The CLC Council is an elected volunteer board comprised of 12 CLC members that represent the various regions of Canada. Elections for Council positions are held every two years. The CLC Council meets in person once per year and holds conference-call meetings on a quarterly basis. Council members belong to one or more CLC Committee(s), to dedicate their work to specific issues and projects relevant to composers.
Tyler Versluis
President
Tyler Versluis is an Ontario-based composer and conductor. His music has been commissioned and performed by a growing list of Canadian ensembles and organizations, including the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Soundstreams, ArrayMusic, Caution Tape Sound Collective, the Toy Piano Composers, and VIVA! Youth Singers of Toronto. His music is also performed internationally, with premières and repeat performances in the USA, France, the Netherlands, Czechia, Poland, Slovakia and Lithuania.
In addition to his composition work, Tyler has worked as an organist and choirmaster in various liturgical settings since 2008, and works as a mentor specializing in music creation and theory. In 2021 he co-founded the VIVA! Singers Creation Workshop with Laura Menard, which introduces young people to the world of composition, music programming and songwriting. Since 2020, he is the Programming Director of the Canadian Composers Orchestra, which currently produces high-quality digital content of Canadian classical compositions, including video performances, score-videos and educational work.
Originally from St. Catharines, Tyler now lives and works in Toronto.
Cecilia Livingston
Vice-President
Canadian composer Cecilia Livingston specializes in music for voice. She is in residence at Glyndebourne (2019-21), where her work is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and builds on her 2015-17 Fellowship at American Opera Projects in New York, and she is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellow in Music at King’s College London.
Winner of the Canadian Music Centre’s 2018 Emerging Composer Award, the 2018 Mécénat Musica Prix 3 Femmes for female opera creators in Canada, and a winner in the SOCAN Foundation Awards for Young Composers, her music has been heard at Nuit Blanche, the 21C Music Festival, World Choir Games and with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
She has published on contemporary opera in The Opera Quarterly, Cambridge Opera Journal, and Tempo. She is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre and holds a doctorate in composition from the University of Toronto.
Associated Committees:
@CeciliaComposer
Maria-Eduarda Mendes Martins
Treasurer
Maria-Eduarda Mendes Martins is a composer, conductor, and arts administrator living in Toronto, ON.
Her compositional output explores connections between present and past musical eras, foregrounding humanistic and multidimensional aspects of contemporary art.
Originally from Brazil, Maria-Eduarda completed an undergraduate degree at UFRGS, a master’s degree at University of Victoria, and she is currently pursuing her doctoral degree at University of Toronto (all of which in music composition).
Maria-Eduarda’s music has been performed by orchestras, choirs and ensembles in Canada and abroad. She was the co-recipient of CLC’s Friends of Canadian Music Award in 2021, and became a citizen of the country in 2023.
Nathalee Jacques
Secretary
Nathalee Jacques is a composer and arranger from Ottawa, ON. Her work embodies aspects of her life, creating pieces that are reflective and accessible. Her focus is to reflect on current issues, such as feminist issues and the reflection and inclusion of the BIPOC community. Her purpose in writing music is to further education and conversation, addressing topics that are not often openly reflected.
Nathalee completed her Honours Bachelor of Arts in Music in 2018 and her Master’s of Music Composition in 2021, both at the University of Ottawa. She has written solo work and music for numerous ensembles, such as chamber ensembles, marching band, and string orchestra. She has also been continuing to build her electroacoustic repertoire.
Steven Webb
Ontario Region Representative
Originally from South Africa, Steven Webb (b.1989) is a Toronto based composer and sound designer, with his artistic works being filtered through the personal lens of his own battle with mental illness. Webb creates new music and video art from an eclectic mix of influences including retro science-fiction, horror, 1990s computer software and video game culture, and the orchestral cinematic tradition.
His current compositional work is concerned with examining the human experience, with the disorientation, confusion, and dread that arises from living in a world dealing with a climate crisis, growing conflict and marginalization towards minority groups, and the increasing isolation of the individual in spite of our hyper-connectivity.
Steven’s artistic output ranges from works for orchestra, to choirs, to glitch electronica scores for video games, with his compositions and arrangements having been performed by: The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, The Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra, The Thin Edge Music Collective, Pro Coro Canada, The Hamilton Children’s Choir, Exultate Chamber Singers, and Prairie Voices, among many others.
As a film composer, Steven’s credits include: ‘Chopin’s Heart’ for The National Screen Institute, ‘Period Piece’, winner of the best Canadian Short Film at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival, and ‘Scheduled Violence’ for MTS On Demand. As a producer and audio engineer, Steven has worked with bands including: The Lytics, Vikings, and Moses Mayes, and has done audio work for Harper Collins, Strata Studios and Astron 6 Video International.
In addition to completing his Doctorate degree at the University of Toronto, he currently works as a full-time composer, sound designer and collaborative pianist.
