Alkali Collective

Statement from Alkali Collective

Nova Scotia’s 2026 provincial budget includes a 30% cut to Arts Nova Scotia and the reduction or elimination of dozens of cultural grant programs.

For artist-led organizations like Alkali Collective, public funding is what makes our work possible. It supports the employment of professional musicians, the commissioning and performance of new music, and collaborative projects that strengthen our communities and generate economic activity across the province.

When investment in the arts is reduced, the consequences are immediate:
• Professional artists lose work
• New projects are cancelled or scaled back
• Organizations are forced to cut programming
• Long-term planning becomes impossible

These reductions land on a sector that already operates on razor-thin margins.

Nova Scotia’s arts sector is not ornamental. It is a professional workforce, an economic contributor, and a core part of the province’s identity. Cuts of this magnitude will have lasting consequences for the stability of the sector and the communities it serves.

If the arts matter to you, now is the time to act.

Contact your MLA: http://www.nsarts.ca

Share your perspective through the impact survey:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScW39Imfpav1TKS3c77vYPXJcXlNluJoKGfNTZ37JDjKHE1Lg/viewform

Join us at the Arts Funding Rally on March 4, 12pm at the NS Legislature.

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These graphics were generously created and shared by artist Colleen Arcturus MacIsaac ( ). We accessed and adapted them through resources compiled by Cecilia Concerts ( ). Photo of the ensemble was taken by Jeff Cooke ( )

Alkali Collective Presents: TRACE

Alkali Collective continues its sixth concert season with TRACE, a program exploring the marks music leaves on memory, perception, and human experience. The concert features works by Rebecca Adams and Garrett Niall, selected through Alkali Collective’s annual Call for Scores, highlighting bold and distinctive voices from early-career composers connected to Atlantic Canada.

JAN 31 2026 | 7:30pm
The Peggy Corkum Music Room
6181 Lady Hammond Rd, Halifax, NS

Tickets: $25/adults, $20/students, $15/ages 12 and under.
Live-Stream Tickets: $15/household.

All tickets available at alkalicollective.com and at the door, link in bio!

Say hello to our guest artist, Nathan Petitpas! 🥁✨We’re thrilled to have him join us, you don’t want to miss this show!

All tickets available at www.alkalicollective.com - link in bio!

Nathan Petitpas is a percussionist, composer, and educator who is dedicated to the performance of contemporary music by living composers. He has been a member of the Thin Edge New Music Collective since 2012 and has worked with organizations such as the Esprit Orchestra, Array Music, Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan, the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Arts Centre’s English Theatre, the Windsor Symphony Orchestra, Cirque du Soleil, FAWN Chamber Creative, Freesound and many others. Through his work, Nathan has had the honour of premiering dozens of new compositions by living composers and has performed in various festivals and concert series across Canada as well as in the United States, Europe, and South America including the Internationales Gamelan Musikfestival in Munich, Nuit Blanche Toronto, New Works Edmonton, Société de Musique Contemporeiane du Québec, New Music Calgary, Music on Main (Vancouver), Open Spaces in Victoria, the Music Gallery’s X Avant series, and NUMUS.

A versatile performer, Nathan can be seen playing in symphony orchestras, contemporary classical chamber ensembles, opera pits, musical theatre pits, pop/rock bands, gamelan ensembles, radio dramas, and stand-up comedy shows, and modern dance classes to name a few.

As an educator, Nathan has coached students at the Royal Conservatory of Music, University of Toronto, the Toronto All City Band, and many other youth orchestra programs and high schools. He currently teaches a variety of music programs at Community Music Schools of Toronto and in his private studio in Toronto.

Nathan holds a Master of Music degree from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Music degree from Acadia University and is an artist endorser of Dream Cymbals and Gongs.

Meet the composer! 👋
In just two weeks, we’re premiering a brand new piece by Paolo Griffin. We can’t wait for you to hear it!

Paolo Griffin is a composer and curator based in Toronto/Tkarón:to whose work centers co-creation and collaboration with performers in a practice that spans sound, performance, text, improvisation, and includes the creation of notated music, live performance installations, and text/event scores.

Paolo is the Artistic & Executive director of Freesound, a Toronto-based contemporary music collective of eight performers, and is an advocate of accessible arts and disability inclusive practices and works as the Managing Director of Xenia Concerts.

There is still time to send in your scores!

Alkali Collective invites emerging and early career composers connected to the Atlantic Canadian provinces to submit their chamber works to the ensemble’s fifth annual Call for Scores initiative. Eligible applicants are composers of any age who are current residents of, were born in, or have completed a substantial portion of their musical education in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland & Labrador, New Brunswick or Prince Edward Island.

Three chamber works will be selected by members of Alkali Collective to be performed in January 2026. Each selected applicant will be rewarded a cash prize of $500 CAD. The selected works will be live recorded, and the recording will be available to the selected composers for archival use.

Applications must be completed by no later than December 1st, 2025.

For more details and to apply, please see visit:
https://forms.gle/e264Bp4H7Lt5p88d9

Questions can be sent via email to [email protected].

Season six, here we go! 💥
We’re back and excited to begin rehearsals for our sixth season, kicking things off with a concert featuring guest artist on percussion and a world premiere by composer .griffin

Saturday, November 22nd, 7:30pm
The Peggy Corkum Music Room
6181 Lady Hammond Rd., Halifax, NS

Tickets: $25/adult, $20/students, $15/ages 12 and under.
Live-Stream Tickets: $15/household

All tickets available at www.alkalicollective.com - link in bio!

