Scarboro Foundation Distinctive Artists Music Series 2025

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PROARTS@NOON CONCERTS PRESENTS

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The ProArts@Noon Concert Series is pleased to announce a unique series of concerts during 2025 featuring particularly distinctive performing artists.

The Scarboro Foundation recently awarded Calgary’s ProArts Society funding to undertake the Distinctive Performers Concert Series, which will feature a diverse selection of performing arts genres.

This special series will be part of the ProArts@Noon weekly schedule of Wednesday concerts.

Once again this year, the Scarboro Foundation has given ProArts Society Artistic Director Damon Johnston free rein to select the artists for this unique series, and he’s had fun making the choices. Johnston offers the following quote to illuminate his process of judgement:  

The world is a complicated place, and there’s a lot of division between people. The performing arts tend to unify people in a way nothing else does.

David Rubenstein

Now celebrating its twenty-third season, the ProArts@Noon Concert Series is a free, noon hour concert series presented by the ProArts Society, who rent the historic Cathedral Church in the heart of Calgary’s Cultural District for their weekly concerts.

THE SCARBORO FOUNDATION DISTINCTIVE PERFORMERS SERIES 2025

1. February 19 Excerpts from Denise Clarke’s “Salon Series”
2. May 07 Aya Mhana (Syrian folk)
3. October 01 Rob Hunter (Indigenous opera & classical composer/musician) 
4. October 15 Allan Merovitz Band (Simchat Torah celebration)

Artist Biographies

Denise Clarke – Salon Series excerpts   February 19, 2025

Denise is a choreographer/theatre artist working in Calgary and is the Associate Artist and a permanent member of the One Yellow Rabbit Theatre Ensemble where several of her plays have been produced, including her solo works; A Fabulous Disaster, Smash Cut Freeze, Wag and Room 333. The OYR Ensemble have created, performed and toured original work, nationally and internationally since 1983.

Clarke designed and was the Director of the OYR Summer Lab Intensive from 1997-2019. In 2018 she wrote The Big Secret Book, An Intense Guide To Creating Performance Theatre. Today she directs the Beautiful Young Artists program which provides training and mentoring while introducing emerging local artists to the OYR stage.

Clarke also works as a free-lance choreographer and director for Theatre Calgary, ATP, The Citadel Theatre, Vancouver and Calgary Opera, the Canadian Opera Company,The Shaw Festival and Canadian Stage and directed several productions outside of her OYR work.

Clarke is the recipient of numerous awards including local theatre awards in Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto, the Alberta Lieutenant Governor General Distinguished Artist Award and The Calgary Mayor’s Distinguished Artist Award.

She was appointed as a Member to the Order of Canada and also recognized by the University of Calgary with an Honorary Doctorate in 2013.

Aya Mhana May 07, 2025

Aya Mhana is an award-winning Syrian-born singer, songwriter, and oud player. She has a bachelor’s degree in education and worked as a community broker for being passionate to help others. She is also a graduate student in the digital marketing field as a way to keep up with the changes in our lives. Since emigrating to Calgary in 2016, Aya has performed at the Calgary Stampede, Calgary Folk Fest and Globalfest, and with the Kensington Sinfonia.

For her outstanding commitment to the community and art, she received the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society New Canadian Artist Award and the Portail De L, immigrant Association(PIA) award. Also, Aya was nominated for the 2020 YYC music awards. She was a Resident Artist in the Calgary Central Library in 2020, which was a rewarding position for her to contribute to the art scene in Calgary. 

Aya’s musical journey is deeply influenced by her Syrian roots, which was obvious in her album “Homeland” – reflecting the combination of two homelands that she has – Canada and Syria.

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Rob Hunter October 1, 2025

Rob Hunter is a Calgary-based composer and performing artist. He has appeared throughout Canada with Puente Theatre, Gwaandak Theatre & National Arts Centre Northern Scene, Intrepid Theatre, Belfry Theatre, Native Earth Performing Arts, Full Circle: First Nations Performance, and The Trial of Louis Riel by RielCo Productions, as well as producing, performing, and touring his own works. Rob has written for large wind ensemble and powwow voice, collaborated with Indonesian Gamelan orchestra, and participated in many other interesting projects such as performances where artists and audience are seated in canoes. Rob studied trombone performance as well as composing and arranging with Ian McDougall, then completed the Full Circle: First Nations Performance Ensemble Training program in Vancouver. Rob found a passion in telling stories of his family, and learning about his heritage, for instance that Plains Cree does not typically use capital letters. He collaborated with librettist Caroline Russell-King creating the opera sakochihtaw He Conquers as well as composed for Calgary Opera’s Opera212 initiative.

Allan Merovitz Band October 15, 2025

Allan Merovitz is widely known as a singer with Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band and some of the world’s top Yiddish and Klezmer ensembles including the Ot Azoj Klezmer Band of Amsterdam and the Montreal based Merovitz Project.