Carissa grew up in a musical family in Saskatoon, playing various instruments. Her parents, both educators in the public system, met through Ukrainian choirs, and have spent their lives involved with music. Carissa’s mother, Alicia, who grew up playing the piano, accompanied Carissa and her brother Mark throughout their violin studies. Carissa’s father, Larry, a baritone, has a degree in music and was always involved in local musical and operatic productions. He has conducted the choir at the Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in Saskatoon for over fifty years. Forty years ago, he founded the Lastiwka Ukrainian Choir and Orchestra that performs both Ukrainian liturgical and folk music. And it’s a whole family affair – Carissa, her brother, her mother, and her four grandparents all sang in these choirs. Singing is very important to the entire family, as it is to the Ukrainian culture.

Carissa describes herself as having three parts to her musical life. One of them is as an orchestral musician. She completed her undergrad degree at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, where she had many opportunities to perform as a young and eager violinist in a smaller scene. She started playing in the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra when she was in high school, first in the section, then winning and serving in the role of Principal Second Violin while completing her Undergraduate degree. She moved to Montreal in 2006 to study with Jonathan Crow at McGill University, and she started subbing with the NAC Orchestra and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra while working toward her Master’s and Doctoral degrees. She accompanied the NAC orchestra on its western tour in 2008. In 2012, the same year she finished her Doctorate, she spent four months playing with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. It seemed almost inevitable that she would join NACO permanently in 2014 as a member of the violin section.

Carissa is also a chamber musician; in fact, she says that chamber music is a very important part of who she is. While studying in Montreal, she co-founded the Ritornello Chamber Music Festival in Saskatoon, which would feature artists from the prairies pursuing professional careers elsewhere – hence “Ritornello.” After winning the 2009 Eckardt-Gramatté Music Competition, Carissa toured across Canada between 2009 and 2012, performing recitals with pianist Philip Chiu. Together, they recorded the album “SOUNDWORDS” featuring Canadian music that they had toured (Vivier, Carrabré, Willan) as well as the Debussy and Janacek sonatas. Carissa’s future includes more recording, including works by Ukrainian composers that had been the focus of her doctoral thesis. She has performed in Chamberfest almost annually since 2009, is often involved in NAC series, and she plays viola in the Ironwood String Quartet along with NACO colleagues Jessica Linnebach, Emily Kruspe (her partner), and Rachel Mercer.

Carissa’s brother chose not to go into music professionally, but he and Carissa have been playing together for the past twenty years in a band called Tyt i Tam, Ukrainian for “Here and There.” The name comes from a series of books that children study in Ukrainian school— the equivalent of the “Dick and Jane” series that so many of us had in school when we were learning to read. The five members of the band now live in several cities across Canada, so they don’t perform as frequently as they once did; however, they have performed at every major Ukrainian festival across Canada, internationally in Sydney, Australia, and embarked on a two-week tour of Ukraine, performing at major music festivals including Atlas Weekend (Kraina Mriy). They describe their style as turbo-folk: a mixture of Ukrainian folk elements and ska, rock, and punk influences. The group’s members play violin, accordion, drums, bass, and guitar, and they sing. Carissa, the lead singer, also plays a Ukrainian wooden flute called sopilka.

The third part of Carissa’s musical life is as a curator. In June of 2020, she was surprised (and delighted) to receive a phone call from Roman Borys, who was planning to step down as Artistic Director of Ottawa Chamberfest. He had been studying Carissa’s rise in the musical world, noting especially her Ritornello Festival, and he asked if she would be interested in being considered for the position – and she was. After formalities, she and Roman spent that summer, in which there was no festival because of Covid, working side by side to plan the upcoming season. She started working in August as Interim Artistic Director, and the “Interim” part of the title was removed the following March. Aside from the two-week festival every summer, Carissa plans the concerts that take place throughout the year. She stresses that she is not merely a booker filling dates in a hall, but rather someone who tries to figure out what is needed in the community and what fits into her vision for the festival. She feels that it is also important to be a musician who performs chamber music. She maintains close ties with heads of festivals in other places. If they can work things out so that a given musician or group can tour from one festival to another, so much the better for the musician and the environment.

In her “spare” time, Carissa does some composing and more arranging. She took part in a project with a dance group in Edmonton — a creative work devoted to the interactions of early Ukrainian settlers with Indigenous peoples. Carissa was part of the 50/50 Ukrainian-Indigenous team that composed the score. She also organized a concert in Ottawa in aid of Ukraine. Audience members were able to view it both in person and online. In the end, $75,000 was raised.

When asked if she ever rests, she assured us that she does indeed get a good night’s sleep and that she takes time off in August to travel. She calls herself a bit of a go-getter. We would call her a force of nature, and we’re honoured to have her as one of our members.

Francine’s Email To The City

To: MOH-MA@ottawa.ca

cc. Mark Sutcliffe

I was surprised, saddened and embarrassed for Ottawa to read the licensing agreement for submitting music to be on the City Sounds website. You are asking musicians to give you their compositions for eternity, with you having the right to do whatever you want with the music. The only payment you offer, which you deem “valuable and sufficient”, is exposure. As we in the music business are fond of saying, one can die of exposure. Please note the use of the word “business” in the last sentence. We don’t make music for the fun of it. It is how we make our living.

I wonder if the person who developed the website that lists these requirements was paid for their time and their work. Are the people who vet the requirements paid for their time, or do they offer their services gratis and with gratitude for their part in the process? How about those who assemble the final product? Do they do that work as volunteers?

The City of Hamilton has an agreement, approved unanimously by the city council, with the local branch of the musicians’ union to pay fair wages for the work that the city’s musicians do. The Downtown Business Association of City of Kingston sponsors a multi-week festival in the summer that offers free concerts to all. The musicians receive scale wages, pension contributions and even temporary union membership fees, if necessary, for their work.

I look forward to the day when we can say the same about Ottawa — a place that has called itself a Music City. We are available at your convenience to discuss such a happy outcome with you.

Francine Schutzman

President, Musicians’ Association of Ottawa-Gatineau

Local 180, American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada

613-233-9891

fschutzman@me.com

OBITUARIES

Attention: all contractors, leaders, and musicians

For performances posted online, there is a new requirement.

The General Production Agreement (GPA) is mandatory for the protection members.

The GPA is mandatory for:

any engagement that is live streamed.

any live engagement that is posted online for public viewing.

Every clause in the price list is subject to the use of the GPA when engagements are live streamed and/or posted online.

A GPA is essential to protect the digital image of members if a third party exploits a performance that is publicly available online. See Local 180’s recently updated price list for current information.

To protect members, contractors must:

• ask clients whether the engagement will be live-streamed, posted publicly, or be kept for archival purposes (no GPA is required for strictly archival purposes; however, Local 180 has a report form that contractors must complete)

• contact the Secretary-Treasurer of Local 180 to complete a GPA when an engagement will be live-streamed or posted publicly.

It is the duty of the contractor and leader to ensure that members are properly protected.

If a client live streams or posts a performance publicly and GPA is in place, contractors, leaders, and musicians should contact the Secretary-Treasurer promptly to guarantee the protection of members.

The Local 180 office will work with you to make the contract process for the GPA an easy one!