Alkali Collective

Meet the composer! 👋
In just two weeks, we’re premiering a brand new piece by Paolo Griffin. We can’t wait for you to hear it!

Paolo Griffin is a composer and curator based in Toronto/Tkarón:to whose work centers co-creation and collaboration with performers in a practice that spans sound, performance, text, improvisation, and includes the creation of notated music, live performance installations, and text/event scores.

Paolo is the Artistic & Executive director of Freesound, a Toronto-based contemporary music collective of eight performers, and is an advocate of accessible arts and disability inclusive practices and works as the Managing Director of Xenia Concerts.

Composer Spotlight: Shanti Sivarulrasa

Shanti is one of three prize-winning composers from our 2024/25 Call for Scores program! You can hear Shanti’s selected composition “aftertaste” on Saturday, March 15th, here in Halifax at The Peggy Corkum Music Room. Swipe to see more concert details! Ticket link in bio!

Born in Ottawa, Ontario, Shanti Sivarulrasa is a composer and violinist based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She is in her fourth year of the Bachelor of Music program at Dalhousie University on a four-year Fountain Performing Arts Scholarship. Shanti is pursuing a concentration in composition, studying composition with Dr. Jerome Blais and violin with Dr. Leonardo Perez.
Shanti made her professional solo debut with Symphony Nova Scotia and conductor Karl Hirzer in 2025 performing her composition Chrysalis for solo violin and orchestra as part of the Open Waters Festival. She served as the Concertmaster of the Dalhousie Symphony Orchestra from 2022 to 2024. Shanti is also a three-time winner of the Dalhousie Concerto Night Competition and is the recipient of more than a dozen academic and artistic scholarships. Most recently, Shanti was awarded the Music’s Future Scholarship by the New York- based Music Performance Trust Fund, recognizing her as one of thirty current and future leaders in the music industry across North America.
In 2024, Shanti was selected for the Earshot Readings with the National Arts Centre Orchestra. She is the co-founder and co-creative director of the Nuovo Contemporary Concert Series, as well as the first violinist and a founding member of the Rostova String Quartet.

About the work, Shanti writes:

“aftertaste is an exploration of the connection between hearing and taste; two sensations which are seemingly unrelated. Through this piece, I discover my own perception of the colour of taste, and transform it into an audibly digestible experience.”

Composer Spotlight: Hope Salmonson

is one of three prize-winning composers from our 2024/25 Call for Scores program! You can hear Hope’s selected composition “Sanctuary” on Saturday, March 15th, here in Halifax at The Peggy Corkum Music Room. Swipe to see more concert details! Ticket link in bio!

Composer-tubist Hope Salmonson is queering her music through a cross-genre style and a burning desire to help performers represent themselves. With a focus on process over product, Hope seeks to ensure that every voice in the room is valued, on and off the stage. Hope is always chasing opportunities to connect with others through music, valuing community first and foremost. Hope most prefers to share a bond with the ensembles and musicians she works with, including the Burning BRASs Band, musica intima, Diversify the Stand, and the Glass Winds Ensemble, as well as a wide array of individual performers. Having participated in programs such as novum musica, (Art) Song Lab, the Wildflower Composers Festival and the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance, she takes care to make the compositional process a collaborative experience. Hope holds a BMus from Mount Allison University and a MMus in Composition from the University of British Columbia.

About the work, Hope writes:

“In this piece, I try to capture some mixed feelings of un-safety in a supposedly safe space. Somewhere between an anxious mind presenting my works onstage, a disabled body surviving the institutions that validate the music I write, and a trans spirit writing choral music reminiscent of churches that have pushed me away, I have often been aware of a tinge of discomfort despite being immersed in art that I’m so passionate about. Sanctuary takes a simple, hymnal tune and distorts it through that same anxiety, wreaking havoc as the initial safety yearns to be heard.”

Composer Spotlight: Alexander Bridger

is one of three prize-winning composers from our 2024/25 Call for Scores program! You can hear Alexander’s selected composition “Bagatelles Chimériques” on Saturday, March 15th, here in Halifax at The Peggy Corkum Music Room. Swipe to see more concert details! Ticket link in bio!

Alexander Bridger, a Newfoundland-born composer and multi-instrumentalist, has long-defied easy genre classification with his music. His experimental fusion of psychedelic pop with Newfoundland folk music led Overcast magazine to name Bridger “St. John’s Most Original Songwriter,” and saw his works being presented at Sound Symposium, as well as POP Montréal International Music Festival. Bridger has self-produced albums have been nominated for both “Best Alternative Album ‘’ as well as “Best Folk Album” at the MusicNL Awards. Readers of CultMTL once voted Bridger as one of Montreal’s “Best Weirdos” in the magazine’s annual “Best of MTL ‘’ readers poll, a testament to his enigmatic and individualistic approach to composition and performance.

About the work, Alexander writes:

“This set of miniatures are like the chimeras of mythology in the sense that they were assembled from a mixed potpourri of as-yet-unperformed music that I have accumulated over the last few years. In titling this set, it seemed appropriate to also capitalize on the additional subtext included in the French word “chimérique” which points towards the inherently abstract and whimsical nature of musical expression.”