Our Team
Carson Becke
Director, Pontiac Enchanté and Café Enchanté
Born and raised in Ottawa, Canadian pianist Carson Becke ( www.carsonbecke.com ) has performed worldwide. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, UK, and at the University of Oxford, where he completed a doctorate in musicology. As a chamber musician, Carson enjoys frequent collaborations with sopranos Lavinia Dames and Meghan Lindsay, violinist Carissa Klopoushak, pianist Suren Barry as Duo Octavian ( www.duooctavian.com ), and cellist Julia MacLaine. As an arranger, he written transcriptions of music by Mendelssohn (Hebrides Overture - solo piano), Puccini (Fantasy on themes from Tosca - solo piano), Holst(The Planets - piano duo), Richard Strauss (Vier Letzte Lieder - piano and voice), and others.
Carson is committed to creating structural changes to the music industry in response to climate change, and the resulting need to create more sustainable systems. His TedX talk on this can be heard here . He is enacting those ideas through his directorship of the Collines-en-musique (formerly Pontiac Enchanté - www.pontiacenchante.ca ): environmental sustainability is one of the cornerstones of its mission, and it is the first classical concert series in Canada with a detailed Green Policy . Carson lived in the United Kingdom for fifteen years. In 2019 he moved home to Ottawa, and now lives in Wakefield, Quebec, with his partner Madeline, their son Solomon, and their dogs Jerry and Neumann. In 2024, he was inducted into the Chelsea Wall of Fame for his contributions to the cultural life of the Gatineau Hills region.
Juan Gabriel Olivares
Co-Director, Festival Collines-en-musique
Juan Gabriel Olivares is a Puerto Rican-Canadian clarinetist, educator, and interdisciplinary artist celebrated for his dynamic contributions to contemporary classical music. Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Olivares began his musical journey in jazz and folk traditions before transitioning into classical music. He has since performed across North America and Europe, appearing as principal clarinetist with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Edmonton Opera, Ontario Philharmonic, and many more.
Olivares is a passionate advocate for new music and has worked closely with leading composers including Kaija Saariaho, Osvaldo Golijov, and Salvatore Sciarrino. He has toured with ensembles like Thin Edge New Music Collective and Ensemble InterContemporain and has performed at major international festivals such as Klangspuren in Austria and the Newport Jazz Festival.
From 2018 to 2020, Olivares served as a Civic Fellow with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the training ensemble of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. During this time, he participated in community engagement initiatives, including the "Notes for Peace" program, which empowers Chicago families affected by gun violence to express their emotions through collaborative songwriting and performances.
Beyond the concert hall, Olivares is co-founder of New Art / New Media, a collective that merges music with visual and theatrical arts. His interdisciplinary work includes curating multimedia performances and collaborating with organizations like Against the Grain Theatre. He is a Juno-nominee for his recording of Golijov’s Ayre with Against the Grain Theatre.
Juan lives with his partner (and fellow Collines-en-musique artist) Meghan Lindsay, their daughter Aila, and their dog Louisa. When he’s not making music, he his cooking food for musicians to devour!
Meghan Lindsay
Co-Director, Festival Collines-en-musique
Meghan Lindsay is a Canadian soprano acclaimed for her expressive versatility and described as “equal to the best Mozart interpreters anywhere in the world.” The 2025/26 season will include roles such as Pamina (Die Zauberflöte) and Mélisande (Pelléas et Mélisande) with Opera Atelier, and the title role in Tosca with Pacific Opera Victoria. Her concert engagements have featured Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Fauré’s Requiem, and Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem. A passionate recitalist and chamber musician, she appears regularly with Pontiac Enchanté, Musique Royale, and Festival Collines-en-musique, which she co-directs.
Internationally, Meghan has performed at the Royal Opera House at Versailles, Carnegie Hall, and the Concertgebouw. Equally at home in early and Romantic repertoire, her credits span Handel, Lully, Mozart, and Strauss. She made her recording debut with Ars Lyrica in a world-premiere of Scarlatti’s La Sposa dei Cantici.
