“A mind-blowing flautist”
- Sarah Petrescu, Victoria Times Colonist
“Mark McGregor's playing verged on the superhuman.
I cannot imagine a finer performance – nor a more convincing one."
-Derek Barker, Music in Victoria
|  | Photo: Clancy Dennehy | | Vancouverite Mark McGregor has performed throughout North America, Europe and Australia as a soloist, chamber and orchestral flutist. Described as a musician of “huge physical energy,” McGregor’s performances have been lauded by the press as “mind-blowing” and “verging on the superhuman.”
| An outspoken advocate of new music, Mark was featured as concerto soloist for the premiere of Anna Höstman’s Trace the Gold Sun with the Victoria Symphony, and since 2004 has performed as principal flute of the Victoria-based Aventa Ensemble. Mark has given dozens of local and world premieres, including the first North American performance of Stockhausen’s Ypsilon for solo flute in 2005. | In addition to his work with Tiresias and Aventa, Mark is a founding member of the Tempest Flute Ensemble, the Vancouver Miniaturist Ensemble, and with composer Jordan Nobles he is co-artistic director of Redshift Music, a non-profit society dedicated to the presentation of Canadian music in public venues. His teachers have included Pierre-Yves Artaud, Samuel Baron, Sonja Boon, Camille Churchfield, Wilbert Hazelzet, Lorna McGhee, Aurele Nicolet and Margaret Crawford. | | | |
“Unforgettable.”
- Lloyd Dykk, Vancouver Sun
"Iwaasa fully gave herself over to the music, her emotional intensity flooding through the audience. The feeling with which she played took this piece from notes on a page to a stunning work of art." - Diane Dakers, Victoria Times Colonist
“A dynamic performance… Iwaasa was fabulous.” - Alexander Varty, Georgia Straight
|  | Hailed in the press as a "keyboard virtuoso," Vancouver pianist Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa has performed as soloist and chamber musician in Canada, the United States and Germany. Known for her bold and innovative work, she has appeared for Vancouver New Music, CONTACT contemporary music (Toronto), New Works Calgary, Groundswell New Music (Winnipeg), the Victoria Symphony, the Aventa Ensemble (Victoria), Music on Main, Redshift, the Western Front, the Little Chamber Music Series That Could, Vancouver Pro Musica and has been broadcast on CBC Radio. Iwaasa has a shameless passion for contemporary music, and has performed numerous premières, including pieces written especially for her by Rodney Sharman, Jeffrey Ryan, Jocelyn Morlock, Emily Doolittle, Alexander Pechenyuk, and many others. Most recently Rachel presented the solo piano recital “Cosmophony” at the HR MacMillan Space Centre in Vancouver. This site-specific concert, which featured the premieres of no less than ten new works by Canadian composers, was subsequently praised by the Vancouver Sun as a “brilliant” and “unforgettable” event. | Iwaasa's major teachers include Jane Coop, Menahem Pressler and Robin Wood. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of British Columbia, a Master of Music from Indiana University, and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Victoria, where she earned the Victoria Medal as the top graduating student in Fine Arts. She was also a two-time recipient of the prestigious Annual Grant from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) for graduate studies at the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" Berlin. Other awards include grants from the Canada Council, the BC Arts Council, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Alberta Heritage Foundation. Iwaasa is currently a Sessional Lecturer at UBC and instructor of piano and theory at the Richmond Music School.
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