New Voices - Soundstreams

New Voices: Soundstreams’ Curator Mentorship Program for aspiring artistic leaders in new music

Call for Applications for our 2025/26 season is open!
Submission Deadline: Sunday March 2, 2025 by 11:59PM EST

Do you have an artistic vision, but lack a stage? Looking for fresh opportunities to hone your curatorial skills and further your career in the arts?

New Voices Curator Mentorship Program is designed for the artistic leaders of tomorrow. The program aims to provide opportunities for emerging artists and arts professionals to curate larger-scale productions and to gain experience in the production and presentation of new music within a mid-size performing arts company

Programs can incorporate an ensemble of up to 12 performers, in any combination of voices and/or instruments. Theatrical and/or dramatic enhancements to a concert-format are encouraged.

One candidate will be selected to work with Artistic Director Lawrence Cherney and the Soundstreams team over 7 months to develop a concert program for premiere in our series in the spring of 2026 and participate in a suite of professional development activities.

The New Voices mentorship program will be tailored specifically to the selected candidate. At the first meeting, the Soundstreams team will work with the candidate to identify key learning goals and areas of interest. From there, we will develop a series of activities that explore these topics in depth and introduce additional perspectives from colleagues in Soundstreams’ vast global network.

The successful candidate will:

Gain experience curating and producing a concert within a larger presentation context

Connect with a wide network of artistic leaders

Critically examine programming implications as they relate to budgeting, fundraising, marketing, audience engagement, and production logistics

Consider new artistic perspectives and approaches that resonate with our time and place

Expand skills and capacities to lead self and others in times of complex change.

The successful applicant will receive a $3,500 fee for their role as curator-in-residence, and access to a project budget to produce a concert in Toronto. Soundstreams will also provide access to our offices, and ample support from our administrative and production team.

The program recipient will be determined by an external jury who will evaluate all submitted proposals.

Application Guidelines

To apply, please complete your online application here. Applications must include:

1-page Cover letter
Tell us about your work, your career goals, and key areas of interest that you are looking to build. Why are you interested in New Voices and working with Soundstreams at this stage in your career, and what are you hoping to gain from the experience?

CV & 2 professional references (names & contact info)

1-2 examples of past work in programming, curating, and/or project development
Can be audio/video links (max. 3 minutes – indicate time code), house programs, program notes, promotional materials, etc. Briefly describe why you have selected these samples.

1-page project pitch (PDF format)
Pitch us your concert idea. It can be highly detailed or preliminary, but it should be thoughtful and have a clear theme that you are interested in exploring or developing.

Writing Tips:

When listing desired program works, indicate the title, composer, and length of work. Where available include a link to a recording.

Consider Soundstreams’ programming and mandate, and how your proposed idea relates (or intentionally doesn’t relate) to Soundstreams’ work.

This is your opportunity to share insight into your process, and your intentions around the kind of work you would like to complete with us. Some aspects you might consider include:

Underlying theme/concept

Genre(s) and repertoire

Instrumentation and performers

Audience experience

Any special technical aspects

Links to brief audio/video clips that may help to illustrate your ideas (max. 3 minutes)

Images that may help to illustrate your ideas (photos, drawings, stage plots, etc.)

Potential budget, scope, and performance feasibility.

If selected, you will continue to develop your project pitch, working collaboratively with Soundstreams.

PLEASE NOTE: Applicants should ensure their proposal can be accomplished within an allocated budget of $25,000, accounting for all costs, including artist fees, venue rentals, technical and production crew, as well as additional presentation expenses.

Soundstreams is especially interested in proposals that:

Have a high degree of Canadian content in the choice of composers and suggested performers

Feature music written in the 20th or 21st centuries unless there is reason to reference older music

Prioritize diverse perspectives

Have a strong and unifying theme or concept

Have social/cultural resonance for audiences whose previous experience will encompass a broad spectrum of musical styles and genres

Soundstreams’ work is grounded in new classical music, but we also regularly program work across a wide spectrum of genres including (but not limited to) jazz, neo-soul, world, and improvisation. We welcome proposals from applicants of all musical backgrounds.

