British Columbia born Baritone Simon Gidora is currently completing his Artist Diploma in Vocal Performance at the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto on full scholarship under the tutelage of Jason Howard. Previously, he received his BMus in violin performance with a minor in conducting from the Schulich School of Music McGill University, where he studied voice concurrently with John Mac Master. Previous voice teachers include Winston Noren, Alan Corbishley, and Shelley Dillon. This spring, Simon made his operatic debut as the Steward in GGS’s 2023 production of Jonathan Dove’s Flight. In 2016, Simon was awarded first prize in the Vancouver Academy of Music’s Barbara Clague Festival of Song. In 2022, he was awarded the Tony Roper Award for Diversity in Programming at the Vancouver Women’s Music Society’s annual bursary competition. He has also received top honours at various performing arts festivals, including multiple recommendations to the BC provincial music festival for voice performance.

Simon remains passionate about music making in all forms, and continues to play violin in a string quartet, as well as piano in his spare time. As of this year, Simon is also an active teacher at the Musical Arts Academy in Etobicoke, where he teaches voice, violin, and piano. In his spare time, Simon loves to cook, and to spend as much time as possible outdoors where he finds the natural world provides endless artistic inspiration.

Vancouver-born classical pianist, Teresa Bowes has established herself as a versatile performer and educator across Canada. Throughout her career she has performed as a soloist, chamber musician, collaborative pianist, choral pianist and orchestral pianist. In 2018, she appeared as a soloist with the Vancouver Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra at the Orpheum Theatre in a performance of Carnival of the Animals and in 2019, she performed in a sold-out duo recital with violist, Ye Zi, at la Chapelle Historique du Bon-Pasteur in Montreal.

She began studying piano with Joan Hurst at the age of four at the Vancouver Academy of Music, where she discovered her passion for music and performance. By the age of 14, she completed her A.R.C.T. Performance Diploma and eventually went onto complete her Bachelors in Music, studying under Amanda Chan. Since then, Teresa moved her studies to Montreal where she completed her Masters in Piano Performance at the University of Montreal studying under Jimmy Brière, Jean Saulnier and Justine Pelletier in May 2020. She’s also had the pleasure of attending music festivals Domaine Forget and Orford Musique where she studied with such pianists as André Laplante, Stephen Kovacevich, Sara Davis Buechner, David Jalbert and Benedetto Lupo.

Teresa permanently resettled in Vancouver in 2020 with her husband, violinist/violist Lucian Barz, whom she frequently collaborates and performs with around the Lower Mainland.