Beyond performance, Meghan is a Co-Founder of Collines-en-musique and New Art/New Media. She is a PhD candidate in Cultural Studies at Queen’s University, researching the role of “impact” in Canadian arts evaluation, and teaches in both the Dan School of Music and Drama (Queen’s) and the Master in Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership program (Carleton). She holds an MPNL from Carleton University and a BMus from the Glenn Gould School. An advocate for artist-led governance, Meghan serves on the Board of La Fab sur Mill and received the Ottawa Arts Council Career Award for artistic achievement. Meghan lives with her partner, Juan Gabriel Olivares, daughter Aila, and dog Louisa.
Julia MacLaine
Curator 2025/26 season
Assistant Principal Cello of the National Arts Centre Orchestra since 2014, Julia MacLaine performs worldwide as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician in music ranging from classical to contemporary and from world to her own arrangements and compositions.
Julia enjoys exploring the juxtaposition of music with other art forms, of different styles of music, and of contemporary and classical music. Her début album, Préludes, released by Analekta in January 2022, features six new Canadian works written for her, alongside the six Preludes from the Bach Cello Suites that inspired the new pieces.
During the ten years she spent living in New York City, Julia collaborated frequently with composers, giving voice to new chamber and solo cello works. She has given premieres of music by Ingram Marshall, James Blachly, and Mauricio Pauly and has been a champion of Pedro Malpica’s Pachamama’s Catharsis for solo cello. With three other members of Ensemble ACJW, Julia created and performed an immersive tribute to whales and ocean life at the Museum of Natural History, featuring new American music, original poetry, and live painting. From 2005 to 2014, she was a member of The Knights, with whom she performed the Schumann Cello Concerto in Central Park.
Julia has performed at the Mecklenberg‐Vorpommern, Lanaudière, Bic, Mostly Mozart, Tanglewood, and Ravinia Festivals in Abu Dhabi, Tokyo, and throughout Europe, the U.S., and Canada. She has performed with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and Les Violons du Roy and counted Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, James Ehnes, Cynthia Phelps, Inon Barnatan, Jamie and Jon Kimura Parker, and the Orion String Quartet among her chamber music partners
Louis-Pierre Bergeron
Curator 2025/26 season
Louis-Pierre Bergeron has been the proud fourth horn of the National Arts Centre Orchestra since October 2017. Previously, he was third horn for the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, second horn for the Orchestre Métropolitain, and solo horn for the Orchestre symphonique de Trois-Rivières. He still collaborates frequently with Les Violons du Roy in Québec City.
Louis-Pierre studied with John Zirbel at McGill University, the natural horn with Teunis van der Zwart at the Amsterdam Conservatory and the Aspen Music Festival and School. An avid champion of the natural horn, he has performed and recorded with prestigious early music ensembles, notably the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Europa Galante.
Equally active in pop music, in 2015, Louis-Pierre Bergeron founded the Montreal Horn Stars brass quintet, for which he is also arranger. The group collaborates with artists such as Patrick Watson, Bernard Adamus, Louis-Jean Cormier and Klô Pelgag. They performed at the Montreal Jazz Festival, at Francofolies de Montréal and at the Festival d’été de Québec.
Louis-Pierre gives educational concerts with his woodwind quintet Ayorama and for senior residents of healthcare establishments with Moon Palace, the duo he forms with his partner, NACO's Assistant Principal Cello, Julia MacLaine.
In his spare time, Louis-Pierre practices hockey, cross-country skiing, and cycling. He also collects music records and old instruments.
Suren Barry
Curator 2025/26 season
Hailing from Ottawa (Canada), Suren has established himself as a versatile artist, equally at home on piano, fortepiano, and harpsichord. Regularly performing as part of Duo Octavian, a piano duo dedicated to commissioning new music and arranging orchestral works for two pianos, Suren’s fascination for improvisation has also inspired him to pursue fortepiano performance, focusing on Mozart and developing techniques for improvising cadenzas (which was the topic of his doctoral thesis at McGill’s Schulich School of Music).
This passion for improvisation recently led Suren to pursue a Master’s in Historical Performance on harpsichord at Juilliard. Over the past two years, Suren has performed with some of the world’s leading early music ensembles in France, Germany, and the US, such as Les Arts Florissants (led by William Christie), Yale’s Schola Cantorum (led by David Hill), and many others. A self-professed generalist, Suren is happiest when learning new things and engaging in conversation, and has perhaps spent more time playing chess than he cares to admit.