Meet the Adjudicators.

Voice/Choral Adjudicator

Soprano Irene Ilic has a Master’s Degree in Music from the Cleveland Institute of Music in Ohio. She has performed a variety of operatic and musical theatre roles in the U.S. and
Canada and has sung as a guest soloist with many Canadian choirs and orchestras.

Ms. Ilic currently has a thriving private teaching practice in Newmarket. In addition to being
an O.R.M.T.A. member, she is a currently President of the National Association of Teachers of
Singing (N.A.T.S.) Ontario Chapter and a member of the Canadian Music Festival Adjudicator’s
Association (C.M.F.A.A.). She is also currently 2 nd Vice-President of the OMFA (Ontario Music
Festivals Association).

She was honoured to be selected to join the repertoire selection committee for both the 2012
edition and 2019 edition of the Royal Conservatory of Music Songbook Series.

Ms. Ilic has adjudicated many festivals throughout Canada. She has extensive experience as a
teacher and clinician, and she is also the founder and director of the Newmarket Voice
Festival, an annual event since 1996.

Her love of both classical and musical theatre repertoire has strongly been reflected in her
teaching. Several of her students have appeared in the Toronto casts of The Sound of Music,
Billy Eliot, Mary Poppins, The Lord of the Rings, The Lion King, Mamma Mia, We Will Rock You
and in many productions of Opera Atelier. Her student, John-Michael Scapin, won CBC’s show
Triple Sensation and was awarded a $150,000 scholarship. Sixteen of her students have won
Silver and Gold Medals for the highest voice RCM exam mark in Ontario over the years.

Irene is very active in the arts community and regularly produces concerts and shows. She
was the founder and director of Vivace!, an award-winning triple trio who performed at many
community events for ten years. She scripted and directed two sold-out musical revues
(“Musical Mayhem” and “More Musical Mayhem”) at Theatre Aurora with talented casts of
her students. Her annual “Tea & Tunes” concerts have raised thousands of dollars for Sick Kids Hospital for over twenty-five years.

She is very proud that so many of her students have chosen to pursue music at the university
level and as a career path.

String Adjudicator

An award-winning violist and chamber musician whose playing has been described as “absolutely splendid… dancing with emotion,” (The Day) Dr. Jamie Arrowsmith’s career spans genres and pushes boundaries. He has collaborated with Asian and Arabic musicians as part of the London, UK-based Notes Inégales Improvisation Ensemble, performed with renowned jazz and blues artists throughout the United States, and has appeared at several leading music festivals, including the BRAVO! Vail Valley Music Festival, the Strings in the Mountains Chamber Music Festival, and the Southbank Centre New Music Biennial. Jamie has been a regular guest artist with the Cambrian Concert Series and the City of Lakes Music Society, and continues to perform as a guest soloist and chamber musician around Northern Ontario. 

Jamie holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Kent State University and Brunel University London. His academic work focuses on the intersection of professional and amateur practice in community orchestras, a topic for which he has published and presented papers at conferences around the world. He has won numerous first prize awards as a chamber musician, including the Coleman Chamber Music Competition, the MTNA Chamber Music Competition and the Green Lake String Quartet Competition. He has been part of the distinguished panel of judges for the Guangya Chengdu International Violin Competition in Chengdu, China. He has also been recognized by Northern Ontario Business as a 40 Under 40 award winner for community arts leadership, and was a recipient of the Joan Mantle Music Trust Community Award. He is also the recipient of the Positive Impact Award from the Cambrian Student Council, for his work supporting student success and wellbeing, as well as the Jamie West Good Neighbors’ Award. In 2025, he was deeply honoured to be granted the King Charles III Coronation Medal for his contributions to community arts and culture. 

