"Sarah Albu is a singer, composer and performance-maker based in Tio'tia:ke (Montréal, Canada) and Berlin.

Her background in theatre and obsession with science fiction feed quirky and darkly comedic imagined worlds. She has been an invited artist at the Banff Centre for the Arts, the National Arts Centre of Canada, the Koumaria Residency in Greece, the Summertónar Festival in Tórshavn (Faroe Islands), Finland's Saari Residency and international series and festivals across Canada, Europe, the US and Mexico. She moves fluidly between different forms, genres and collaborations. Known for her captivating stage presence and natural ease in roles ranging from dramatic to slapstick comedy, she is praised for her precision, agile soprano register and her versatility as an adventurous vocalist specializing in avant-garde, contemporary and experimental music/stage work.

She works across genres from Balkan village music and ancient polyphony to film and game soundtracks (notably Resident Evil 8), noise and psychedelic rock. She is a founding member of the experimental vocal collective Phth and frequently collaborates with artists working in video, installation, contemporary dance, textiles and digital media.

Her first solo album was released independently in 2013, featuring 8 commissions for solo voice. She has contributed to recordings with a wide array of artists as a guest vocalist. 2023 saw her release an album of Gayle Young's complete vocal works spanning from 1978-2021.

She has premiered and produced many new works and contemporary opera roles in close cooperation with composers and new media artists including James O'Callaghan, Gabriel Dharmoo, Gayle Young, Patrick Saint-Denis, Keiko Devaux, Tomomi Adachi, Charles Quevillon and Tedd Robinson(10 Gates Dancing), Snežana Nešić, Sam Shalabi, Will Eizlini, and Rita Ueda, among others. She performs as a soloist and internationally with bands and ensembles such as Ensemble Paramirabo, l'Ensemble contemporain de Montréal, No Hay Banda, Architek Percussion, Land of Kush, the Sam Shalabi Septet, the Vancouver Intercultural Orchestra and collectif9.

She is the voice of all of the characters in interdisciplinary duo Chloë Lum and Yannick Desranleau's (of Seripop/noise-rock group AIDS Wolf) six part video installation The Garden of a Former House Turned Museum, for which she also acted, danced and consulted on the writing process. Artistic and music direction credits include a film adaption of Claude Vivier's lush and cosmic Love Songs, a commission supported by Groupe Le Vivier, premiered in March 2023 at the Festival International du Film sur l'Art. As a student in Jennifer Walshe and David Helbich's Composer-Performer course, she workshopped and performed her modular participatory work FutureMoves at the Darmstadt Summer Course and Festival for New Music in Germany and subsequently toured the work throughout the Nordic countries.

She holds BFAs in Theatre and Music Performance from Concordia University and an MMus from the Royal Conservatory of the Hague (Netherlands). An avid knitter and folk dancer, her recent performance work explores the effects of rapidly developing technology on our bodies and lives through a mix of curiosity and nostalgia."

"Known for his radiant orchestrations, his dramatic structures and his innovative guitar work, Canadian Tim Brady is a composer and guitarist who has created music in a wide range of genres ranging from chamber and orchestral music to electroacoustic works, chamber opera, contemporary dance scores, jazz and free improvisation. He has been commissioned and performed by numerous ensembles and orchestras in North America and Europe including the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec, The South Bank Centre, New Music Concerts, INA-GRM (Radio-France), the English Guitar Quartet, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the Esprit Orchestra (CBC), the Philadelphia-based Relâche ensemble, the Australian group Topology, and the New York groups Newspeak and the Trinity Wall Street Choir.

Since 1988 he has released 24 CDs as both a composer and a performer on Justin Time Records and Ambiances magétiques, and, more recently, on ATMA Classique, Centrediscs and Starkland labels. His most recent CDs are: Music for Large Ensemble - with Bradyworks (Autumn 2018 - Starkland Records), The How and the Why of Memory, with Symphony Nova Scotia (Centrediscs - 2015) Atacama: Symphonie #3 (ATMA Classique - Feb. 2013) - nominated for a JUNO Award in 2014, . His two most recent major orchestral works are The How and the Why of Memory: Symphony #4, commissioned by Symphony Nova Scotia, and The Absence of Shelling is Almost Like Music, for cello, video and orchestra, commissioned by the Orchestre symphonique de Québec.

