OPERA LIKE YOU'VE NEVER HEARD IT...
Creator Bios
A published composer, Katya Pine composes music for production studios, independent films, documentaries, television, musical theatre, opera, the concert stage in commercial and noncommercial styles, ranging from solo to full orchestral. Her works have been performed in Canada, U.S.A and the U.K.
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A recipient of the prestigious Floyd Chalmers Award, Katya received a composition degree from the University of Toronto, with postgraduate studies in London, England and Calgary, Alberta.
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An affiliate composer of the Canadian Music Center, Association of Canadian Women Composers, Canadian League of Composers, Screen Composers Guild of Canada, and SOCAN, Katya writes extensively for voice.
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Germaine Shames, a Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow, Kilroys List playwright, and recipient of her state’s Literary Fellowship in Fiction, is author of the award-winning novels, Between Two Deserts and You, Fascinating You. Writing under the pen name Casper Silk (Hotel Noir, Echo Year), she has been compared to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Graham Greene and P.D. James “on steroids”.
As a librettist and lyricist, Shames collaborates with world-class composers in musical theatre, opera, choral and popular music. Her eco-opera, The Bird Lady (with composer Timothy Miller), previewed in 2021 at the National Opera Center. Two of Shames' one-act social justice operas, "Bomb Squad Rhapsody" (w'Jane K) and "An Open Letter to Samuel Alito" (w' Marissa Simmons) premiered in 2022-23. Her immigration musical, Capri (w' composer Paul Scherer), won Skyline Theatre Co’s new musical search and was their singular offering at the 2022 NJ Theatre Alliance Stages Festival. Her Edith Wharton opera, In Venice (w' Paul Scherer) premiered in concert in NYC in 2024. She is proud to be a 2024 Puffin Foundation grantee.
Artistic director Claire Beckman has written, "Germaine advocates for social justice with refreshing maturity, structural elegance, and gut punching dichotomies." It’s all about love.