Patricia O'Callaghan's repertoire ranges from Francis Poulenc to Tom Waits, with much Kurt Weill and Leonard Cohen in between. Her opera and theatre highlights include The Threepenny Opera with Vancouver Opera and Soulpepper Theatre, and international touring with the Juno-winning multi-media music theatre work Constantinople. She has her own special program, Live at the Rehearsal Hall, on Bravo! TV, and has appeared as a lead in the Ken Finkleman series Foolish Heart and in the CBC/Rhombus movie Youkali Hotel. She is currently developing and co-creating a theatre/music/dance piece called The Gypsy Wife that is scheduled to premiere in Toronto in The Tarragon Theatre's 2009/10 season. Patricia O'Callaghan has released four CDs and work on her fifth is underway.

Canadian pianist and conductor Gregory Oh holds degrees from the University of Toronto and the University of Michigan. Based in Toronto, he is artistic director of the ensemble Toca Loca and contemporary music curator at the Music Gallery, conducts Continuum Contemporary Music, teaches at the University of Toronto and serves on the National Youth Orchestra’s faculty, as well as freelances with the Toronto Symphony, the Canadian Opera Company and other organizations in Toronto. He is the harpsichordist in uberband and The Lollipop People, and plays keyboards in the alt-sinogoth band, The Walter Haul. His appearances this summer include the soundaXis new music festival, le Festival International de Musique Actuelle in Victoriaville, Suoni Per Il Popolo, and the Guelph Jazz Festival. With Akemi and Rachel Mercer, he will be performing Haydn’s complete cycle of piano trios for the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society over the next three years.

The Ottawa Baroque Consort brings together four musicians from the National Capital Region who perform on period instruments. Founded in 2005, the Consort explores the rich repertoire from the Baroque and Classical periods, with a fresh and exciting perspective based on period performance practices. This dynamic ensemble has collaborated with a number of distinguished guest artists such as sopranos Gillian Keith and Shannon Mercer, violinists Chantal Rémillard, Nicole Trotier and Olivier Brault, as well as Baroque fl autist Grégoire Jeay. The Consort welcomes violinist Adrian Butterfi eld and soprano Ann Monoyios in its upcoming 2008-09 concert season. In March 2009, the Consort will join forces with Seventeen Voyces for a celebration of the life of Henry Purcell.

Like many of the best musical ideas brought to fruition under the auspices of the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, the notion of a large brass ensemble was hatched in a pub by Nick Atkinson and Julian Armour. The fi rst concerts included members of the National Arts Centre Orchestra and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, and every year the composition of the ensemble has refl ected the wide range of musical friendships shared by the NACO brass players. To date, musicians from Montreal, Toronto, Kitchener, Quebec, Boston, Pittsburgh, Amsterdam and Zurich have enlivened proceedings. The group has performed many premieres and rarely-heard works, ranging from Hindemith’s Konzertmusik for Piano, Brass and Two Harps to Jim Self’s Contra-Dictions for Two Tubas and Brass. Inspired by the programmes of the Philip Jones Brass Ensemble, the Ottawa Festival Brass invariably includes music from the lighter side of the repertoire. The performances never fail to inspire and amuse. Concerts by the Ottawa Festival Brass bring out the best in everyone!