In June 2018 his work "While 100 Guitars Gently Weep: Concerto for George", for 100 guitars, was premiered at the Luminato festival in Toronto to over 1,400 people. The work was commissioned by Luminato from Tim Brady, with Brady as guitar soloist.

Other recent touring success include the premiere of the chamber opera Ghost Tango in Halifax and Kitchener (Sept. 2015), and the New York premiere of Atacama: Symphony #3, with Newspeak and the Trinity Wall Street Choir at the National Sawdust concert hall (Oct. 2015), under the direction of Julian Wachner. His work "Journal: String Quartet #2" has toured North America to great success, performed by the New Orford String Quartet, which commissioned the work in 2013. It was released on CD by the NOSQ in early 2018.

His electric guitar collective "Instruments of Happiness" presented shows for 100, 20 and 4 guitars to sold out houses across Canada in 2015 and 2016, and the first IoH CD was released in March 2016 on the American Starkland Records, to excellent reviews. The group has toured Canada twice (2017, 2018), presenting new works by a range of Canadian composers.

Other recent orchestral pieces include Viola Concerto (Orchestre symphonique de Laval, Requiem 21.5: Violin Concerto, commissioned by Symphony Nova Scoti and Amplify, Multiply, Remix and Redfine: in memory of Les Paul (for 21 electric guitars & orchestra), commissioned for the 2010 Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra New Music Festival. His most recent international success was the June 2010 production of excerpts from "24 Frames - Trance" at the Bang on a Can Marathon in New York City, as well as a 6-city East Coast US tour in September 2012.

Brady regularly tours North America, Europe, Asia and Australia as an electric guitar soloist, performing his own music as well as new works which he commissions from other composers in his effort to create a new voice for the electric guitar. He has performed at many leading venues including The South Bank Centre and the ICA (London), The Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), The Darwin International Guitar Festival (Australia), the Bang on a Can Festival (NY), and De Ijsbreker (Amsterdam), Radio-France (Paris), the Barcelona Contemporary Music Festival and BKA (Berlin). He has recorded extensively for Radio-Canada, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the British Broadcasting Corporation, Netherlands Public Radio, Radio-France, Spanish National Radio and National Public Radio in the USA. In 1999 his Strange Attractors World Tour took him to 10 countries for a total of 23 concerts. The ensemble's most recent tour in March and April 2014 took them to the USA and Australia, including a broadcast recording for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation show New Music Up Late.

His new music ensemble Bradyworks has toured Canada six times (1991, 1994, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2009), performed in the United States, and records regularly for both the CBC and Radio-Canada. The ensemble released its first CD in 1991, entitled Inventions, and released its second recording, Revolutionary Songs, in 1996 to coincide with its performance at the Festival international de musique actuelle de Victoriaville. In the autumn of 2003 the group released its third CD, entitled Unison Rituals, and presented its first European tour, including a radio performance for the BBC Radio 3 programme "Hear and Now", along with concerts in Aberdeen, Dublin and Cork. The ensemble recently presented Brady's two chamber operas in highly successful productions: Three Cities in the Life of Dr. Norman Bethune (Montreal, 2003 / Toronto, 2005), and The Salome Dancer (Kitchener, 2005). In May 2008 it presented 5 performances of the multi-media work My 20th Century in a tour across Québec, including a performance at the Festival international de musique actuelle de Victoriaville. My 20th Century's success continued in 2009, with a 10-city Canadian tour, to rave reviews.

In January 2013 his work "Atacama: Symphonie #3" was named "Best new composition of the year" at the Prix OPUS. In 2004 he was awarded the Prix OPUS for "Composer of the Year" by the Conseil québécois de la musique, for the outstanding quality of his work as a creative artist. In Nov. 2006 he was awarded the Jan V. Matejcek Award by SOCAN, for the most concert music performance royalties in Canada for 2005 (francophone category). From 2008 to 2013 he served as the "composer-in-residence" with the Orchestre symphonique de Laval, working with music director Alain Trudel to build a creative music presence in the orchestra and in the city of Laval.

In addition to his work as a composer and guitarist, from 1994 to 2004 he served as the Artistic Director of Innovations en concert, a company which he founded. It is one of Montreal's main new music producers, and during his tenure as director he produced over 100 concerts of contemporary music from across Canada and around the world. He also has written for Musicworks Magazine, and has served on the boards of Codes d'accès, The Canadian League of Composers and the Music Gallery. He was the founding president of the Canadian New Music Network, serving from 2005 to 2014."