CQ 2024: Project [T]: A Mixtape - Teiya Kasahara and David Eliakis

is thrilled to present Constellation, our 2024 Pride Month celebration of queer community, diversity, and excellence in chamber music! Featuring multiple live performances and workshops every day, ChamberQUEER 2024: Constellation runs Tuesday, June 11 through Sunday, June 16 at MITU580.

EVENT DETAILS

Project [T]: A Mixtape is the first artistic iteration of a new project from Canadian duo Teiya Kasahara 笠原貞野 (they/them), opera singer and theater creator, and David Eliakis (he/him), piano. The concert will be the premiere of Kasahara's 5-year autobiographical account of their professional career and personal life as they document their transition in real time. Kasahara was assigned female at birth and identifies as a trans(masculine) non-binary person.

Throughout the past two decades their voice has been classified as a high-voiced “treble” singer or soubrette, lyric coloratura soprano, and dramatic soprano, and with these categorizations they have endured the weight of stereotypical feminine gender expectations associated with these voice types and the roles they have been cast to play (ex. The Queen of the Night, Lucia di Lammermoor, Madama Butterfly, etc). Kasahara will reflect on their gender and musical journey thus far: the voice that has led them to this moment of transition in their life, the music that has shaped who they are, and to look ahead to what is to come. Repertoire for A Mixtape will include songs by Handel, Puccini, Purcell, Medtner, Mozart, Schubert and Verdi; American composers Barber, Blitzstein, Rorem, Copland, and Sondheim; and Canadian composers Ian Cusson and Leslie Uyeda. For more on Project [T], follow @projecttdoc or visit www.projecttdoc.com.

Nikkei Canadian settler (they/he) is a queer, trans(masculine) non-binary opera singer and interdisciplinary theater creator based in Tkarón:to* (colonially known as Toronto, Canada). Heralded as “an artist with extraordinary things to say” (The Globe and Mail), Teiya comes from a background of nearly 20 years of singing both traditional and contemporary operatic and concert roles. They explore the intersections of identity through their original works in The Queen In Me, Little Mis(s)gender, Project [T] and their iterative Butterfly Project. For more information follow @teiyakasahara or visit www.teiyakasahara.com.

As a sought-after voice coach, host, and lecturer, pianist (he/him) has performed in Brazil, Switzerland (World Economic Forum), England (Wigmore Hall Song Competition), Germany, and across Canada as pianist and musical director for Against The Grain Theatre’s national tour of La Bohème. He has appeared with Tapestry Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Opera In Reach, and Amplified Opera in Teiya Kasahara’s “The Queen In Me”, including in Belfast and the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. Collaborators include: Isabel Bayrakdarian, Ben Heppner, Richard Margison, and Measha Brueggergosman. A recipient of the Ontario Arts Council Chalmers Award, David studied with with Warren Jones (Manhattan School of Music), as well as Julius Rudel, Sir Martin Isepp, Dalton Baldwin, Graham Johnson, and Roger Vignoles. As a lecturer he speaks passionately about under-represented composers and works, as well as singers of past generations.David shares his time between the Royal Conservatory of Music where he is on faculty as a Voice Coach and lecturer, as well as the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music.

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