently serves as a professor at the University of Notre Dame, as well as being a frequent guest speaker. Her books include: Schubert's Late Lieder: Beyond the Song Cycles; Schubert, Müller, and Die schöne Müllerin; Hugo Wolf: The Vocal Music; Retracing a Winter's Journey: Franz Schubert's Winterreise. For more information on Ms. Youens' Publications, search here.
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