Alkali Collective invites emerging and early career composers connected to the Atlantic Canadian provinces to submit their chamber works to the ensemble’s fifth annual Call for Scores initiative. Eligible applicants are composers of any age who are current residents of, were born in, or have completed a substantial portion of their musical education in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland & Labrador, New Brunswick or Prince Edward Island.

Three chamber works will be selected by members of Alkali Collective to be performed in January 2026. Each selected applicant will be rewarded a cash prize of $500 CAD. The selected works will be live recorded, and the recording will be available to the selected composers for archival use.

Applications must be completed by no later than December 1st, 2025.

For more details and to apply, please see visit:
https://forms.gle/e264Bp4H7Lt5p88d9

Questions can be sent via email to [email protected].

Composer Spotlight: Shanti Sivarulrasa

Shanti is one of three prize-winning composers from our 2024/25 Call for Scores program! You can hear Shanti’s selected composition “aftertaste” on Saturday, March 15th, here in Halifax at The Peggy Corkum Music Room. Swipe to see more concert details! Ticket link in bio!

Born in Ottawa, Ontario, Shanti Sivarulrasa is a composer and violinist based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She is in her fourth year of the Bachelor of Music program at Dalhousie University on a four-year Fountain Performing Arts Scholarship. Shanti is pursuing a concentration in composition, studying composition with Dr. Jerome Blais and violin with Dr. Leonardo Perez.
Shanti made her professional solo debut with Symphony Nova Scotia and conductor Karl Hirzer in 2025 performing her composition Chrysalis for solo violin and orchestra as part of the Open Waters Festival. She served as the Concertmaster of the Dalhousie Symphony Orchestra from 2022 to 2024. Shanti is also a three-time winner of the Dalhousie Concerto Night Competition and is the recipient of more than a dozen academic and artistic scholarships. Most recently, Shanti was awarded the Music’s Future Scholarship by the New York- based Music Performance Trust Fund, recognizing her as one of thirty current and future leaders in the music industry across North America.
In 2024, Shanti was selected for the Earshot Readings with the National Arts Centre Orchestra. She is the co-founder and co-creative director of the Nuovo Contemporary Concert Series, as well as the first violinist and a founding member of the Rostova String Quartet.

About the work, Shanti writes:

“aftertaste is an exploration of the connection between hearing and taste; two sensations which are seemingly unrelated. Through this piece, I discover my own perception of the colour of taste, and transform it into an audibly digestible experience.”

Composer Spotlight: Hope Salmonson

is one of three prize-winning composers from our 2024/25 Call for Scores program! You can hear Hope’s selected composition “Sanctuary” on Saturday, March 15th, here in Halifax at The Peggy Corkum Music Room. Swipe to see more concert details! Ticket link in bio!

Composer-tubist Hope Salmonson is queering her music through a cross-genre style and a burning desire to help performers represent themselves. With a focus on process over product, Hope seeks to ensure that every voice in the room is valued, on and off the stage. Hope is always chasing opportunities to connect with others through music, valuing community first and foremost. Hope most prefers to share a bond with the ensembles and musicians she works with, including the Burning BRASs Band, musica intima, Diversify the Stand, and the Glass Winds Ensemble, as well as a wide array of individual performers. Having participated in programs such as novum musica, (Art) Song Lab, the Wildflower Composers Festival and the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance, she takes care to make the compositional process a collaborative experience. Hope holds a BMus from Mount Allison University and a MMus in Composition from the University of British Columbia.

About the work, Hope writes:

“In this piece, I try to capture some mixed feelings of un-safety in a supposedly safe space. Somewhere between an anxious mind presenting my works onstage, a disabled body surviving the institutions that validate the music I write, and a trans spirit writing choral music reminiscent of churches that have pushed me away, I have often been aware of a tinge of discomfort despite being immersed in art that I’m so passionate about. Sanctuary takes a simple, hymnal tune and distorts it through that same anxiety, wreaking havoc as the initial safety yearns to be heard.”

Composer Spotlight: Alexander Bridger

is one of three prize-winning composers from our 2024/25 Call for Scores program! You can hear Alexander’s selected composition “Bagatelles Chimériques” on Saturday, March 15th, here in Halifax at The Peggy Corkum Music Room. Swipe to see more concert details! Ticket link in bio!

Alexander Bridger, a Newfoundland-born composer and multi-instrumentalist, has long-defied easy genre classification with his music. His experimental fusion of psychedelic pop with Newfoundland folk music led Overcast magazine to name Bridger “St. John’s Most Original Songwriter,” and saw his works being presented at Sound Symposium, as well as POP Montréal International Music Festival. Bridger has self-produced albums have been nominated for both “Best Alternative Album ‘’ as well as “Best Folk Album” at the MusicNL Awards. Readers of CultMTL once voted Bridger as one of Montreal’s “Best Weirdos” in the magazine’s annual “Best of MTL ‘’ readers poll, a testament to his enigmatic and individualistic approach to composition and performance.

About the work, Alexander writes:

“This set of miniatures are like the chimeras of mythology in the sense that they were assembled from a mixed potpourri of as-yet-unperformed music that I have accumulated over the last few years. In titling this set, it seemed appropriate to also capitalize on the additional subtext included in the French word “chimérique” which points towards the inherently abstract and whimsical nature of musical expression.”