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ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

Rivka Golani, Viola - Music Director

Rivka Golani is recognised as one of the outstanding violists of modern times. She has greatly contributed to the advancement of viola technique and inspired many composers to write for the instrument. More than 350 works have so far been composed for Rivka, including over 90 concertos, a record matched by no other violist in history. Rivka trained at the Music Academy of Tel Aviv with the great violist and composer Oedoen Partos and moved to Canada in the mid-1970s, where she began her solo career. Her present home is in London, England. She is also an inspiring teacher who draws students from all over the world to her classes at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in Greenwich, U.K.

Rivka has performed as a soloist with many of the world’s most prominent orchestras and has also performed as a soloist at the Proms in London three times, including at the last night of the Proms. As the artistic director of Fort MacLeod Music Festival, Alberta, Canada, she developed a special collaborative relationship with the Canadian First Nation Blackfoot. In 2016 she was made a member of the Blackfoot, and was given a name: Itspanhskiakii, "A woman who sings from a high place".

Rivka has recorded countless albums and is currently working towards several recording projects.

Rivka is also a painter whose works have been exhibited in Israel, Austria, Germany, the UK, USA and Canada.

Financial Times: ‘Rivka Golani (is)... a supreme viola virtuoso - white-hot in delivery, kaleidoscopic in tone colours, electrifying in rhythmic attack.’ 

Tadasuke Iijima, Violin

Tadasuke Iijima was born in Japan, and has previously studied under the guidance of Hitoshi Maezawa, Boris Kuschnir, Toshiya Eto, Zakhar Bron and Mayumi Fujikawa. He is currently studying under the direction of Rivka Golani at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.

He has won numbers of competitions, including the highest award at the Tokyo’s “New Stars of Music” Competition, First Prize at the Toshiya Eto Violin Competition, First Prize in the Soloist Competition with the Hamamatu Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, Special Prize for performing a Contemporary Piece at the Heifetz International Violin Competition, and First Prize at the Uralsk International Violin Competition. He also awarded the Harold Craxton Prize, and David Martin Concerto Prize at Royal Academy of Music, and the Vera Kantrovich Prize, Vivian Joseph Classical Concerto competition, and the trinity laban Soloist's Competition at Trinity College. Tadasuke has also appeared as a soloist alongside the Japan Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo New City Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, the Kanagawa Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, and West Kazakhstan Orchestra. He also attended the masterclass by Ida Haendel and Edith Peinemann.

Roman Borys, Cello

For more than three decades, cellist and producer Roman Borys has distinguished himself as one of Canada’s leading artistic voices. A founding member of the three-time Juno Award-winning Gryphon Trio, Roman, violinist Annalee Patipatanakoon and pianist Jamie Parker have released 22 acclaimed recordings on Analekta, Naxos, and other labels; toured internationally since 1993; and broken new artistic ground through cross-genre collaborations and multimedia performances.

During his tenure with the Ottawa Chamber Music Society the organization evolved from a grassroots festival to a year-round arts organization producing a summer festival, a fall-winter concert series and a suite of community engagement and education initiatives.  Borys served as Artistic Director from 2007 to 2015 and as Artistic & Executive Director from 2016 to 2020. 

Honours include three Juno Awards and eleven nominations for Classical Album of the Year. In 2013, Canada Council for the Arts presented Gryphon Trio with the prestigious Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts. That same year the Ukrainian Canadian Congress presented Roman with the Shevchenko Medal Award recognizing his contributions to culture and the arts. In 2015, Roman received an Honorary Doctorate from Carleton University, in Ottawa, as recognition for his contributions to the community.

Deeply committed to classical music outreach and audience development, in 2010 Roman conceived the Gryphon Trio’s Listen Up! arts education program. Taking place over the course of an academic year, the program engages elementary school students in workshops with professional musicians, writers, composers, visual artists and choir leaders and concludes with a rousing public performance. The Listen Up! program has been produced in communities across Canada and as far north as Inuvik. Toronto and Ottawa editions of the program are produced annually in partnership with Ottawa Chamberfest and Music Toronto.

In 2023 Roman was appointed as the Artistic & Executive Director of Music Toronto, one of Canada’s leading presenters of chamber music ensembles and pianists.

