 | Colin Clarke, Toronto, Canada (Concert Bands and Orchestras) Colin Clarke is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Toronto Youth Wind Orchestra program, and maintains an active career as a sought-after conductor, clinician, and adjudicator. A recipient of the Clifford Evens Award for Conducting at the University of Western Ontario, Colin participated in conducting workshops at the University of North Texas and at the Manhattan School of Music in New York. While at the International Conducting Workshop in Sofia, Bulgaria, he conducted the symphonies of Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky with the highly celebrated New Symphony Orchestra of Sofia and studied with noted pedagogues Gustav Meier and Rossen Milanov. Colin made his Carnegie Hall debut in May 2006 with the Toronto Youth Wind Orchestra and returned to Carnegie Hall in 2011 and 2016. With a passion for music education and outreach, Colin maintains a commitment to working with young people and the community. He has guest conducted several orchestras and choirs across the country and has led the National Youth Band of Canada. In November 2020, he was awarded the Ontario Band Association’s Lifetime Membership Award for his contribution to music education in Ontario. |
 | Scott Leithead, Edmonton AB (Choirs) Scott Leithead is the founder and Artistic Director of Edmonton's Kokopelli Choir Association and TIME Association. He has been invited to conduct provincial and state honour choirs on twenty-five occasions and he has presented workshops in North America and beyond. Notable appearances include adjudicating the Tampere International Festival in Finland; conducting the 2013, 2015-2019 Ellison Canadian Honour Choir; and headlining the 2017 University of Toronto Summer Conducting Symposium. He has adjudicated both the ACCC National Competition for Amateur Canadian Choirs and the Kathaumixw International Choir Festival (2014 and 2016). Under his direction, Kokopelli was the winner of both the 2015 CBC National Competition for Canadian Amateur Choirs and both the 2015 and 2016 Canadian National Music Competition. In the summer of 2019, Kokopelli was invited to perform at the IFCM World Choral Expo in Portugal, where they represented Canada on the world stage. Also in 2019, Kokopelli was featured on an episode of CTV's "The Amazing Race Canada”. Scott has a passion for music from southern Africa, and he has been invited to work with choirs in South Africa and Namibia on numerous occasions. In 2008–2009, Scott was on sabbatical in Namibia, where he worked with the Mascato Youth Choir and many other choirs in southern Africa. Scott’s passion for innovative and unique choral music experiences has shaped the direction of the Kokopelli Choir Association. In February 2023 he will conduct the ISSEA Mass Choir in Johannesburg South Africa featuring international schools from across the African continent. In 2022, he conducted the Saskatchewan Youth Choir, The Ellison Canadian Honour Choir (Niagara Falls) and the BC Chorfest Adult Choir. He will guest conduct at Mosaik 2023 in Ottawa and return to adjudicate the 2023 Kathaumixw International Choral Festival. Scott is a long-time member of the advisory committee for the Canadian Rocky Mountain Music Festival and the Edmonton, Kelowna, and Whistler Cantando Festivals. Scott was awarded Choir Alberta’s top honour, the Richard S. Eaton Award, in 2015. He also received Edmonton’s Salute to Excellence award in 2016. He has also been awarded the Syncrude Award for Innovative Direction. |
 | Christine Jensen, Rochester, NY (Instrumental Jazz Ensembles) As a Downbeat Critic’s Poll winner for Rising Star Big Band, Arranger, and Soprano Saxophonist, Christine Jensen is constantly in motion leading her own jazz orchestra and small ensemble. Her jazz orchestra recordings have gone on to win Juno awards, including Habitat (2014) and Treelines (2011). She is two-time recipient of SOCAN’s Hagood Hardy Jazz Composer Award. Habitat received the coveted 5 stars in Downbeat, along with being included at the top of several international critic’s polls, including Jazz Album of the Year in 2014. Jensen’s music has taken her all over the world, where she has received numerous commissions and conducting opportunities in Canada, the US and Europe. Her recent guest artist residencies have brought her to Frost School of Music-UMiami, The New School, University of Michigan, UMO Jazz Orchestra, Stockholm Jazz Orchestra, and Luxembourg Jazz Orchestra. She has performed with Jeremy Pelt, Phil Dwyer, Ben Monder, Gary Smuylan, Geoffrey Keezer, Lenny Pickett, and Donny McCaslin, as well as directing Terrence Blanchard with the Orchestre National Jazz de Montreal. She is founding artistic director and conductor of the Canadian National Jazz Orchestra, as well as the past artistic director of Orchestre National Jazz de Montreal. As a saxophonist, Jensen continues to collaborate on small and large ensemble projects with her sister Ingrid Jensen out of New York, along with the addition of guitarist Ben Monder with Infinitude. Teachers and mentors include Kenny Werner, Jim McNeely, Dick Oatts, Remi Bolduc and John Hollenbeck. Since 2006, she has held composition and arranging lecturer positions at McGill University, Purchase College, University of Sherbrooke as well as guest professor at University of Montreal, as well as being artistic director of McGill Jazz Orchestra and small ensembles. |
 | Dr. Daniel Tones, Vancouver, Canada (Percussion and World Music Ensembles) Daniel Tones is an award-winning percussionist committed to fostering creative development in aspiring musicians. He has given concerts across Canada, the United States, Asia, and the United Kingdom, performed with internationally recognized percussionists Bob Becker, Russell Hartenberger, Aiyun Huang, Morris Palter, and Steve Schick, and been broadcast nationally on radio and television. Daniel studied with Salvador Ferreras, Russell Hartenberger, and John Rudolph, and was the first person to receive a doctorate in percussion performance from a Canadian university. Daniel is widely recognized for his work as a contemporary percussionist in the fields of solo and chamber-ensemble performance. Recent highlights include tours in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States; performances at Birmingham’s BEAST FEaST, the Vancouver New Music Festival, the Ojai Festival, and the Banff Summer Arts Festival; recitals in major international venues such as the Barbican’s Milton Court Concert Hall in London, England; and guest appearances with the TorQ percussion quartet. Global drumming traditions first drew Daniel to percussion. He studied frame drumming, West African drumming and dance, Balinese gamelan, and Cuban percussion with master musicians, and performed professionally in salsa ensembles for over 10 years. For ten seasons he was the Principal Percussionist of the Kamloops Symphony Orchestra, and he has performed with the Toronto, Vancouver, and Victoria symphonies, the CBC Vancouver Radio Orchestra, and the Vancouver Opera. Daniel is also a successful arts administrator dedicated to the development of the performing arts in Canada and abroad. He served for six years on the Board of Directors for the National Youth Orchestra of Canada and is the Chair of the Percussive Arts Society’s International Committee. Some of his most significant contributions to the performing arts locally and regionally came through his work as the Music Program Coordinator for the District of West Vancouver. In this role he designed and implemented a vibrant array of private and group music lessons, summer camps, drama, and musical theatre classes. Under Daniel’s leadership from 2009 to 2017, enrollment in these programs grew from 70 students to 270 and his instructional team expanded from three to 18. Daniel teaches at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, where he is a tenured professor and Chair of the Music Department. He is also a Yamaha artist-educator and Sabian endorser, and provides workshops regularly to students across Canada and abroad. In recent years he was the Percussion Coach for the Canadian Wind Orchestra, the National Youth Band of Canada, and the Prairie Music Residency. Dr. Tones is the recipient of fellowships from the University of Toronto, the Government of Ontario, and the University of British Columbia, and individual grants or awards from the British Columbia Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Vancouver Foundation, the Fund for the Arts on the North Shore, and the SOCAN Foundation. |
