JUNO and Gaudeamus Award-nominee Bekah Simms is a Toronto-based composer whose varied acoustic and electroacoustic output has been described as “cacophonous, jarring, oppressive — and totally engrossing!” (CBC Music) and lauded for its “sheer range of ingenious material, expressive range and sonic complexity” (The Journal of Music.) Foremost among her current compositional interests is quotation and the friction between recognizability and complete obfuscation, resulting in nervous, messy, and frequently heavy musical landscapes. Recent interests in just intonation and virtual instruments have resulted in increasingly lush and strange harmonic environments.

 
Bekah is the recipient of over 30 awards and prizes, including the 2019 Barlow Prize. Her music has been widely performed across Canada, the United States, and Europe, and interpreted by a diverse range of top-tier performers from soloists to symphony orchestras. She holds a D.M.A. in music composition from the University of Toronto, where she currently teaches Applied Composition.