Meet our 2025 Scholarship Winners

ARI HOOKER - Winner of the $3000 Women's Musical Club Scholarship

Ari Hooker is an exciting up-and-coming composer and concert pianist from Winnipeg who has garnered many local awards. Ambitious and overflowing with ideas, Ari has already written a large amount of chamber music and performed part of his Piano Concerto in C Major, Op. 5 with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (WSO) in fall 2024. Before that, he premiered his Sonata Epica, Op. 6 for cello and piano in the Winnipeg Chamber Music Society’s main series (a performance available on YouTube). His latest project was a premiere recording entitled “New Works for the Piano”, featuring three large scale pieces which he wrote in 2024/25: Eight Concert Etudes, Op. 8, Little Suite in G Minor, and Childhood Memories. This recording is available to stream on all major platforms. Many of Ari’s scores are available to enjoy and purchase through his website: arihooker.com. 

As a concert pianist, Ari won the top prize at both the Winnipeg Music Festival (2024) and the Women’s Musical Club of Winnipeg’s scholarship competition (2025). Shortly after his debut with the WSO, he was their featured soloist in Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Ari is also a chamber musician and is in demand as a sensitive and solid accompanist. His wide-ranging musical interests span everything from classical performance through popular piano stylings, transcription, and constructing electronic music. He was the keyboard player for the local band, "Training Wheels", whose songs were heard on local radio and can be streamed on Spotify. Ari is in his fourth year as a student of David Moroz at the University of Manitoba. 

SIMON PROULX - Winner of the $2500 Women's Musical Club Scholarship Named one of CBC Music’s 30 Hot Canadian Classical Musicians Under 30 (2022), clarinetist Simon Proulx earned a Bachelor of Music in Performance and French Language Literatures and Cultures from the University of British Columbia, graduating at the top of his class in 2025. He has taken part in programs like the Chamber Music program at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, where he was chosen to represent the Centre at the Music in PyeongChang Festival in South Korea. Simon also has a keen interest in historical musicology, especially the relationship between music and the formation of communal identity in Greek and Francophone traditions. An advocate for music education, he volunteers with the Coalition for Music Education in Canada and was instrumental in launching the Vancouver Opera’s inaugural Orchestral Mentorship Program last fall. Currently, he is pursuing a Master of Music in Performance at McGill University, studying under Simon Aldrich and Jean-François Normand. He is honoured to be a 2025 McCall McBain Scholar, a fully funded master's program at McGill that emphasizes leadership, entrepreneurship, and community involvement.

TAYLOR BURNS - Winner of the $2000 Madeleine Gauvin Scholarship Soprano Taylor Burns, originally from Kingston, Ontario, received a Bachelor of Music from the University of Western Ontario where she won numerous awards, including the Gold Medal in Performance. She recently completed her Masters degree in Vocal Performance at the Desautels Faculty of Music, where she studied with Monica Huisman. Taylor was a formidable 2nd Lady in U of M's fall production of The Magic Flute, and demonstrated her love of new music in her recent recital featuring the incredibly challenging Tanzer Lieder by Ana Sokolovic. Now based in Winnipeg, she was twice named runner-up to the Winnipeg Music Festival’s Rose Bowl, and is active as a voice instructor and as a chorister with Dead of Winter.

LIANA NADURAK - Winner of the $1500 Phyllis Ilavsky Scholarship Liana Nadurak is a Winnipeg-born violinist recognized for her versatility as both a performer and educator. She appears regularly with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, and was a member of the Lansing Symphony Orchestra, Adrian Symphony Orchestra, and Windsor Symphony Orchestra in the 2024–25 season.

Liana earned her Master of Music in Violin Performance on full scholarship from the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre & Dance in spring 2025, studying with Professor Danielle Belen. She also holds a Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance from the University of Ottawa, where she studied with Yehonatan Berick, Timothy Chooi, Michael van der Sloot, Donnie Deacon, and Jean-Hee Lee. Furthering her orchestral training, Liana studied orchestral excerpts for two years under Yosuke Kawasaki (concertmaster of the National Arts Centre Orchestra) and participated in the NACO Mentorship Program, where she received one-on-one mentorship from Jessica Linnebach.

Liana has played under the direction of conductors Bramwell Tovey, Raffi Armenian, Kenneth Kiesler, Tania Miller, and Dinuk Wijeratne, and has participated in programs such as the National Symphony Orchestra Summer Music Institute, the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra Mentorship Program, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestral Institute, the Green Lake Festival of Music, and the Rosamunde Summer Music Academy.

In addition to her performing career, Liana is a certified Suzuki Method teacher and maintains a private studio of 18 young violin students, where she is dedicated to fostering a healthy love for music in the next generation of string players. 

Liana plays on a violin crafted for her by Canadian luthier Garth Lee.

SHION TAMASHIRO - Winner of the $1500 Holtby Scholarship Shion Tamashiro studied at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in Brussels, Belgium, before arriving in Winnipeg to study at the Desautels Faculty of Music, U of Manitoba under the tutelage of Oleg Pokhanovski. Her performance of Jean Sibelius’ violin concerto in the faculty’s 2025 concerto competition captured the top prize for its adventurous take on a piece that has been performed and recorded countless times over the years.

KYLE BRISCOE- Winner of the $1000 Berythe Birse Scholarship Winnipeg-born Kyle Briscoe (he/they) is presently in the Artist Diploma program at McGill as a Jacqueline Desmarais Opera Fellow. A survivor of trauma and domestic violence, he is interdisciplinary vocalist exploring humanity through performance, creating art to heal, uplift, and empower others, especially trauma survivors and 2SLGBTQIA+ communities. Comfortable in opera, musical theatre, and pop, Kyle excels in interpreting Mozart, Rossini, Wolf, Chausson, Finzi, and Britten. Recent credits include leading roles in Opera McGill’s Imeneo, The Light in the Piazza, and Blond Eckbert. Kyle also debuted A Songbook for Survivors, a staged autobiographical song cycle, and presented REQUIESCAT; REBIRTH during Winnipeg Pride, raising funds for 2SLGBTQIA+ charities. Other highlights include Messiah soloist with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and Oscar in Rocking Horse Winner with Manitoba Underground Opera. Kyle holds a M.Mus. from McGill, a B.Mus. from the University of Manitoba, loves running and learning from those around him!