Angela Park, Piano

Angela Park has established herself as one of Canada’s most sought-after pianists. Praised for her “stunningly beautiful pianism” (Grace Welsh Prize, Chicago), “beautiful tone and sensitivity” (American Record Guide), and for performing “with such brilliant clarity it took your breath away” (Chapala, Mexico). Angela’s versatility as both soloist and chamber musician has led to performances across Canada, as well as in the United States, Europe, Japan and Mexico. She has performed for such notable series as Montreal’s Pro Musica, Ottawa Chamberfest, Toronto Summer Music Festival, Parry Sound’s Festival of the Sound, Winnipeg Virtuosi, Debut Atlantic and Prairie Debut Tours, Orchestra London Canada, Sinfonia Toronto, Stratford Symphony, and the Northern Lights Music Festival in Mexico. In 2010 Angela earned her DMA in Performance from the Université de Montréal, and previously received her MMus and BMus degrees from the University of Toronto. From 2011-2014, Angela was Visiting Assistant Professor of Collaborative Piano-Woodwinds at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. She has given masterclasses and educational outreach workshops for universities and communities across Canada, as well as at SUNY New Paltz, Stanford, and Indiana University in the United States. Angela has been Assistant Professor of Piano and Collaborative Piano at Western University since 2019. She is a regular guest teacher at Music at Port Milford, a summer chamber music academy for high school students. Angela is currently co-Artistic Director of 5 at the First Chamber Music Series in Hamilton, and sits on the board of the Stratford Summer Music Festival. 

Peter McGillivray, Baritone

Originally from Saskatchewan, baritone Peter McGillivray has recently relocated to Toronto after a decade living in Northern Ontario. He has been described in the national press as “a gifted comic actor,” with a “rich, flexible and strong voice.” In recent seasons he has been seen on opera and concert stages from coast to coast, specializing in comic roles such as Dr. Bartolo in Barber of Seville, Don Magnifico in La Cenerentola, Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Sir Joseph Porter in HMS Pinafore and Stubb in Moby Dick. He also excels in interpreting more dramatic fare such as Sharpless in Madama Butterfly, Don Pizarro in Fidelio and concert performances of Handel’s Messiah, Mahler’s “Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen,” Haydn’s Creation, Mendelssohn’s Elijah and Orff’s Carmina Burana.

He has performed lead roles with the Canadian Opera Company as well as opera companies in Dallas, Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, Manitoba, Hamilton, Ottawa and Quebec City. Additionally, he spent the 2010-11 season on the roster of the Metropolitan Opera in New York in productions of La Bohème and Strauss’ Capriccio. His recent and upcoming seasons include appearances with Manitoba Opera, Vancouver Opera, his reprise of the role Bassest in Rocking Horse Winner with Tapestry Opera, and, his return to Pacific Opera Victoria as Bartolo in Le nozze di Figaro.

McGillivray first leapt to international attention in 2005 by winning top prizes at both the Montreal International Musical Competition and the Queen Sonja Competition in Oslo, Norway. He was previously the winner of the 2003 CBC/Radio-Canada Young Performers Competition and is an alumnus of the Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio program. Since then he has appeared with many prestigious ensembles in concert, among them, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Orchestra symphonique de Québec, Royal Liverpool, Oslo and Calgary Philharmonics, and symphony orchestras in Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg, Hamilton, Windsor and Montreal.

He is particularly proud of his longstanding association with Tapestry Opera having created several roles for productions including Morris Panych and James Rolfe’s The Overcoat, Omar Daniel’s The Shadow, Juliet Palmer’s Shelter and Gareth Williams’ Rocking Horse Winner. Along with the Gryphon Trio and Elmer Iseler Singers, he is a featured soloist on the 2017 JUNO-nominated recording of Andrew Staniland’s Dark Star Requiem. His discography also includes Summer Schemes, an album with pianist Liz Upchurch that the Toronto Star called, “a rich art-song tapestry of summer-themed enchantments,” as well as a more recent 2016 Centrediscs release, Cloud Light: The Songs of Norbert Palej.

Steven Philcox, Piano

Pianist Steven Philcox is highly regarded as one of Canada’s finest collaborators and is a frequent partner of Canada’s vocal elite performing in concert halls both at home and abroad.

As a pedagogue, Philcox has given masterclasses throughout North America and is regularly invited to mentor young artists at many of Canada’s prestigious training programs. Recent highlights include Opera on the Avalon, Vancouver International Song Institute, University of Texas, Austin, Canadian Opera Company Studio Ensemble, Stratford Summer Music Vocal Academy, and the Centre for Operatic Studies in Italy. He is the director of the Art of Song program at Toronto Summer Music.

Philcox has recorded for the Stone Records and Centrediscs labels.

Philcox is currently Associate Professor and head of Collaborative Piano studies at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music