Tina Chang, piano

Described as a "scintillating player" (Opera Wire) whose "...pianism was a wonder," (Opera Canada), pianist and coach Tina Chang is currently on the music staff at Vancouver Opera, and recently at Wexford Festival Opera in Ireland. Based in Vancouver, she has been involved with various arts organizations, including Arts Club Theatre, Chor Leoni, Sound the Alarm Music Theatre, City Opera, and Against the Grain Theatre. She holds her own private studio, and has held adjunct positions at University of British Columbia and Dalhousie University. Find out more about Tina at www.TinaChangPiano.ca.

Jonathan Lo, cello

Canadian cellist Jonathan Lo has performed in venues such as Alice Tully Hall and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre at the Canadian Opera Company, Koerner Hall at the Royal Conservatory of Music, and the Paleis Het Loo. He has appeared as soloist with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Northwest, and the Burnaby Symphony. His chamber music collaborators have included Geoff Nuttall, Robert Levin, Louis Schwizgebel, and the late Lynn Harrell; additionally he has worked closely with composers such as Oliver Knussen, Shulamit Ran, and Osvaldo Golijov. From 2013 to 2020, he was the founding cellist of the Rolston String Quartet, winners of the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Cleveland Quartet Award. Praised for their “maturity and cohesion rivaling the best string quartets in the world” (Musical Toronto), they performed throughout North America, Europe, and Israel, in such concert halls as Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Koerner Hall, Wigmore Hall, and Esterhazy Palace. Jonathan has given masterclasses at the University of Toronto, University of Calgary, Mount Royal University, and La Jolla SummerFest. He holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, The Juilliard School, and the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, as well as fellowships from the Glenn Gould School and the Yale School of Music. His major teachers include Norman Fischer, Desmond Hoebig, Andrés Díaz, Joel Krosnick, Steven Doane, and Audrey Nodwell.

Angelique Po, organ

Angelique Po is an organist, pianist and continuo player living and working in Vancouver, BC. Her versatility and interest in a broad range of music styles have led her to collaborate with a variety of ensembles and soloists, as well as perform world premieres of many new works. This includes the Scottish premiere of Claude Vivier's Les Communiantes in 2022 at the University of Glasgow, and the world premiere of David Millard’s Requiem with Vivaldi Chamber Choir, also in 2022, for mezzo-soprano soloist, large choir, organ and string quartet. As the featured artist with trombonist Jeremy Berkman for Vancouver Pro Musica’s Sonic Boom 2021, she premiered ten new works written for trombone and organ by BC composers in an online concert in March 2021. She was featured again in Vancouver Pro Musica’s A Little Further Series in October 2021, playing eight world-premiere solo organ pieces. Angelique is also an active member of the Royal Canadian College of Organists, serving as president of RCCO Vancouver Centre from 2018-2023, and on the Board of Directors since 2022. Angelique has performed with numerous ensembles, including the Vancouver Bach Choir, Phoenix Chamber Choir, Laudate and Paragon Singers, United Voices Choir, Vivaldi Chamber Choir, Vancouver Oratorio Singers, Abendmusik, Sakura Singers, and the Church Music Ministry of Canada, and has served in organ appointments at St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, Central Presbyterian Church and First Baptist Church in Vancouver. She is currently the Director of Music and Organist at St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church in Vancouver.

Patrick Vu

Patrick Vu (b. 1998) is an award-winning composer from Allen, Texas whose music has quickly gained attention in the United States. His music has been performed across the United States and beyond by both professional and collegiate ensembles. Patrick has received commissions and performances from professional organizations including VocalEssence, Chor Leoni, Dallas Chamber Choir, Chorus Austin, the Princeton Singers, Young New Yorkers’ Chorus, Choral Arts Ensemble of Portland, Lubbock Chorale, Fort Worth Opera, the Savannah VOICE Festival, and numerous universities around the country. His works have been performed at ACDA, TMEA, SCI Regional Conferences, NATS, and more. While Patrick remains mostly self-published, his choral music is published by Gentry, Hinshaw, E.C. Schirmer, Carl Fischer, and Alliance.