Gordon Fitzell
Prairie Region Representative, Vice-President, ISCM Canadian Section
Gordon Fitzell is a Canadian composer, improviser and sound artist. His music, described as “eerie, throbbing and trancelike” (New York Times), tends to explore peculiar points of connection between classical and popular elements of culture, freely inhabiting acoustic, electroacoustic and interdisciplinary performance environments. His compositions have been conducted by Robert Aitken, Reinbert de Leeuw and Bramwell Tovey, and performed at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (England), the Tanglewood Music Festival (USA) and the Winnipeg New Music Festival (Canada). His music is featured on various albums, including GRAMMY-winning, Opus Award-winning, JUNO-nominated and West Coast Music Award-nominated recordings. Gordon is a professor of composition at the University of Manitoba Desautels Faculty of Music in Winnipeg, and an artistic co-director of the new music organization Groundswell.
Emilie Cecilia LeBel
Alberta/Northern Region Representative
Canadian composer Emilie Cecilia LeBel specialises in concert music composition, and the creation of mixed works that employ digital technologies. Described as a creator who “has arrived at this point with an assured, gripping aesthetic marked by contemplative patience” (Peter Margasak, Bandcamp Daily), whose music “reflects her intelligence and audaciousness” (Sir Andrew Davis), and is “impressively subtle and sensuous” (ConcertoNet), LeBel’s work inhabits sonic worlds that are primarily concerned with textural landscapes, resonance, and variances in colour.
LeBel is currently Chancellor’s Research Chair and Associate Professor at MacEwan University, Composer Advisor at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and Composer-in-Residence at L’Orchestre symphonique de Québec.
LeBel’s artistic practice has been recognised through several significant awards and appointments, including Affiliate Composer with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (2018–2022), Composer-in-Residence with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada (2015), SoundMakers Composer in Residence with Soundstreams Canada (2015–2016), Land’s End Ensemble Composers Competition (2016), Toronto Arts Foundation Emerging Artist Award (2015), Canadian Music Centre Toronto Emerging Composer Award (2012), and Canadian Federation of University Women Elizabeth Massey Award (2012). LeBel’s debut album of chamber music, field studies (2023), received a JUNO Award Nomination for Classical Composition of the Year (2024), and a Western Canadian Music Award Nomination for Classical Composer of the Year (2024).
LeBel’s compositions have been performed across North and South America, and Europe by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Mark Takeshi McGregor, Continuum Ensemble, Women on the Verge, Duo Nyans, Voices of the Pearl, Cecilia String Quartet, Plumes Ensemble, Quatuor Bozzini, Arditti Quartet, Land’s End Ensemble, Cheryl Duvall, Luciane Cardassi, National Youth Orchestra of Canada, Thin Edge New Music Collective, Onyx Trio, and junctQín keyboard collective, among others. LeBel’s work appears on thirteen commercial recordings.
Active as an educator and mentor, LeBel taught at the University of Montana (Assistant Professor, 2015-2018), McMaster University (Lecturer, 2012-2015) and the University of Toronto Scarborough (Lecturer, 2012-2014). LeBel served as a mentor composer for several early-career artist programs, including HATCH (Continuum Ensemble, Toronto), PIVOT (Canadian League of Composers), ConneXions (Canadian New Music Network), Explore the Score and NextGen Composers (Toronto Symphony Orchestra), and Young Composers Project (Edmonton Symphony Orchestra).
LeBel holds degrees in music composition from the University of Toronto (DMA) and York University (MA, BFA Hons.), and in audio engineering and music production from the Harris Institute for the Arts (Dip. Hons). Her composition teachers included Gary Kulesha, David Mott, William Westcott, and Michael Finnissy.
Philippe Macnab-Séguin
Quebec Representative
Philippe Macnab-Séguin is a composer of instrumental, fixed-media, and mixed music whose work combines, collides, and refracts diverse styles through the lens of new media technologies such as spatial audio, live electronics, video, and smart phone applications. His compositions interrogate the individual’s relationship to culture, and how technology reshapes these dynamics. Drawing on inspiration from Jungian psychology, he often exploits the hallucinatory quality of early AI technologies to evoke dreamlike states. His music reflects his eclectic musical background as an electric guitarist in metal and jazz, his lessons in konnakol (south Indian vocal percussion) with Ghatam Karthick, his experience in Barbershop singing and arranging, and his study of Hyperglitch music and production with the producer Woulg (Greg Debicki). He and producer Nicolas Gaumond form the prog-pop duo Greetings From The Hole.
One of his primary research interests is Aural Sonology, a method developed by Norwegian composer Lasse Thoresen, which aims to transcribe, describe, and analyze music-as-heard, without the support of a score, and independently of style. He has given over to participants of all levels of musical training, often with his colleagues Dominique Lafortune and Gabriel Dufour-Laperrière. This research informs his compositional work immensely, keeping it firmly grounded in perceptual principles, and allowing him to make cross-stylistic comparisons using the same conceptual framework.
He has received over 20 scholarships and awards for his work, including the Prix d’Europe, a BMI award, four SOCAN young composer awards, a JTTP award, and funding from the SSHRC and FRQSC. He received his D.Mus in composition from McGill University under the supervision of Jean Lesage, and has received mentorship from Denys Bouliane, Lasse Thoresen, Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, Matthew Shlomowitz, Philippe Leroux, Du Yun and Steve Takasugi, among others.
