Jumblies is delighted to announce the two composers chosen for our pilot mini-
commissioning project in partnership with Tapestry Opera. Norbert Palej and Kyle Brenders are entering into our community-engaged arts process to create short musical pieces that will involve diverse community participants as well as professional musicians in their inception and performance. The results will be showcased at an event in March.
This project is part of a new venture that we are calling Jumblies At Large: forming new partnerships to infiltrate community arts practice into the broader arts world. This initiative is funded by the George Cedric Metcalf Charitable Foundation’s Strategic Incubator Program and the Toronto Arts Council through Platform A. 
As part of Jumblies At Large, we are also engaging over the next year or two in musical partnerships and composer commissions with the Canadian Music Centre, Soundstreams and Continuum New Music. Stay tuned for more details.
Norbert Palej is Associate Professor of Composition at the University of Toronto. He also serves as the director of the U. of T. gamUT chamber orchestra, and as the artistic director of the annual New Music Festival. He holds composition degrees from Cornell University (D.M.A.), The Juilliard School (M.M.), and the New England Conservatory (B.M.). Recent commissions include operas for the Tapestry New Opera and the Canadian Children’s Opera Company, two string quartets for the Penderecki String Quartet, a percussion concerto for Evelyn Glennie, a song cycle for the Canadian Art Song Project, chamber pieces for NEXUS, 2X10, and New Music Concerts, and a choral work for Soundstreams Canada, featuring the Elmer Iseler Singers, the Polish Chamber Choir, and the Toronto Children’s Chorus. His music has been performed world-wide. A guest composer at the 2012 Beijing Modern Music Festival and the 2013 Thailand International Composition Festival, he is a recipient of the Toru Takemitsu Award from the Japan Society in Boston, the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, the Robbins Family Prize in Music Composition, the Benjamin Britten Memorial Fellowship, the Susan and Ford Schumann Fellowship and Ontario Arts Council Recording and Commissioning grants. He participated in the Tapestry New Opera’s Composer-Librettist Laboratory, the Minnesota Orchestra Composers Institute, the American Composers Orchestra Underwood New Music Readings, the Academy for New Music and Audio-Art in Tyrol, Austria, as well as the Tanglewood, Aspen, Caramoor, and Budapest music festivals. His latest CD was nominated for a JUNO Award.
Kyle Brenders is a Toronto based multi-instrumentalist, composer and improviser. 
Brenders’ work attempts to fuse the various musical experiences that have shaped him as a creative artist. His interest in music that falls within generic and idiomatic cracks has allowed him to develop his own personal style. Brenders has studied with Ab Baars, Anthony Braxton, Lori Freedman, David Mott and Alvin Lucier. He currently is active in performing his music in solo, trio, quartet and large ensemble projects. Beyond his own groups, Brenders performs regularly with The Rent, a group that performs the music of Steve Lacy. Brenders frequently performs in composed and improvised contexts with a wide variety of accomplished musicians and artists. He is an active member of the Association of Improvising Musicians Toronto (AIMToronto) and acts as the Artistic director of the AIMToronto Orchestra. Brenders can also be heard on his solo recording flow and intensities as well as in duo with Anthony Braxton on Barnyard records Toronto (Duets) 2007. The Kyle Brenders large ensemble recording, Ways, is currently available from Porter records. The Kyle Brenders Quartet first release, Offset, was released October 2012 from 18th were he assists the Artistic Director Lawrence Cherney, curates the Salon 21 series at the Gardiner Museum and directs their new interactive website SoundMakers.ca. Brenders has recently started his own series of concerts, the In Between Series, which presents concerts that note records. Brenders is also active as Artistic Associate with Soundstreams incorporates notated ‘new’ music, improvised music and music that synthesizes the two.
Platform A 