Jamie is the Music Director of the Sudbury Youth Orchestra, and the founder and director of the Sudbury Sound Collective improvisation ensemble. He has also been Resident Conductor of the Sudbury Symphony Orchestra, and has twice been named as Music Director for the Northern Ontario Music Festival Honour Band. From 2005 to 2023 he was a full-time professor in the School of Music at Cambrian College, and remains an active string clinician and adjudicator around the province. Jamie has taught English and Music with the Rainbow District School Board, where he is currently a vice-principal. 

Piano Adjudicator

Angela Park has established herself as one of Canada’s most sought-after pianists. Praised for her “stunningly beautiful pianism” (Grace Welsh Prize, Chicago), “beautiful tone and sensitivity” (American Record Guide), and for performing “with such brilliant clarity it took your breath away” (Chapala, Mexico). Angela’s versatility as both soloist and chamber musician has led to performances across Canada, as well as in the United States, Europe, Japan and Mexico. She has performed for such notable series as Montreal’s Pro Musica, Ottawa Chamberfest, Toronto Summer Music Festival, Parry Sound’s Festival of the Sound, Winnipeg Virtuosi, Debut Atlantic and Prairie Debut Tours, Orchestra London Canada, Sinfonia Toronto, Stratford Symphony, and the Northern Lights Music Festival in Mexico.

Angela developed a passion for chamber music early on in her music studies, and this has led to a varied career as a chamber musician. She has developed a longstanding collaborative partnership with violist Sharon Wei, both as a duo, and as former founding members (2006-2022) of the renowned Ensemble Made In Canada. Their work together reached across every province and territory across Canada, culminating in a JUNO Award for their Mosaïque Album in 2021. They have also toured as a duo for Debut Atlantic and Prairie Debut, and continue to collaborate regularly with other musicians across the country.

Cellist Rachel Mercer and Angela have also forged an important duo partnership since their first performance in 2006. As the Mercer-Park Duo, they have performed and recorded a vast range of repertoire for cello and piano with a focus on Canadian contemporary composers. Rachel and Angela have been privileged to work with violinist Yehonatan Berick as the AYR Trio (2010-2020), with Mayumi Seiler as the Seiler Trio, and with Scott St. John as the St. John-Mercer-Park Trio.

Angela was previously a pianist for Piano Six – New Generation, an organization that toured remote communities across Canada. In 2019 she joined pianist Stéphan Sylvestre to form a piano duo, focusing on the complete Brahms Symphonies in their four-hand versions. Among other collaborations, Angela has performed with such international artists as violist Rivka Golani, violinist Martin Beaver, clarinetist James Campbell, soprano Leslie Fagan, and leading members of the Montreal and Toronto Symphonies.

Past and future highlights include a world premiere of John Burge’s Second Piano Concerto with Sinfonia Toronto, solo recitals for Confluence Concerts in Toronto and Consortium Aurora Borealis in Thunder Bay, tours with Prairie Debut and Debut Atlantic, performances with Lyrica Baroque in New Orleans, Louisiana, collaborative recitals at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, and Ensemble Made In Canada tours of Canada and the United States. Angela has recorded independent solo albums, and collaborative discs with cellist Rachel Mercer and Ensemble Made In Canada for labels including NAXOS Canadian Classics, Centrediscs, and Enharmonic Records. She is also featured on a recording of Srul Irving Glick’s Suites Hébraïques with clarinetist James Campbell, saxophonist Wallace Halladay, and violinist Barry Shiffman.

In 2010 Angela earned her DMA in Performance from the Université de Montréal, and previously received her MMus and BMus degrees from the University of Toronto. From 2011-2014, Angela was Visiting Assistant Professor of Collaborative Piano-Woodwinds at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music. She has given masterclasses and educational outreach workshops for universities and communities across Canada, as well as at SUNY New Paltz, Stanford, and Indiana University in the United States. Angela has been Assistant Professor of Piano and Collaborative Piano at Western University since 2019. She is a regular guest teacher at Music at Port Milford, a summer chamber music academy for high school students. Angela was a board member of the Stratford Summer Music Festival from 2019-2023, and is currently co-Artistic Director of 5 at the First Chamber Music Series in Hamilton.