Our Team

Staff

Rory McLeod, Executive & Artistic Director

A tall white man with short brown hair smiles at the camera with his arms crossed. He is wearing a burgundy long-sleeved t-shirt and standing in front of a grey brick wall.
Photo by Terry Lim

Rory McLeod is a musician, entrepreneur, and concert designer who takes joy in creating authentic human connections through shared musical experiences. As Executive and Artistic Director of Xenia Concerts, he works with a variety of stakeholders in the disability and neurodiversity community, presenting partners, and performing artists to co-create concert experiences that are inclusive for people who face social and systemic barriers to inclusion. Determined to widen the circle of inclusion in the performing arts, Rory is currently pursuing his Master’s in Inclusive Design at OCAD University. Rory is also the founder and Co-director of Pocket Concerts, an organization that presents intimate concert experiences in alternative venues all over the GTA. Rory believes that music is a catalyst to emotional connection: he brings an enthusiastic spirit of collaboration to his performances in chamber music festivals across North America and with the Canadian Opera Company and National Ballet Orchestras. 

Email Rory: 

Call Rory: 647-896-8295

Connect with Rory on Twitter: /@xeniaconcerts 

Paolo Griffin, Managing Director

Paolo Griffin is a composer, curator, and arts administrator whose work centres community-based outreach and the creation of equitable and memorable musical experiences. Paolo’s work in arts administration has spanned continents, having worked in Finland, The Netherlands, and Canada. He is active in the contemporary music and arts scenes of Toronto, and is a passionate advocate of accessible arts for everyone. 

He is also the founder and director of Freesound, a contemporary music ensemble based in Toronto. 

Paolo is currently the Board Chair of Musicworks Magazine. His work is supported by Xenia Concerts, the Toronto Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Canadian New Music Network. 

Email Paolo: paolo.griffin@xeniaconcerts.com

Kaylce Carter, Accessibility Coordinator

Kaylce Carter is a Tkaronto-based facilitator, writer, consultant, and community educator. Kaylce’s work focuses on disability justice, anti-racism, co-design, curriculum design, collective care, and unpacking the institutional, social, and material effects that race, gender, disability, and class and their intersections have on our collective lives. With over 10 years of experience as an internationally acclaimed facilitator, consultant, writer, and educator their approach to their work has been by engaging with equity, diversity, and inclusivity from a disability justice, anti-racist, and trauma-informed practice. Their deep love for all things policy and policy accessibility has allowed them to work with universities and not-for-profits across the country on revising accessibility, sexual misconduct, and anti-racism policies. Kaylce has merged their lived experience as a Black, disabled, queer, femme, and their M.A. in Critical Disability Studies, to create a career that is rooted in nourishing, fostering, and amplifying the voices and experiences of those who are institutionally, structurally, and systematically silenced. Kaylce merges their love for music, performance, storytelling and accessibility as the Accessibility Coordinator for Xenia Concerts.

Evan Lamberton, Artistic Administrator

A man with a moustache holding a cello over his shoulder in front of a background of trees.
Photography by Matthew Golem.

A native of Vancouver, Evan Lamberton began his foray into music with the clarinet. After several stints in band camp over the years he now resides in Toronto where he studied with internationally renowned cellist Shauna Rolston at the University of Toronto. Prior to moving to Toronto, Evan studied under cellist Ariel Barnes under whose tutelage he developed a passion for chamber music and contemporary works – both facets of the musical ouvre he enjoys exploring in tandem. Evan has also had the great pleasure of studying under such eminent artists as the Julliard String Quartet, Rachel Mercer, the Cecilia String Quartet the Gryphon Trio, and the St. Lawrence String Quartet. A winner of the Felix Galimir Award for Excellence in Chamber Music in both 2014 and 2016, Evan attended the St. Lawrence String Quartet seminar at Stanford University as a member of the Erato String Quartet. When not teaching for Sistema Toronto, Evan can be found playing for Musica Reflecta  and the Queer Songbook Orchestra