Shanti Sivarulrasa, composer

Born in Ottawa, Ontario, Shanti Sivarulrasa is a composer and violinist based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She is in her final year of the Bachelor of Music program at Dalhousie University on a four-year Fountain Performing Arts Scholarship.

She made her professional solo debut with Symphony Nova Scotia in 2025 performing her composition Chrysalis for solo violin and orchestra. In 2025, she was also the Artist in Residence with the Ottawa New Music Festival. Her compositions have been championed by leading Canadian ensembles including Array Ensemble, Alkali Collective, and the National Arts Centre Orchestra. Shanti is a three-time winner of the Dalhousie Concerto Competition and served as Concertmaster of the Dalhousie Symphony Orchestra for two years. She is the recipient of more than a dozen scholarships from Dalhousie University and beyond.

Shanti is the co-creative director of the Nuovo Concert Series and the first violinist of the Rostova String Quartet.

More Information at:

https://www.shantisivarulrasa.com/

Parnian Bahrami Asl, composer

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Parnian (Pari) Bahrami Asl is a composer and pianist based in Canada, with roots in Iran. She began her musical journey at a young age and has since developed a distinctive voice that blends Western classical traditions with Persian musical elements. Her work is deeply influenced by visual art, poetry, psychology, and multicultural storytelling, often exploring intense emotional states and inner worlds through sound. She is also passionate about interdisciplinary collaboration.

Pari’s music has been performed in academic and festival settings, including the São Paulo Contemporary Composers Festival and the University of Toronto New Music Festival (Fervent by the MinMax Electroacoustic Orchestra, and SNATS: Silver, an art song for soprano, piano, and cello). Other projects include writing for the University of Toronto Student Composer Opera (With the Telling Comes the Magic, premiered January 2026), Gravity and Ghosts for string quartet performed by Music Around the Corner, and Fragments of an Imagined World performed by the Bedford Trio.

Jeanne Tsui, Composer

Jeanne Tsui, composer

Jeanne Tsui, born in Hong Kong, is currently pursuing a degree in composition at the University of Toronto under the guidance of Diana Soh and James Rolfe. Her work is driven by everyday observations and a fascination with sound as narrative—capturing the seemingly mundane and reimagining it through rhythm, timbre, and gesture. With a background in handbell ringing, she strives to bridge the gap between handbell music and contemporary composition. Most recently, her work was performed by the Marco Polo Orchestra in Italy as part of the Veneto Art and Music Summit.

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Houtian Zhong, Composer

Houtian Zhong

Houtian Zhong is a second-year composition student at the University of Toronto. In 2021, He attained RCM Associate Diploma in Piano Performance, and he has experimented with music composition ranging from solo instrumentation to full orchestra. Over the course of his musical journey, he has won awards in the Murray Adaskin Composition Competition, the Greater Victoria Performing Arts Festival, the BC Student Composer Competition, and the national CFMTA Student Composer Competition. His works have been performed by professional ensembles such as the Victoria Symphony, Westshore Chamber Music, and the Springdale Trio. He has studied with composers Christine Donkin in Victoria and Katarina Curcin and Larysa Kuzmenko at the University of Toronto.


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