Page Text: AMBJ Jury
Tuku Matthews
Tuku Matthews comes from a family of professional artists prominently rooted in jazz culture in Canada and the United States. Tuku began singing in her mother’s bands, and soon after was touring extensively as a background vocalist with The Jeff Healey Band and Quebecois pop star Roch Voisine. Tuku cofounded bLaXaM, an original band fusing jazz and soul and integrating complex harmony and rhythm, and was lead vocalist for Juno Award-winning contemporary jazz ensemble The Merlin Factor, with whom she recorded three albums. More recently, she has explored composition for theatre through the WaTah Theatre directed by d’bi young anitafrika. During her residency with WaTah, d’bi invited her to compose for and perform in her work ESU: Crossing the Middle Passage which offered her a Dora nomination for Outstanding Sound Design/Composition in Independent Theatre. Tuku is a recipient of the OAC Chalmers Fellowship. In 2020, Tuku will start recording her first solo effort entitled luna’s re-.
Hugh Marsh
Violinist, composer and visual artist Hugh Marsh has been a musical conversationalist with Bruce Cockburn, Jon Hassell, Peter Murphy, Ursula Rucker, The Rheostatics, Bonnie Raitt, Harry Gregson-Williams, Hans Zimmer, Loreena McKennitt, Kevin Hearn, Robert Palmer, Don Byron, Mercan Dede, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Iggy Pop, Three Metre Day, Nexus, Michael Brecker, Barenaked Ladies, Michelle Willis and Nick Buzz among many others.
His unique musical voice can be heard as electric violin soloist on numerous movie scores including Armageddon, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, The DaVinci Code, Away From Her, Veronica Guerin, Spy Game, The Equalizer, The Town, Gone
BabyGone, Shrek 2, Man on Fire, The Martian and The Last Duel.
He has played on over 250 albums with many of the aforementioned acts and also toured the world with them gracing the stages of Carnegie Hall and The Royal Albert Hall to the Berliner Philharmonie and the Acropolis.
Over the last number of years Hugh’s interest in the visual has equalled that of the sonic and has led to the creation of numerous experimental video explorations. His love of audio manipulation now has an analog in his approach to processing video. Hugh’s 2019 recording “Violinvocations” is available on the Austin Texas label Western Vinyl. He is fond of noise, organized or otherwise and islands from Fogo to Folegandros.
Mario Anzola
ANZOLA is a Venezuelan-born, Toronto-based artist whose looped neo-psychedelic music incorporates elements of Instrumental Hip Hop, Electronic, Jazz, and Latin rhythms.
The multi- instrumentalist creates a groove-heavy, laid back landscape, by utilizing samplers, classic synths, drum machines, and live instrumentation.
Allison Cameron
“…intelligent, earthy, and playful.” – Jennie Punter, Musicworks Magazine #122. Allison Cameron is a professional composer, performer and improvising musician in Toronto. Her reputation for writing compelling compositions for contemporary music ensembles is international. She has been celebrated in Musicworks Magazine, The Wire Magazine, I Care if You Listen, Exclaim! and a variety of other publications. Her piece 3rds, 4ths and 5ths from her compact disc A Gossamer Bit was featured in UK’s The Wire Magazine Best of 2015. Her improvising trio c_RL (pronounced curl) was a featured performer at the international conference After Experimental Music in Ithaca, NY and, most recently was part of the festival Goteberg Art Sounds in Sweden. Upcoming work features an art project in field recording along with new music for Modelo62, a Dutch-Canadian collaboration; and, a forthcoming CD on Simon Reynell’s critically acclaimed label: Another Timbre (UK).
Cadence Weapon
Cadence Weapon is Edmonton-born, Toronto-based rapper, producer, writer and poet Rollie Pemberton. Pemberton has released five albums, all of which have been nominated for the Polaris Prize, with Breaking Kayfabe (2006), Hope In Dirt City (2012) and Parallel World (2021) being shortlist nominees. His album Parallel World won the 2021 Polaris Prize. Pemberton served as Poet Laureate of Edmonton from 2009 to 2011. His book Bedroom Rapper will be published by McClelland & Stewart in May 2022.
AMBJ Creative Team