University of Toronto

Dan Fortin

Born: January 26, 1985

Dan Fortin was born and raised in Peterborough, Ontario. His eclectic tastes have led to work with a wide variety of artists in the jazz, rock and pop worlds, including Bernice, The Allison Au Quartet, Queer Songbook Orchestra, Emilie-Claire Barlow, Aline’s étoile magique, John Southworth, Serena Ryder, July Talk, Devon Sproule, Mike O’Neill, Laila Biali, Ethan Iverson, Bryn Roberts, Mike Murley, Will Bonness, Jon Gordon, Andy Milne, David Occhipinti, Tara Davidson, Harley Card, Michael Davidson, Alex Goodman, Zoon, and many others.

Dan is a co-leader of the Juno nominated trio MYRIAD3, along with pianist Chris Donnelly and drummer Ernesto Cervini. Together, they’ve released five albums for Alma Records, and have undertaken several tours of Canada, the USA, Europe, and Japan, including performances at the Tokyo Jazz Festival and Ronnie Scott’s International Piano Trio Festival (London, UK.)

Nicky Schrire

Born: August 22

Nicky Schrire is a multitalented and inventive British-South African vocalist and composer based in Toronto, Canada. Her work has seen her likened to vocalists Joni Mitchell, Norma Winstone, and Esperanza Spalding with The Boston Globe’s Jon Garelick noting that “though her approach has earned her comparisons to Gretchen Parlato and Becca Stevens, the similarities are superficial…she’s got her own thing, and it’s very much worth listening to.”

A graduate of the South African College of Music and New York’s Manhattan School of Music, she studied with Anthea Haupt, Peter Eldridge, Theo Bleckmann, and Dave Liebman. Schrire has performed in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, London, Dublin and South Africa, with musicians including Ben Wendel, Gerald Clayton, Fabian Almazan, Nir Felder, and Taylor Eigsti. She released three critically acclaimed jazz albums-2012's "Freedom Flight", 2013's "Space and Time", and the 2014 EP "To The Spring"-which earned her comparisons to songwriters like Joan Baez and Mary Chapin Carpenter. Her duo album “Space & Time” featured Grammy-nominated pianists Gerald Clayton, Gil Goldstein and Fabian Almazan. The Ottawa Citizen’s Peter Hum described the recording as “fifty minutes of emotionally eventful, richly crafted music”.

Performance highlights include headlining the 2018 Cape Town International Jazz Festival, performing at Jazz at Lincoln Centre for Carnegie Hall’s Ubuntu Festival, performances in the UK at Royal Festival Hall and the Vortex, and having her composition ESCAPE: The Ingrid Jonker Suite programmed for the 2022 String Quartet Biennale in Amsterdam (sadly cancelled due to COVID).

Schrire was delighted to be awarded a Canada Council for the Arts grant to record her new album "Nowhere Girl", to be released on 9 June 2023 on Anzic Records. Produced by Grammy-nominated producer Oded Lev-Ari, the album features a rhythm section comprising Canadian trio Myriad3 (Ernesto Cervini, Dan Fortin, Chris Donnelly), saxophonist Tara Davidson, guest vocalist Laila Biali, and Mozambican guitarist Julio Sigauque (Freshlyground).

As a journalist and broadcaster, Schrire was a contributing host and producer for Toronto’s JazzFM.91 station, creating and presenting the weekly segment "This Bright North" from 2021 to 2022. She has been a contributing journalist for LondonJazz News for over a decade, covering the 2014 Berlin Jazz Festival and starting the "Mothers In Jazz" series. 

Harry Bartlett

Born: January 19, 1998

Harry Bartlett is a Canadian guitarist, composer, and educator. Growing up in British Columbia, Harry’s early musical experiences were in the folk tradition which informed his honest and melodic voice in the context of jazz and improvised music. 

As a bandleader Harry has appeared in festivals and venues across Canada including Jazz YYC (Calgary, Alberta), Music Niagara (Niagara, Ontario), The Rex Hotel (Toronto, Ontario), The Brookstreet Hotel (Ottawa, Ontario), Resonance Café (Montreal, Quebec), Tangent Cafe (Vancouver, British Columbia), Herman’s Jazz Club (Victoria, British Columbia), and the Lighthouse Bistro (Nanaimo, British Columbia).

Mark Duggan

Born: May 25, 1961

A versatile performer and composer, Mark Duggan has been active in multiple musical genres for over 40 years. Based in Toronto, Canada, Duggan's passionate blend of contemporary percussion idioms has impressed audiences worldwide, ranging from the Tongyeong Music Festival in Korea and Lincoln Center in New York, to the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. Duggan has performed with many jazz and popular music artists including Diana Krall, Charlie Haden, Maria Schneider, Petula Clark, Kiran Ahluwalia, Maryem Tollar, Andy Stochansky, Nelly Furtado, Oliver Schroer, Don Ross, Kevin Barrett, Rufus Wainwright and for ten years, performed and recorded extensively with his own group, Vuja d��

Rebirth

By University of Toronto

Label: Uoft Jazz
Released: 2014
Track listing: Contemporary Insanity; The Shadow Knows; Rebirth; BO; September in the Rain; Claire.

University of Toronto 12TET: Rebirth

by Jack Bowers
January 11, 2014

You'd be hard-pressed to find a more congenial curtain-raiser than Jason Stillman's animated, inflexibly swinging “Contemporary Insanity," which opens Rebirth, the debut album by the University of Toronto's snug and well-upholstered 12TET. That's admittedly a tough act to follow, and while the ensemble gives it the old college try it doesn't always live up to the ...

Reflections

By University of Toronto

Label: Self Produced
Released: 2013
Track listing: Sonny��s Way; Santiago Reflections; Still Rollin��; Minas Mist; Greville Bay; Rob; Can��t You See.

University of Toronto Jazz Ensemble: Reflections

by Jack Bowers
September 29, 2013

Wherever Gordon Foote goes, you may rest assured that pleasurable music is sure to follow. After twenty-six years at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, where he led the school's superlative Jazz Ensemble, Foote moved eastward to Toronto a year or so ago to oversee the splendid University of Toronto Jazz Orchestra, which recorded its most recent ...

Rivers

By University of Toronto

Label: Arbordisc
Released: 2005
Track listing: Lately; Rivers; Allegresse; Body and Soul; Lickety Split; 305; The Willow; Interloper; The Days of Wine and Roses (75:31).