2024/25 NextGen Composers
As part of his commitment to supporting and developing Canadian talent, Gustavo Gimeno will work with TSO RBC Affiliate Composer Alison Yun-Fei Jiang to mentor three early-career composers. Each will have a new work performed by the TSO within the season.
2024/25 NextGen Composers
Amy Brandon
Andrew James Clark
Sonny-Ray Day Rider
JUNO-nominated composer Amy Brandon's pieces have been described as “gut-wrenching and horrific” (Critipeg), "otherworldly, a clashing of bleakness with beauty" (Minor Seventh) and “arresting, riveting music, highly original and individual” (Simon Cummings, 5:4). Her installations and acoustic works have been presented at the Gaudeamus Festival (Screen Dive), National Sawdust (NYC), Trinity College (Dublin), and the Winnipeg New Music Festival. She has received Canadian and international composition awards including the Leo Brouwer Guitar Composition Competition (Grand Prize 2019), and was a 2020 JACK Quartet Studio Artist. She teaches composition at Dalhousie University at the Fountain School of Performing Arts in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Andrew's music has been performed both at home and abroad. His professional development includes a Composition Fellowship with the Hamilton Philharmonic, a Conducting Apprenticeship with Orchestra Toronto, participation in The Amadeus Choir's Choral Creation Lab and participation in the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra’s New Generation Composition Program. He has published work with Counterpoint Library, and his music has been included in the ACNMP’s Contemporary Showcase Syllabus. Recent awards include his Symphonic Dance ranking second place in the Etobicoke Philharmonic's 2022 Young Composer Competition, and his Prelude From the Rhythmic Suite being a finalist in the 2020 New York Contemporary Music Symposium.
Community building has consistently remained at the forefront of Andrew’s musical activities. His concert series Classical Context has been featured on Ludwig Van’s “Critic’s Picks”, and has showcased a substantial amount of early-career professionals from throughout Canada. His efforts in sustaining a music therapy program for elderly and homeless musicians earned him a Gordon Cressy Student Leadership Award in 2016, and in 2021 he helped launch the Digital Generations Program seeking to aid emerging composers in the creation of digital composition portfolios.
Andrew was recently selected as a NextGen Composer by Gustavo Gimeno and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. His music will performed in their upcoming 24-25 season.
Andrew holds two music degrees from the University of Toronto's Faculty of Music completed under the supervision of Gary Kulesha.
Sonny-Ray Day Rider (B.A., Music) is a Blackfoot composer, and pianist, from the Kainai Blood Tribe. Sonny-Ray has a broad musical palate working with many genres.
Sonny-Ray is currently pursuing advanced studies (M.mus) in music composition at the University of Lethbridge. He shows great promise in the field, having accumulated a large breadth of significant creative projects as an emerging Blood (Blackfoot) artist in an impressively short time span. He also currently has a seat on the Indigenous Advisory Circle to the Library and Archives Canada and is a past faculty alumnus to the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.