Galina Grigorjeva

The output of Galina Grigorjeva has deserved appreciation for its remarkably subtle and animated melodic style. Her music is tightly linked to Slavonic sacred music as well as early European polyphony. Grigorjeva "orchestrates" polyphony with remarkable skill and grace, creating meaningful and beautiful harmonic flickers amidst the fluid texture. She pays utmost attention to the expressiveness and significance of each interval and intonation. There is a lot of air and space for breathing in her music. Born in Crimea, Ukraine, Galina Grigorjeva studied at the Simferopol Music School and Odessa Conservatoire. In 1991, she graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatoire under Prof. Yuri Falik and was engaged in postgraduate studies with Lepo Sumera at the Estonian Academy of Music 1994–1998. Galina Grigorjeva is appointed Composer-in-Residence at the NYYD Ensemble for the season 2006/2007. Now she works as a freelance composer.

Lizzy Hoyt

Lizzy's song "Vimy Ridge" was written after her first visit to the Vimy Ridge Memorial in 2005. It was named a finalist in both the John Lennon Songwriting Contest (2010) and the USA Songwriting Competition (2011). The song was recorded on her second album HOME which received a Canadian Folk Music Award Nomination in 2011 for Traditional Singer of the Year.

Javier Hagen

Composer and singer born 1971 in Barcelona, JAVIER HAGEN raised between 6 languages in Wallis and the Mediterranean. Composition under the tutelage of Heiner Goebbels and Wolfgang Rihm, classical singing under Roland Hermann, Alain Billard, Nicolai Gedda, Hartmut Höll, Irwin Gage and Ernst Haefliger. Both tenor and countertenor, Javier Hagen has premiered more than 300 oeuvres at prestigious contemporary music festivals collaborating with some of the most distinguished 20th century composers such as Aribert Reimann, Mauricio Kagel, Peter Eötvös and leading concrete poetry and constructive art artists such as Eugen Gomringer, Mauricio Rosenmann, Rolf Schroeter, Günther Uecker. Guest at festivals for new music in Donaueschingen, New York, Hong Kong, Strasbourg, Karlsruhe, Zurich, Lucerne, Geneva, Prague, Adelaide, Shanghai, Riga, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Ulan Bator, Bologna, Milan, Amsterdam, Paris and Berlin. Numerous recordings for international radio and TV stations. Prize winner of international new music and composition competitions in 2001/4/8 in Basel, Lausanne and Düsseldorf. Hagen's compositional oeuvre includes the instrumental, scenical and vocal genres as well as electroacoustic and installative works.

Don Macdonald

"This composition relies on the brilliant poetry of the young Anglo-American WW2 pilot, John Gillespie Magee, to create a narrative about personal transformation amidst the turmoil of war. Over the course of 6 movements we are made witness to an exuberant and linguistically gifted young man that at first writes about the resilience of youth, the over-the-top romanticism of young love, and a yearning to fly. After many sorties in the lofty heights of the English Channel, Magee met a tragic end when, in a training mission, he collided with an RAF plane. Only 3 months earlier he had penned what is now considered to be one of the greatest wartime poems, High Flight, the final movement of this musical work. In a letter to his parents he wrote, “I am enclosing a verse I wrote the other day. It started at 30,000 feet, and was finished soon after I landed.” On the back of the letter he had written the poem. I chose to musically set this poem as an epitaph for Magee himself and for the countless other airmen that died so many years before their time."

Rupert Lang

Originally commissioned for Chor Leoni in 1997, Rupert Lang’s ‘KONTAKION’ has been a regular feature of the choir’s annual Remembrance Day concerts and has gone on to be performed at state events around the world such as the memorial service for Princess Diana. The piece incorporates a refrain that is repeated several times, initially stated by a tenor soloist but gradually inviting the audience to join in. The work builds to eventually recall motives from The Last Post.

Keith Sinclair has been making music for over 20 years. He is primarily a guitar player and vocalist and has performed as a solo artist and as a sideman with a wide range of local and international artists. His time singing with Chor Leoni has nurtured his love of arranging and his music is now sung by choirs around the world.