Cheryl Duvall and Anna Hostman

Contemporary classical

Cheryl Duvall is a multifaceted pianist with a penchant for musical risk taking and adventure. Equally comfortable in many different musical roles, she regularly appears as a soloist, collaborative pianist, adjudicator, teacher, producer and panelist and has toured and performed throughout Canada, Europe, Japan, Argentina and the U.S. Cheryl’s strong affinity for boundary-pushing and innovative music making led her along with friend and violinist, Ilana Waniuk to co-found the Toronto-based Thin Edge New Music Collective, “One of Toronto hottest and bravest new music collectives” (Michael Vincent - Musical Toronto), now in their eighth season. In her role as Co-Artistic Director of TENMC, she has been at the helm of many large scale collaborative projects, including ‘Raging Against the Machine’, a collaborative concert, touring and recording project with Montreal-based Ensemble Paramirabo, and ‘Balancing on the Edge’, a radical collaboration integrating new music with new circus practices into a unique and thought-prokoving production. Under the leadership of both Ilana and Cheryl, TENMC has commissioned and premiered over 60 new works for chamber ensemble to date with 9 more slated for their upcoming season and have garnered an exceptional international reputation through tours to Japan, Italy, Switzerland, Argentina and across Canada.As an extension of her solo performing, Cheryl has recently began a large scale commissioning/documentary project with seven Canadian composers, which will explore the composer/performer relationship as they develop seven new works for solo piano. She is also recording her debut album of works by composer Anna Höstman, who is also part of this documentary project.

Anna Hostman’s compositions seek out tactile encounters with the world while extending into history, memory, and landscape. Performed throughout Canada and internationally, her works have been described as “suggestive, elegant” (Andriessen) and “hauntingly beautiful.” (Barcza) Alongside pieces for the concert stage, she has composed for opera, dance, performance installation, theatre, experimental film and video and documentary. She has held artist residencies at the Matralab (Concordia University, Montréal), Artspring (Saltspring Island) and Outvert Artspace (Ísafjörður, Iceland). Her harpsichord composition Small Meadows in Spring, written for Wesley Shen, was a finalist in the Prix Annelie de Man (Amsterdam, 2020).

“Harbour”, a CD of solo piano works, was recently released by Toronto pianist Cheryl Duvall on Redshift Records (Vancouver) and featured on CBC’s In Concert with Paolo Pietropaolo. Graham Rickson of the ArtsDesk calls pieces like Yellow Bird and “…the sublime Adagio miracles of refined understatement.”

Harbour reached the 2020 year-end playlists of Alex Ross and Timothy Rutherford-Johnson, and was Andy Hamilton’s #1 contemporary classical album for 2020 in U.K.’s The Wire: Adventures in Modern Music. The title track Harbour was nominated for a 2021 Juno Award in the category of Classical Composition of the Year.

The music video for Late Winter (for the Left Hand), recorded by Cheryl Duvall, with art direction by Ella Sharp Morton, will be presented at the next UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow in October/November 2021 as part of the Musicians 4 Climate Justice fundraiser for UNESCO and local climate change initiatives.

From 2006-2008, Anna was composer-in-residence of the Victoria Symphony. Her opera “What Time is it Now?” based on an original libretto by P.K. Page was premiered by the Victoria Symphony and recorded and broadcast by CBC radio.

Anna’s music has been performed by Brompton String Quartet, Red Shift, Carla Huhtanen, Glenn Gould New Music Ensemble, Cheryl Duvall, Keiko Shichijo, Heather Roche, Mira Benjamin, Standing Wave, FAWN, Thin Edge New Music Collective, Andrea Violet Lodge, Cathy Fern Lewis, Francesca Hurst, Continuum Contemporary Ensemble, Quatuor Bozzini, Victoria and Vancouver Symphonies, Roger Admiral, Moritz Ernst, Wesley Shen, Blythwood Winds, amongst others.

Her compositions have been supported by numerous grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, BC Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, Toronto Arts Council, K.M. Hunter Foundation, Koerner Foundation, SOCAN Foundation, and private donors. She has received the K.M. Hunter Award, CMC’s Toronto Emerging Composer Award, and an Ontario Arts Council Chalmers Professional Grant.

In 2013, Anna completed a Doctor of Musical Arts in music composition at the University of Toronto with Gary Kulesha and additional studies with James Rolfe. She holds a Master of Music degree from the University of Victoria, where she studied composition with John Celona, Christopher Butterfield, and Gordon Mumma.