Nuovo Presents
Emerging Halifax Music
-
Nuovo is a composer-focused concert series co-founded and co-directed by composers Shanti Sivarulrasa and Benjamin Fraser. The series is dedicated to featuring new works by emerging Halifax-based composers.
-
The series hosted its inaugural concert in April 2024 premiering new works by several Halifax-based composers including Uandha Fernandes Barbosa, Jeremie Boudreau, Harry McInroy, and Stephen Deturbide. The concert featured perormances by Rostova String Quartet and pianist Ria Kim. The Nuovo Contemporary Concert Series hosts two concerts per year.
Our Composers and Performers
Hsiu-Ping Patrick
Taiwanese-born Canadian Hsiu-Ping Patrick Wu is an award-winning composer, violinist, and multimedia artist, dedicated to blending his multicultural identity into his music. His compositions range from neo-romanticism to avant-garde, fusing theatrical elements, improvisation, minimalism, and Taiwanese traditions.
Patrick has collaborated with renowned ensembles such as the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Hypercube Ensemble, The Julius Quartet, Loadbang, Alkali Collective, Neave Trio, Gaia Quartet, nexbloom, and Changhua Chamber Music Society. His works have premiered at major festivals including highSCORE Composition Festival, Zodiac Music Festival, Uzmah Upbeat Composition Program, Atlantic Music Festival, Scotia Festival of Music, Tuckamore Chamber Music Festival, and the Mostly Modern Festival. He has studied with composers Jérôme Blais, Alexandra du Bois, Vivian Fung, Amy Beth Kirsten, David Ludwig, and Dinuk Wijeratne.
As an active violinist, Patrick has performed in solo, chamber, and orchestral settings. He has studied violin with I-Ching Li, Philippe Djokic, and others, and served as concertmaster for the Evergreen Symphony Orchestra Summer Festival and Nova Scotia Youth Orchestra.
Patrick is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre and a member of the Canadian League of Composers. He is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts at the University of Toronto under Dr. Norbert Palej and holds degrees from Longy School of Music and Dalhousie University.
Hope Salmonson
Composer-tubist Hope Salmonson is queering her music through a cross-genre style and a burning desire to help performers represent themselves. With a focus on process over product, Hope seeks to ensure that every voice in the room is valued, on and off the stage. Hope has continually emphasized communal bonds with the ensembles and musicians she works with, including the Burning BRASs Band, musica intima, Diversify the Stand, and the Glass Winds Ensemble, as well as a wide array of individual performers.
Hope received her BMus from Mount Allison University, and her MMus in Composition from the University of British Columbia, where she was awarded Canadian Music Centre BC’s Pentland Prize for excellence in composition. Her teachers include Drs. Kevin Morse, T. Patrick Carrabré, Jennifer Butler, Keith Hamel and Dorothy Chang.
Jeremie Boudreau
Jeremie Boudreau is a composer, improviser, performer, and private instructor based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, currently completing a concentration in music composition at Dalhousie University. A classically trained violinist now full-time guitarist, his area of research focuses on creative expression through sound and performance exploration. His writing has allowed him to work under multiple contexts, such as performing self-composed incidental music for devised theater (Nice Guy/Gentil, Théâtre Desassimilés), films, string quartets (plume, The Rostova Quartet), orchestra (Malhastrophy, Symphony Nova Scotia), and popular music. As well, Jeremie composes spontaneously as an improviser and creative collaborator, participating in creative music groups and performances such as with the Creative Music Workshop. Having studied under Tim Crofts, he has also composed for the Upstream Orchestra (Neurotic Silver Tongue), Halifax's resident improvising orchestra. Along with his creative practices, he continues to apply his compositional voice by writing for and performing in his personal projects, touching upon punk rock (Big Ricky’s Illegal Fireworks), jazz (The Mark Carroll Quartet), and Hip-Hop (Harmz). Jeremie is supported through the funding of the Nova Scotia Talent Trust in his artistic pursuits and growth since 2024.
Uandha
Driven by a deep passion for composing music that seamlessly intertwines with storytelling, composer Uandha Fernandes Barbosa, a Music Arts graduate from Nova Scotia Community College, is currently pursuing her Bachelor's degree in music composition at Dalhousie University. For her, being a composer transcends musical creation, it involves cultivating dreams and inspiring others to envision their unique narratives. Uandha's work reflects a commitment to the transformative power of music as a universal language that transcends boundaries, inviting listeners to embark on emotional journeys and connect with the diverse fabric of human experience.
Harry McInroy
Harry McInroy is a composer and multi-instrumentalist, currently on an exchange year at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Hailing from Oxford and a student at Cardiff University in Wales, Harry is in his third year of music studies, focusing on composition, music theory and music history. He also plays the trumpet in a number of Dalhousie ensembles, including the Jazz Ensemble, Wind Ensemble and Creative Music Ensemble. Harry will return to Cardiff in September for his final year of studies, after which he plans to pursue his interest in composition.
Ria Kim
Ria Kim (she/her) is a pianist originally from Korea and is currently a collaborative pianist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She received her education at the Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts studying with Oxana Zotova, at the Fountain School of Performing Arts studying with Lynn Stodola, Peter Allen, Tjetje Zonneveld, and at the Manhattan School of Music studying with Daniel Epstein.
nuovo
Composer-Focused Concert Series
Shanti Sivarulrasa
Born in Ottawa, Ontario, Shanti Sivarulrasa is a composer and violinist based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She is in her third year of the Bachelor of Music program at Dalhousie University on a four-year Fountain Performing Arts Scholarship. Shanti is pursuing a concentration in composition, studying composition with Amy Brandon and violin with Dr. Leonardo Perez. She served as the Concertmaster of the Dalhousie Symphony Orchestra from 2022 to 2024.
Shanti is a three-time winner of the Dalhousie Concerto Night Competition and is the recipient of more than a dozen academic and artistic scholarships. Most recently, Shanti was awarded the Music’s Future Scholarship by the New York-based Music Performance Trust Fund, recognizing her as one of thirty current and future leaders in the music industry across North America. Shanti has completed several composition workshops with institutions such as the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance (Lunenburg, NS) and Arraymusic (Toronto, ON). She has also completed composition intensives, notably with composer Dr. Alyssa Weinberg and cellist Gabriel Cabezas (Brooklyn, NY).
Shanti is the co-founder and co-creative director of the Nuovo Contemporary Concert Series, a series dedicated to showcasing new works by Halifax-based composers. She is also the first violinist and a founding member of the Rostova String Quartet, a group performing classical and contemporary music in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Beyond her work as a composer and
performer, Shanti is a violin teacher at Long and McQuade. She also teaches through her private studio, where she offers lessons in violin, theory, and composition.
Benjamin Fraser
Benjamin was twelve when his parents told him he couldn’t be a Jedi when he grew up. So, Benjamin decided he was going to be a film composer.
Since then, Benjamin has worked as the composer on many short films including Cash Cow, by Shubham Chhabra(2023), and Where I Left You, by Kennedy Stevens(2024). Additionally Benjamin wrote music for the Coca Cola commercial, Auditorium 4, as a part of the Refreshing Films program. He was selected to be a part of the New Generation Film Composers program where he studied with composer Maria Molinari.
Outside of film, his pieces have premiered in the Nocturne Halifax Arts Festival (2023) and the OpenWaters Festival (2024). As well as writing for the Alkali Collective (2023) and The Rostova Quartet (2024).
Currently, Benjamin studies Composition with Amy Brandon at Dalhousie University, where he received the Judith A. Grant Bursary from the Nova Scotia Talent Trust.
Be a Patron of the Art of Music
Support Local Composers and Performers