Program Graduates
IMPR PhD Graduates
Dr. David Lane
Dissertation: Improvising in-between: Youth Experiences with Co-Created, Intercultural Performance
Dr. David Lane hails from Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia. He studied music and music education at St. Francis Xavier University and the Memorial University of Newfoundland respectively. David taught music, physical education, and special education for three years with the Kativik Ilisarniliriniq (school board). David’s interest in international development brought him to Guelph for the first time in 2009 where he completed an MSc in Rural Planning and Development at the University of Guelph. David’s graduate research focused upon participatory and community-based development initiatives in Uganda.
Following a brief stint as an education researcher in Ontario, David returned to Nunavik, where he worked as a recreation development advisor for the Kativik Regional Government. David returned to Guelph in 2015 where he worked as a research, evaluation, and planning consultant with Harry Cummings and Associates. David’s consulting experience has taken him from coast-to-coast in Canada and has included multi-national research initiatives including field work in East and West Africa, and the Philippines. David continues to work as a part-time research strategist focusing on equity and inclusion initiatives at the Waterloo Region District School board.
David was the first graduate from the Critical Studies in Improvisation program in December 2023.
Dr. Brent Rowan
Dissertation: The Evolution of Telematic Musicking During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Examination of Critical Practices within a Synchronous Online Jazz Improvisation Program for Older Adults
Dr. Brent Rowan is a professional community musician. As a Guelph-based saxophonist, Brent performs in a wide variety of musical collaborations, including 2009 and 2015 Juno-nominated Eccodek, Big Bands, smaller jazz combos, and creative music ensembles. Brent has performed and recorded all across Canada, the UK, and Germany, and at music festivals in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, and London, England to name a few. He has released three recordings of his own compositions; It’s About Time (2006), IZ (2012), and Where is Local (2016).
Brent composes and arranges music for many of the groups he directs. He is the founding director of the Guelph Youth Jazz Ensemble and the New Horizons Band for Guelph. Brent teaches in the Community Music Program at Wilfrid Laurier University. He is also a clinician and adjudicator at music camps and festivals throughout southern Ontario, specializing in saxophone and improvisation concepts. Brent holds a Master of Arts in Community Music from Wilfrid Laurier University, a Bachelor of Music from Humber College, and a Bachelor of Mathematics from the University of Waterloo. He successfully defended his PhD in Critical Studies in Improvisation in August 2025.
Dr. Ben Finley
Dissertation: Improvising Earthfulness: Co-creative Music and Festivals as Sites of Eco-cultural Regeneration
Dr. Ben Finley is a performer-composer specializing in acoustic bass and electric bass (in multiple tunings and with effects). He grew up on a music festival farm, witnessing many ecosystems of music making. The seeds of co-creative agency were sewn; Ben aims to cultivate music that embraces the unique individual life experiences of its participants. This often manifests through improvisation, text, the human voice, electro-acoustic worlds, learning from the biosphere, and exploring multi-stylistic compositional frameworks. Ben founded and facilitates the Westben Centre for Connection & Creativity’s international/multi-generational Performer-Composer Residency. He is a graduate of the Performer-Composer program at CalArts, and is a recent PhD graduate of Critical Studies in Improvisation at the University of Guelph, studying music festivals as sites of environmental and existential stewardship. www.benfinley.ca
Dr. Erwan Noblet
Dissertation: Vocal River and Música Do Círculo: Two Pedagogical Frameworks Carving the Path Toward a Collective Vocal Improvisation Course into Academic Arts Curricula
Dr. Erwan Noblet is a French vocal explorer passionate about the infinite power of the human voice. He is a singer, voice teacher, actor, and free vocal improviser. As a performer, Erwan collaborated in various artistic projects, recorded two EPs under the name of Layenn and co-written “Concert Room,” a theatre piece about the impact of hormones in a musical journey. In 2019, he graduated from Shenandoah University with a Master of Music in contemporary voice pedagogy, where he taught Circle Singing classes. As a voice teacher, he owns his voice studio, works with professional French artists, and collaborates with musicians’ platforms such as Trempolino (Nantes, Fr.). In 2021, he started his PhD at the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation (now a PhD Candidate), reflecting on increasing human connection in academic settings and decolonizing the curriculum through free vocal improvisation. He recently studied with mentors such as Bobby McFerrin, Rhiannon, Robert Sussuma, and Jorge Parente. www.erwannoblet.com
Dr. Shaghayegh Yassemi
Dissertation: Spatial Ensemble: The Filmopoetics of Improvisatory Fragments
Dr. Shaghayegh Yassemi is a film director and a performance artist. She earned a Bachelor’s and a Master’s in Theater from Soore University of Tehran. In 2015 she moved to Montreal and finished her second Master’s, this time in Film Production, at the Concordia University. From that date on she has been going back and forth between Canada and Iran to make her artworks. Now a PhD Candidate, she started her PhD in Critical Studies in Improvisation at the University of Guelph on 2020. She is particularly fond of architecture, the surrounding environment, and the way it communicates with people. For now she is researching how a performance art piece or a piece with performative characteristics can create an experience of poetry.
