Rebecca Gray

Rebecca Gray (19/20 Festival Administrators) is a soprano, composer and improviser, who recently completed her Masters Degree in Opera at the University of Toronto. She performed numerous classic and contemporary roles with University of Toronto Opera and has performed with Esprit Orchestra, Tapestry Opera, and OperaQ. She is a member of FAWN Chamber Collective, dedicated to the creation of new Canadian opera works. Last June, she premiered the lead role in Pomegranate, a new lesbian opera by Kye Marshall and Amanda Hale. She will perform as a finalist in the Eckhardt-Grammaté contemporary music competition in September.  

As a composer, Rebecca is interested in creating alternative performance spaces by writing music that interacts with text and visual art in order to address contemporary narratives. Her music has been performed by Ottawa’s 13 Strings, the Capital Chamber Choir and Ensemble Paramirabo.
She won second prize in Toronto SongSlam 2019 in which she performed her own work. She has presented interdisciplinary works at Nuit Rose, The Montreal Contemporary Music Lab, the Toronto Creative Music Lab, and Splice Institute for Electronics. She was a 2018 fellow at the Atlantic Music Festival’s Future Music Lab and attended the Westben composer performer residency in 2019. Her first opera was workshopped last summer at the Montreal Contemporary Music Lab.

In 2020, she will participate in the PIVOT mentorship program, culminating in a premiere by Pro Coro in Edmonton, and composed for Soundstreams as part of their Young Composer Workshop in May.

Up in the Air: Paprika Artists on Hoping and Coping Through Crisis

A documentary featuring 19/20 Paprika participants discussing how the in-person festival cancellation affected their mental, physical and social health, perspectives on how current events have impacted the Festival, the benefits and learning outcomes from this year’s Paprika Festival, and visions for the future of the arts sector for emerging artists.

Team

  • Conceived and Produced by: Rebecca Gray, Ahmed Hegazy, Brady Madsen, Deborah Maitland, and Haley Vincent
  • Music Composition & Performance: Rebecca Gray 
  • Music Editor: Ahmed Hegazy
  • Videographer/Editor:: Lucia Linares 
  • Mentors: Emma Westray and Kevin Matthew Wong
  • Featuring: Sophie Dow, Rose Goodwin, Santiago Guzmán, and Abigail Whitney

Up in the Air: Paprika Artists on Hoping and Coping Through Crisispremieres on Youtube Thurs. July 16 at 7pm EDT.

Schedule

Part of the 2020 Festival