Matthias McIntire
Atlantic Representative
Canadian composer, performer, and educator Matthias McIntire has followed a unique path through music-making and his compositions reflect his eclectic background in performance (violin, viola, voice, and electronics), Western classical and new music, as well as jazz, fiddle, free improvisation, field recording, foley art, and electronic music.
His compositions have been presented in Canada, the United States, and Europe by performers/venues including the Verona Quartet, self-accompanied soprano/pianist Rachel Fenlon, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, New Music Concerts (Toronto), the Canadian Music Centre (Toronto), Fall for Dance North, TEDx U of T, The University of Toronto, Array Space (Toronto), Harbourfront Centre (Toronto), the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance (Nova Scotia), New Art/New Media (Ottawa), Ottawa Chamberfest, the Center for New Music (San Francisco), One Found Sound (San Francisco), the Curtis Institute of Music (Philadelphia), the University of Seattle (Washington), New Music for Strings (Iceland), BarokkiKuopio Festival (Finland), among others.
Matthias was Composer-in-Residence at the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance (Lamp) in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia from September 2022 – August 2024. During this residency he composed his String Quartet No. 1 for the Verona Quartet, new songs inspired by Mi’kmaq poet/artist Michelle Sylliboy’s Komqwejwi’kasikl hieroglyphic poetry, a trio for dynamic ensemble F-Plus, Seven Hummingbirds for Duo Holz, Keep me by the fire for choir and string orchestra and began a new work for pianist Tong Wang. During this time Matthias was also co-director and core faculty for Lamp’s 2023 and 2024 Composition Academies.
William Kuo
BC Representative
William Kuo is a Canadian composer of experimental music.
His music has been presented at Gaudeamus Muziekweek (Netherlands), Bludenzer Tage zeitgemäßer Musik (Austria), Cluster New Music Festival (Winnipeg, Canada), Festival Voix Nouvelles (France), and ManiFeste Festival (France).
Notable collaborators in recent years include TAK Ensemble, NIKEL, Quasar Quatuor de Saxophones, Ensemble Klang, Asko|Schönberg, Ensemble Multilatérale, Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Ensemble InterContemporain, Ensemble Paramirabo, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Heather Roche, Eva Zöllner, Juliet Fraser, and Juliette Adam.
He received his Bachelor’s in Composition from McGill University in 2013, under the guidance of Brian Cherney, Chris Paul Harman, and John Rea. In 2015, he earned his Master’s in Composition from the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, where he received valuable insight from Michel Gonneville, Serge Provost, and Louis Dufort. In 2018-19, he participated in the Cursus computer music program at IRCAM in Paris, France. He was a finalist for the Gaudeamus Award in 2018.
Bekah Simms
President, ISCM Canadian Section
JUNO award-winning Composer Bekah Simms hails from St. John’s, Newfoundland and is currently based in Glasgow after nine years living and working in Toronto. Her varied musical output has been heralded as “cacophonous, jarring, oppressive — and totally engrossing!” (CBC Music), “visceral contemporary music that enfolds external inspirations with dazzling rigor and logic” (Peter Margasak), and lauded for its “sheer range of ingenious material, expressive range and sonic complexity” (The Journal of Music.) Propelled equally by fascination and terror toward the universe, her work is often filtered through the personal lens of her anxiety, resulting in nervous, messy, and frequently heavy electroacoustic musical landscapes. Recent interests in just intonation and virtual instruments have resulted in increasingly lush and strange harmonic environments.
Bekah’s music has been widely performed across North America and Europe. She has worked with some of the top interpreters of contemporary music internationally, including Crash Ensemble – with whom she is currently an artist-in-residence – Riot Ensemble, Eighth Blackbird, and l’Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal. Bekah has also been the recipient of over 35 awards, competitive selections, nominations, and prizes, including the 2019 Barlow Prize and the 2023 JUNO Award for Classical Composition of the Year. Her piece “metamold” was nominated for the 2022 Gaudeamus Award. She has received three JUNO nominations for Classical Composition of the Year in 2019, 2020, and 2023. Her music has thrice been included in the Canadian Section’s official submission to World Music Days (2016, 2019, & 2021), and in 2016 the CBC included her among their annual 30 hot classical musicians under 30.
Bekah is a Lecturer at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, following previous academic positions at the University of Toronto and University of Western Ontario. She holds a D.M.A. and M.Mus in music composition from the University of Toronto, and a B.Mus.Ed. and B.Mus in theory/composition from Memorial University of Newfoundland. Her principal teachers during academic studies were Gary Kulesha and Andrew Staniland, alongside significant private study with Clara Iannotta and Martin Bédard.
World New Music Days Report
President of the ISCM Canadian Section Bekah Simms travelled to Bucharest for the 2026 World New Music Days.
2026 Federal Pre-Budget Sumbission
The Canadian League of Composers recently filed a submission as part of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance’s pre-budget consultation process for Budget 2026.
75th Anniversary Sponsorship Concert: The Kingston New Music Collective
A beautiful concert sponsored by the CLC!