Dr. Bob Wiseman
Dissertation: Composing the Unknowable: Art, Revenge, and the Meaning of “The
Black Square”
Dr. Bob Wiseman began writing and performing while still just a zygote. Later, taking on a coat of fur and several lengthy whiskers, it became clear this was not Bob, but Bob’s dog. Soon after, Bob was advised to get real about his bio. Okay: “So simple, so brilliant.” —Guy Maddin. “I know who Bob Wiseman is.” —Odetta. “My worst piano student.” —Pearl Schneider.
Dr. Lucy Bilson
Dissertation: Improvising Design: Rebuilding Cultural Engagement Through Everyday Visual Language in Public Space
Dr. Lucy Bilson is a designer, researcher, and educator working at the periphery of contemporary graphic design practice. In addition to operating an independent studio, Lucy’s creative practice explores the interdisciplinary space between design and art, often using her work to contest the boundaries of contemporary practice.
Lucy recently curated Articulating Legibility, an exhibition at the Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery which explores the implications of illegibility in works from the permanent collection. She was recently selected as the 2021 City of Waterloo Artist in Residence, through which she is engaging the community in an arts practice which investigates the importance of green spaces within the urban environment. Lucy is also currently working on a 650 square-foot site-specific permanent installation in collaboration with Waterloo Public Library which will be installed in the new Eastside Library Branch. The installation is a graphic work which encourages visitors to look outwards to the surrounding landscape and consider their relationship with the environment through the lens of stewardship.
Much of Lucy’s work crosses disciplinary boundaries, flouting convention and prescribed media in favour of exploring questions about placemaking and disciplinary issues through practice-based research. Lucy has a Master of Design and Graduate Diploma in Curatorial Studies in Visual Culture, in addition to a Bachelor of Design (Hons), from York University and is now a graduate of the Critical Studies in Improvisation PhD program at the University of Guelph. You can follow Lucy online at lucybilson.com
IMPR MA Graduates
Aimee Copping (MA, Critical Studies in Improvisation) is a musician, educator, composer and producer and the executive director and founder of the Blackball program, launched in Toronto’s Regent Park in 2015. Its mission is the free-of charge delivery of electronic music tools and teaching to at-risk individuals and prison inmates. Now in its sixth year, Blackball has reached hundreds of community members across the province. A federally incorporated non-profit, Blackball has received major funding from the Ontario Arts Council and Musagetes.
In 2016, Aimee Copping began a four-year collaboration with Pros and Cons, a songwriting and recording project for prison inmates. She established a dedicated music production space inside a federal penitentiary, Grand Valley Institution For Women in Kitchener, and mentored inmates in songwriting, vocal technique and music production. She produced two Pros and Cons albums, Undisclosed Location in 2018 and, in 2020, Private Town.
In 2017, Aimee was engaged by singer-songwriter Arlene Bishop to write arrangements for and conduct a 30-voice choir for her live album, Together Tonight. In 2019, Correctional Service Canada commissioned Wellspring, a summer-long creative writing workshop for Grand Valley’s LGBTQ+ inmates. Aimee Copping has also collaborated with Girls’ Rock Camp Guelph and Art Not Shame, and is a consulting member of the Upper Grand District School Board’s Safe, Equitable & Inclusive Committee. Her four-part audio documentary on the history of electronic music, Synths Always, broadcasts on University of Guelph’s radio station CFRU FM through August 2021. She records and performs as Transstar. Laurie Brown of CBC Radio q says the debut Transstar EP Famous Door is “like landing on another planet.”
Reza Yazdanpanah (MA, Critical Studies in Improvisation) is an Iranian musician who is a teacher,improviser, performer, and composer. Since 2009, he has been a music faculty member at the University of Guilan, where he has taught Persian classical repertoire, Radif, and Improvisation on tar and setar (Persian plucked chordophones). Me, Myself, and I; Reza et Moi, Tamashay-e- Saba, Eshq Amad, and Goshayesh are his recorded compositions and improvisations based on folkloric, traditional, and classical Persian music. In 2016, focusing on children’s music education, Reza established his private music school (Yazdanpanah Music School) in Shiraz with his brothers. His recently published book is Shur-e-Tar, a comprehensive guide for both music educators and self-teaching students. His research interest is creating improvisational games for children as social practices in order to equip them for their future lives.
Marcela Echeverri (MA, Critical Studies in Improvisation) is a musician, anthropologist, and improviser currently based in Guelph, Ontario. She is a bass player who has played with bands in Colombia and Estonia. Her Master’s projects concerned themselves with the use of sound recording methodologies as a means to produce and present research findings on the intermingling of agencies. She is interested in exploring the possibilities of improvisation in the context of education and community-building.
