NOT HOME
A Fundraising Concert for Refugees
Friday, April 5 at 7:30pm
An evening of classical music featuring the works of exiled composers and poets including Frédéric Chopin, Pablo Neruda, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Erich Korngold.
Free admission, donations warmly accepted.
Guest musicians include Ilana Zarankin (soprano), Ariana Chris (mezzo-soprano), Sung Chung (baritone), Alex Ripley (organ), Suna Smith (piano), Prokhor Protasoff (conductor).
Featured Musician Biographies
Canadian baritone, Sung Chung, made his Canadian Opera Company main stage debut in the role of Kutusov’s Adjutant in Prokofiev’s War and Peace. He created the role of Minik in Linda Caitlin Smith’s Facing South, which had its world premiere at the World Stage Festival in Toronto. Other performances include: the baritone soloist in Stravinsky’s Le Renard in Clermont-Ferrand, France, making his professional European debut; Sid in the 50th anniversary production of Albert Herring at the October Britten Festival in Aldeburgh, England; Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro in Košice, Slovakia; and he was a soloist in the Banff Summer Arts Festival production of the operas of Georges Aperghis. Originally from Winnipeg, Mr. Chung received his diploma in Operatic Performance at the University of Toronto before completing his masters in opera at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, Scotland.
Ariana Chris, Greek-Canadian mezzo soprano, heard by millions, performed the Greek National Anthem at the Closing Ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games. Other prestigious appearances include representing Greece at BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, performing recently in 2024 for Prime Ministers Justin Trudeau of Canada, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece, Canada House at the Athens Olympics in Greece and singing the role of Componist for the Polish National Premiere of Ariadne auf Naxos, televised for Mezzo Television France which was broadcast worldwide. Known for Carmen, Cendrillon, and Dido, she debuted as Lola at New York City Opera in 2006 where she was on the roster for 5 seasons. Her collaborations include Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Chicago Lyric Opera, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Opera Hong Kong, Montreal Opera, Angers and Nantes Opera France, Opera Baltycka Poland, Santa Fe Opera, Kentucky Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Opera Francais de New York. Her recordings include “Greek Tangos” which is available on iTunes and Spotify. Her next performance of Carmen this May is in Trois-Rivières Quebec under the baton of Alain Trudel. Her last appearance with pianist Suna Chung was in New York at Opera America. She lives in Toronto with her husband and two children. www.arianachris.com
Prokhor Protasoff is a Russian-born composer and conductor presently based in Toronto. After studying conducting and composition at the Tchaikovsky Moscow Conservatory, he served as a conductor-in-residence for the Vyatka Symphony Orchestra from 2015 to 2018. During that period, he arranged performances of two of his major compositions, a concerto for violin, piano, and orchestra, and a ballet, Town in a Snuffbox. Prokhor received a Fulbright Scholarship in 2018 to study orchestral conducting with James Bagwell and Leon Botstein, and composition with George Tsontakis at the Bard College Conservatory of Music. He has received several awards for his compositions, including the St. Romanos Melodos International Composers Competition in Saint Petersburg, and he was named as one of the finalists of the World Soundtrack Award SABAM Young Composers’ Competition in 2021. Currently, Prokhor resides in Canada, where he is pursuing a DMA degree at the University of Toronto under the guidance of Christos Hatzis. His work is focused on blending modern and classical music, combining electronic and acoustic sounds.
Alex Ripley has spent two decades on the organ bench, starting at a young age playing in his hometown church. Alex studied organ with the late Alan Reesor in Prince Edward Island and with various instructors in Ontario, and has served as music director at churches in Huron County, Ontario and Halifax/Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Alex is a sought-after recitalist and “Artist-out-of-Residence” at Saint George’s Anglican Church in Goderich, Ontario, in addition to pursuing a wholly separate career in the renewable energy industry. He holds degrees from Dalhousie University and Trinity College, University of Toronto.
Suna Smith has participated in festivals world-wide, including the International Musicians’ Seminar at Prussia Cove in the UK; the long-term residency program at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Banff; the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute in Toronto; the American Conservatory Summer Festival in Fontainebleau, France; the Franz-Schubert-Institut Master Lieder Course in Baden-bei-Wien, Austria; the Oxford Lieder Master Course in Oxford, England; the Wiener Meisterkurse in Vienna, Austria; and the Stimmen Festival in Freistadt, Austria. Her teachers include Evelyne Brancart, Ferenc Rados, and Pierre Vallet. She has appeared in public masterclasses with Richard Goode, Leon Fleischer, Julius Drake, Elly Ameling, Marc Durand, Wolfram Rieger, Graham Johnson, and Roger Vignoles; and in concert at the 92nd Street Y, Palais de Fontainebleau in France, Zankel and Weill Halls at Carnegie Hall, in Berlin under the auspices of Deutsch-Kanadische Gesellschaft, Haus der Kunst in Austria, the Holywell Music Room in Oxford, England, and the Royal Swedish Opera’s Summer Concert series in Stockholm, Sweden, and the Islington Proms, in England. Suna is the creator and curator of Forum for Music forumformusic.org.
Ilana Zarankin (soprano) is described as possessing a voice capable of “vaulting to vertiginous heights” (The New York Times), with “bell-like high notes” (OperaRamblings), soprano Ilana Zarankin is a graduate of Dawn Upshaw’s Bard College Graduate Vocal Arts Program in NY. After five years living and working in Brooklyn, Ilana moved back to Toronto in late 2014 and has since made her debut with Talisker Players, New Music Concerts, ArrayMusic and Opera In Concert. She was also the co-artistic director (with her husband jazz drummer Nico Dann) of a two-concert Off Centre Music Salon offshoot series entitled dérangé, co-presented in 2015 and 2016 by the Music Gallery. Ilana’s 2014 Banff Centre Winter Music Residency was spent studying the works of Elliott Carter with American New Music champion, soprano Lucy Shelton. In 2012 she was a Vocal Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Festival, where she performed a centennial celebration performance of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, and the roles of Potted Plant, Baby and Mother Goose in Oliver Knussen’s Higglety Pigglety Pop! to great critical acclaim. In 2011, Ilana made her Carnegie Hall (Weill Hall) debut in a World Premiere of a song-cycle by Christopher Mayo. Ilana recently performed the roles of Frantik and Jay in the Canadian Opera Company's production of The Cunning Little Vixen and has been a member of the COC Chorus since 2015. She has been the Russian Lyric Diction coach for the artists of the COC Ensemble Studio and for the recent COC productions of Stravinsky’s The Nightingale, and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, as well as for the graduate voice students at the Royal Conservatory of Music and the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music.