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This page is predominantly live recordings - please check out studio recordings here:
https://bekahsimms.bandcamp.com/
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Composer Bekah Simms hails from St. John's, Newfoundland and is currently based in Glasgow after nine years living and working in Toronto. Her varied musical output has been heralded as “cacophonous, jarring, oppressive — and totally engrossing!” (CBC Music), “tough, even gutsy...with a sure sense of original and vibrant colours” (Vancouver Sun), and lauded for its "sheer range of ingenious material, expressive range and sonic complexity" (The Journal of Music.) Propelled equally by fascination and terror toward the universe, her work is often filtered through the personal lens of her anxiety, resulting in nervous, messy, and frequently heavy electroacoustic musical landscapes. Recent interests in just intonation and virtual instruments have resulted in increasingly lush and strange harmonic environments.

Bekah's music has been widely performed across North America and Europe. She has worked with some of the top interpreters of contemporary music internationally, including Crash Ensemble - with whom she is currently an artist-in-residence - Riot Ensemble, Eighth Blackbird, and l’Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal. Bekah has also been the recipient of over 35 awards, competitive selections, nominations, and prizes, including the 2019 Barlow Prize and the 2023 JUNO Award for Classical Composition of the Year. The resulting work from the Barlow Prize, "metamold," was nominated for the 2022 Gaudeamus Award. Works from her debut album “impurity chains” were nominated in both 2019 and 2020 for the JUNO Award for Classical Composition of the Year. Her music has thrice been included in the Canadian Section's official submission to World Music Days (2016, 2019, & 2021), and in 2016 the CBC included her among their annual 30 hot classical musicians under 30.

Bekah is a Lecturer at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, following previous academic positions at the University of Toronto and University of Western Ontario.  Her principal teachers during academic studies were Gary Kulesha and Andrew Staniland, alongside significant private study with Clara Iannotta and Martin Bédard.

Coral Egan is an artist reborn. Enjoying success early in her career - The Path Of Least Resistance (2002) and My Favourite Distraction (2004) winning a Juno nomination and Félix award between them - Egan might have been forgiven for hitting artistic cruise control. Instead, following the success of 2007ʼs Magnify in her native Quebec, an album she co-produced, came three years of change: she had a child, then fell madly in love, kick-starting a bout of soul searching that became the catalyst for an artistic conversion.

In 2010, “taking inspiration from a new generation of independent musicians” and this time without producer, Egan began writing again. Inspired by new life experience, she collaborated with songwriter Albert Chambers to pen her most autobiographical material to date. Entering the studio in late 2011 with co- producer/engineer Tim Gowdy, she began a series of collaborative sessions with a group of Montreal musicians that included drummer Robbie Kuster and bassist Mishka Stein of Patrick Watsonʼs band, pianist Jon Day, beatboxer Jason Levine, as well as a guest appearance from guitarist Warren Spicer of Plants and Animals. Drawing from a rich palate of influences, the group together arranged, produced and recorded a set of songs that evoke California soul, singer- songwriter and indie-rock, while retaining Eganʼs distinctive jazz-inflected vocal style.

The resulting album, The Year He Drove Me Crazy, is centered thematically on relationships, specifically on the effects of romantic love and the complications of blended families. Artistically, it is a deeply personal ode to her passage from “lyrically detached and controlling artist” to a musician who has discovered the desire to share her highs and lows with her public and embrace a spirit of spontaneity and musical collaboration sure to win her a whole new set of fans. ﻿

The album received a nomination for "Adult Contemporary Album Of The Year" at the 2014 Juno Awards.

It was also nomitated for two Felix awards at Le Gala de l'ADISQ 2013 -  English Album of the Year and Recording  Engineer of the Year. 
 
 
 

Beautiful intuitive art music on harp.

..."inspired contemporary improvisation with a world-music twist." - Alexandra Ivanoff, music journalist

DJ, Collectionneur de musique Québécoise

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