Timothy Anderson
Timothy J. Anderson straddles as many disciplines as he can. He has performed in cabaret, opera, concert, oratorio and musicals including many Canadian and world premieres (Phantom of the Opera, The Secret Garden, St. Carmen of the Main etc). He has performed at the National Arts Centre, Hong Kong Cultural Centre, Dollywood, Singapore’s Kallang Theatre, Carnegie Hall, Banff Centre and regional theatres such as the Citadel, Theatre Calgary, and Manitoba Theatre Centre, His writing has included the novel Resisting Adonis (Tesseract Books), the poetry collection Neurotic Erotica (Slipstream), short fiction and non-fiction in various periodicals and anthologies (including Year’s Best Fantasy 6 from Tachyon), scholarly articles, opera libretti (as writer-in-residence at the Canadian Opera Company and through the Banff Centre), and many works for the lyric and non-lyric stage. His Juggernaut won the inaugural Book Television reality TV series based on the 3-Day Novel. He has done several commissioned works as a composer, spent more than 10 years as an editor/publisher with The Books Collective literary publishing house, and now teaches at Grant MacEwan University and the University of Alberta. He has served on the boards of Alberta Playwrights Network, Pro Coro Canada, The Books Collective, Tesseract Books, and Cantilena Consort, and he is currently on the board of the Boyle Street Community League. He has been nominated several times for the Sterling Awards, was presented the Todd Janes Award for Community Service in 2007, and in 2005 was awarded an Alberta Centennial medallion for his contributions to the arts and advocacy in Alberta.
Roxanne Classen
Roxanne has worked as musical director and pianist with performers at the Citadel’s Foote Theatre School, Theatre Alberta’s Artstrek Program and the Grant MacEwan University Theatre Arts Program. Past collaborations in the realm of cabaret include Kaybridge Productions’ The Swinging Sister’s Club and Sweet Mysteries of Life; Leave it to Jane Theatre’s Nightengales: Songs from World War II, Birds of a Feather, and Everything I know I learned from Musicals and Edmonton Fringe Cabaret Productions Brie Baguette and a Broad, Whiskey Bars: A Kurt Weill Review. Roxanne teaches music history for MacEwan University’s Music Program and private students at her Grovenor Music Studio.
Eva Colmers
Eva has created a variety of award-winning films which includes dramatic as well as experimental shorts eg No Problem, Blink!, End of the Rope and The Weightless Traveller, documentaries with the National Film Board of Canada such as The Enemy Within, The Elder Project, video installations and imagery for live plays, music and dance performances. With a background in theatre and shadow puppetry, Eva’s work shows an uniquely creative, playful style with an emphasis on shadows. Her films have been seen at many national and international festivals, have been broadcast and received several awards: eg Golden Sheaf Award at Yorkton Short Film Festival, ZED Most Innovative Short Film Award, Audience Choice Award at Global Visions Film Festival, Best of Alberta CSIF Award, Silver Bär Award at Festival der Nationen, Austria, AMPIA Best Short Film Award, Innovation Award at Festival de Films Avec Twist. Eva is very active in her arts community in Edmonton and enjoys collaborating with artists in different disciplines. Eva loves photography, theatre, music, walking in the ravine and traveling
Laura Jones
Laura is a grade eleven student at Ross Sheppard Senior High. She has been studying piano with Roxanne Classen since 2002 and began voice lessons with Elaine Dunbar in 2007. Over the past few years the Edmonton Kiwanis Music Festival has awarded Laura many scholarships for both piano and voice. She has also attended Musical Theatre classes at the Citadel’s Foote Theatre School and has acted in many school productions, including her role as Helena in Westminster Junior High’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Laura enjoys widening her theatre experience and is excited to be a part of such a unique event.
Caitlin Sian Richards
Caitlin Sian Richards is an Edmonton-based artist with a BFA degree in painting from the University of Alberta, a Certificate in Arts and Cultural Management from Grant MacEwan University, and is currently a resident of the unique ArtsHab One live/work multidisciplinary artist community. She uses paint, drawing, and collage to explore body image and the dissolution of identity through abstractions. She spent the past five years creating and exhibiting work in Edmonton around the idea of the found monster that emerges through experimentation with automatic drawings, emotional painting, and from images she collects depicting female identity and sexuality found in popular culture, history, literature, mythologies, and Western medicine. Since moving into her space at ArtsHab, her drawings have morphed into nine foot tall paper dolls and as wall-to-ceiling installations of recycled drawings. Recent showings of her artwork include NextFest, The ARTery, Mile Zero Dance, and the Ortona Gallery. She has completed student internships with the Art Gallery of Alberta’s Curatorial Department and at Latitude 53.
William (Bill) Richards
Bill is a jazz pianist, composer, music teacher, and music theorist. He has performed at the Edmonton International Jazz Festival, TIN Festival (Edmonton), the Edmonton Jazz City Festival, the Yardbird Jazz Festival (Edmonton), the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival (Saskatoon), the Forest City Jazz Festival (London Ontario), the Rocky Mountain Festival (Banff), the Yardbird Suite (Edmonton), the Bassment (Saskatoon), Beat Niq (Calgary), and the Cellar (Vancouver). He has been featured on CBC Radio and Global Television and continues to perform as a soloist and freelance ensemble musician. He is also a member of CELSIUS, a group that is an intrinsic element of the popular Jazz Art series (Société francophone des arts visuels de l’Alberta). Bill has composed numerous works for chamber ensembles, soloists, and jazz groups, composed and arranged music for video and television, and has created a considerable amount of electronica. His compositional style is eclectic, embracing contemporary aesthetics in addition to modernist and traditionalist elements. Bill is the head of piano and theory and is the music degree coordinator for the Music program at MacEwan University.
Mireille Rijavec
Mireille has appeared as a mezzo soprano soloist with the Alberta Baroque Ensemble, Pro Coro Canada, Concordia University Chorus and Orchestra, Opera Breve Vancouver, Western Concert Opera, Opera Lyra Ottawa, and in productions supported by Edmonton Opera. She has been heard as the inimitable Julia Child in Lee Hoiby’s Bon Appétit!, an operatic version of one of Julia’s cooking shows, which brought her critical acclaim in Vancouver and at the Edmonton Fringe. Mireille is also in demand as a cabaret singer. Most recently, she presented her cabaret Brie, Baguette and a Broad at the 2007 Edmonton Fringe Festival and was cast in Edmonton’s professional French theatre L’Unithéâtre’s production of the cabaret Le Lapin enivré in 2009.
Mireille has been heard many times on the CBC as a soloist and has been a core member of Western Canada’s only professional choir, Pro Coro Canada since 2001. Mireille has a Master of Music in Vocal Performance from the University of British Columbia. She has been a Sessional instructor in Music at the University of Alberta’s Campus Saint-Jean since 1999, and has been on staff at Concordia University College since 2006. In July 2008, Mireille became the Manager of the School of Music at Concordia.
