Roland Graham
Artistic Direction
Serving as Music Director of Southminster United Church from 2009 to 2022, Roland has developed a music program of regional renown in Old Ottawa South, which features the DOMS series as its main attraction. He has recently stepped down as Southminster’s Music Director, but continues to program the DOMS series. Roland has performed as a pianist on CBC Radio 2 and had his original compositions performed in Canada and abroad. In 2013 he founded Rideau Chorale, a vibrant auditioned-based community choir of nearly 50 members, also based in the Ottawa South community. Hailed “an excellent conductor and inspiring educator” Roland has led spirited renditions of works such as Orff’s Carmina Burana, Mozart’s Requiem, Handel’s Coronation Anthems, Vivaldi’s Gloria, and many other works, in productions by Rideau Chorale, the Southminster Church Choir, and through his amateur choral singing workshops. In 2019 he was invited to lead the choral program for the Breno Italy International Music Academy (BIIMA), which takes place each summer in the Italian Alps. During the course of his studies, Roland Graham received a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada grant, which supported him in studying memory and performance techniques in the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Music from the University of Ottawa where he studied with Jean Desmarais, and a master’s degree from the Université de Montréal where he studied with Jimmy Brière and Marc Durand.
Mike Mullin
Recording
Mike has enjoyed a many facetted career in music for almost 50 years. He plays the saxophone, clarinets, and flute, and works as an audio engineer. As a wind player, he has performed with the NAC Orchestra, Natalie Cole, Johnny Mathis, Rosemary Clooney, Frank Sinatra Jr, Aretha Franklin, Jamie Cullum, Liberace and many others, and toured with orchestras and bands including the RCMP Band and the CAF Central Band throughout Canada and overseas. He has played for musicals including Phantom Of The Opera, The Drowsy Chaperone, Westside Story, and recorded albums with Dutch Mason, Frank MacKay, Salsa Picante, Josette Noreau, and many others. Mike have been recoding and streaming DOMS concerts since earl in the pandemic, and additionally streams Southminster Sunday services and other events.
Martha Hanna
Administration
Martha has been the Administrator of Southminster United Church since 2002. She is responsible for the production of the church’s weekly orders of service and email newsletters, along with maintaining the church’s primary web site (let’s link to that), keeping the books, paying bills, and administering rentals. In this capacity Martha has similarly supported DOMS since its inception, paying artists, tracking donations, maintaining the books, and supporting volunteers at DOMS concert each Wednesday. On weekends she plays the piano for the congregation of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Aylmer, Quebec.
Peter Simonyi
Communications
Peter prepares the concert programs and other promotional material for DOMS.
Despite somewhat grudgingly fulfilling the required high school arts credit by playing French horn for a semester, Peter’s musical history is centred around choral music. After moving to Ottawa, Peter joined the Savoy Society in Ruddigore and non-staged concerts. More recently, he has sung tenor in the Rideau Chorale and tenor/alto in the Southminster Choir.
From waltz and swing to English country, Peter enjoys a variety of social dances. In addition to being an avid contra dancer, he has take up calling for contra dances, which is the job of teaching and leading the dances and acting as host for the evening. He has called for ContraMontreal and Ottawa Contra Dance, and enjoys exploring choreographic variety from adjacent styles even though it rarely makes it into a dance program.
Peter holds a master’s degree in Computer Science from Carleton University, having studied ways to support exploratory interaction in user interfaces and worked on software approaches to large touch-screen interfaces.