KATHLEEN ALLAN

Kathleen Allan is a soprano, composer, and conductor from St. John’s, NL. Her compositions have been commissioned by ensembles throughout Canada, and performed across North America, the UK, and in Argentina, where her work was featured at the World Symposium on Choral Music. In 2012, she was awarded an Emerging Composer Residency by the Canadian Music Centre and Canadian League of Composers. She has received two NL Arts and Letters Awards for her compositions.

Equally in demand as a soprano soloist and professional choral singer, she has appeared as a soloist with National Broadcast Orchestra of Canada and Berkshire Choral Festival Choir, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and Vancouver Bach Choir, and UBC combined ensembles. In addition to freelancing regularly in Canada and the US, she is a member of the Atlanta-based Skylark Vocal Ensemble, was a member of the Yale Schola Cantorum from 2012-13, and was a member of the Vancouver Chamber Choir from 2010-12. A passionate interpreter of new vocal music, she has premiered over two dozen works for the voice, and her 2011 recital of original vocal music received national media attention on CBC.

In 2013-14, Ms. Allan Roark was the assistant conductor of the Yale Glee Club, director of the Yale Glee Club Chamber Singers, and assistant conductor of the New Haven All-City Honor Choir. During her time in Vancouver, she directed the Vancouver Bach Children’s Chorales and was director of choirs at the Vancouver Academy of Music Summer Institute. In 2013, she was appointed Conducting Fellow of the Canadian Chamber Choir.

Upcoming engagements include a premiere of an original work for tenor and string quartet and performances as guest conductor for Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in Japan. She holds a degree in composition from the University of British Columbia, a Masters of Choral Conducting from Yale University.

BENTON ROARK

Benton Roark’s music has been described as “visionary” (The Vancouver Sun), “ardent and soaring” (The National Post), and and “an experience of deep and darkling beauty” (The Austin Chronicle). His work has been commissioned and performed by Tapestry Opera, the Bozzini Quartet, TorQ Percussion, Redshift Music, the Victoria Guitar Trio, Fugue Theatre, and Triplepoint Trio, among other groups. Roark has also enjoyed critical acclaim as a bandleader and solo artist with projects such as The Benton Roark Band (“magisterial” The Vancouver Sun), Rollaway (“backwoods choir elegance” The Georgia Straight), and Arkora (“the standout event of Vancouver’s spring music season” Vancouver Observer).

In recent years, Roark has worked increasingly in the realm of opera and experimental music theatre, with full productions including Tapestry Opera’s Bandits in the Valley and TAP:EX Augmented Opera (“a compact, experimental success,” The Globe and Mail), Vancouver Pro Musica/Tomoe Arts’s Shadow Catch (“an evocative score” The Bulletin), Fugue Theatre’s Off Leash (“one of the most unique theatrical experiences currently on Vancouver stages” Vancity Buzz), and Songs from the Rainshadow’s Edge (“a mysterious landscape of instrumental timbre” The WholeNote). Nominated as Classical Composition of the Year by the Western Canadian Music Awards, the Rainshadow cycle has been presented across North America by Redshift Music (Vancouver), Sound Symposium (St. John’s), Ear Heart Music (New York), and Church of the Friendly Ghost (Austin).

Roark’s work can be heard on a number of recordings, including the Victoria Guitar Trio’s Concentric Rings, the Bozzini Quartet’s À chacun sa miniature, flutist Mark Takeshi McGregor’s Sins and Fantasies, Arkora’s Songs from the Rainshadow’s Edge, and no fewer than five records of original work with indie rock, folk, and fusion projects (the latest - Rollaway’s Modern Epic - drew comparisons to the Stax/Volt catalogue, Sea Level, and the Allman Brothers, and and was called “superb” by The Vancouver Sun). Ongoing projects include The Handless Maiden, a new opera being developed with Tempest Flutes, Dystopia Lost, a cycle for chamber choir and ensemble written for Arkora’s Transfigured Light project, and work on a series of microtonal instruments including the Lumiphone, a glass marimba in 31-tone equal temperament.

Roark holds degrees from Oberlin College and Conservatory and the University of British Columbia (D.M.A., 2013), and he has been a resident artist at the Banff Centre, The Atlantic Center for the Arts, Avaloch Farm, and the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau, where he was co-recipient of the Tournon Branley Prize for collaborative work in architecture and music. Roark has served as President of Vancouver Pro Musica and Associate Artistic Director of Redshift Music in Vancouver, BC, where he also taught theory and composition from 2015-2019 at the Vancouver Academy of Music. He is currently Co-Artistic Director of Arkora Music.