Please note we are not looking for composer portraits. If an applicant proposes to program their own work, it must be part of a bigger context with other works represented as well.

APPLY FOR NEW VOICES CURATOR MENTORSHIP

If you have not yet already, we encourage you to explore past Soundstreams programs, and previous New Voices guest-curated productions:

2024/25 with you and without you

2024/25 Encounters: Poitu Varen

2023/24 Grandma’s Shawl

2022/23 Waiting for Godot?

2021/22 Percussion Theatre

2020/21 Quiet Time

2019/20 Improvised Components

Eligibility Criteria:

Demonstrable experience in programming, curating, and/or project development (this can include your own work as a performer or creator)

Canadian citizen or permanent resident

Applicant must be available to meet regularly (in-person or remotely)

Applicant must be available to attend all rehearsals and final presentation in Toronto in April/May 2026

Introducing the 2024/25 Soundstreams New Voices Curator Mentorship Program Winner, Brad Cherwin!

Artistic Director of The Happenstancers and the West End Micro Music Festival, Brad Cherwin leads “Toronto’s chamber music innovators,” (Ludwig Van) and is one of the city’s “best young chamber musicians” (Bachtrack). Cherwin’s work as a curator features “an obscene amount of talent,” (The Wholenote) and seeks new pathways and unexpected methods for the performance and presentation of bold contemporary repertoire.

Under the mentorship of Soundstreams’ staff, Brad Cherwin will be curating a concert titled with you & without you as part of our Main Stage subscription series in our upcoming season. The concert program will feature four song cycles for solo voice and ensemble, and also couples electrifying and seductive works that are among the greatest of the 20th and 21st centuries.

“with you & without you evokes the beautiful tragedy of love, and imagines stark juxtapositions — vocal music versus instrumental music, warm consonance versus icy dissonance — and the recurring dialogues between these seemingly irreconcilable concepts as the musical personification of two lovers” – Brad Cherwin

with you & without you will be presented as part of Soundstreams’ 2024/25 season

Also introducing Kalaisan Kalaichelvan!

Soundstreams is excited to announce another performance happening in our upcoming 2024/25 season! Kalaisan Kalaichelvan is a recipient of our New Voices Program for Aspiring Artistic Leaders in New Music and will be curating a concert as part of our TD Encounters series called “Poitu Varen”.

“Poitu Varen” is a common Tamil gesture of farewell that roughly translates as “I will go and come back”. Using various pianos and natural materials, this project will be a meditation on resonance. It will look at how our performance objects accumulate gestures, loaded with gathered meaning, creating a space for transformation and deep dialogue across different generations of music-making.

More information about “Poitu Varen” coming soon!

About Soundstreams:

Established in 1982, Soundstreams is a non-profit organization dedicated to strengthening public engagement in Canada and elsewhere with new Canadian music through commissioning, developing, producing, and disseminating those works. Our stages are home to diverse identities and perspectives, and we’re committed to innovative programming that explores significant themes that resonate across our communities. Our aim is to inspire, foster, and enable excellence in Canadian music to the highest international standards. By offering fresh opportunities to an ever-greater diversity of artists both established and emerging, we embrace these new and diverse creative voices.

Anti-Racism, Access, and Equity at Soundstreams

At Soundstreams we recognize that barriers to services exist for members of diverse communities, particularly for equity seeking groups, and we are committed to acting as a positive force in eliminating these barriers. To achieve this, Soundstreams will:

ensure that diverse communities have equitable access to its services, resources and decision making
be non-discriminatory and promote the goals of antiracism, access, and equity; and
take reasonable steps to ensure its services, programs and decision making reflect the community it serves.

Soundstreams is committed to maintaining an environment where all individuals are treated with dignity and respect and are free from all forms of discriminatory treatment, behaviour or practice.

Education New Voices