Toronto Arts Council & Toronto Arts Council Foundation elect New Members to Boards of Directors

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Toronto Arts Council - New Directors

Katherine Govier is the author of 8 novels and 3 short story collections. Her most recent work is Three Views of Crystal Water (2005). Previous works include Creation (2002), The Truth Teller (2000); Angel Walk (1996); and The Immaculate Conception Photography Gallery (a collection of short stories, 1994). Her novel Hearts of Flame (1991) won the City of Toronto Book Award. In 1997 she received the Marian Engel Award for a woman writer in mid-career, and in 1998 she was given the Distinguished Alumni Award by the University of Alberta. Katherine began her career as a journalist, writing for major magazines in Canada and the United Kingdom. She has also worked in radio, adapting many of her stories and novels as radio dramas. She has been Writer-in-Residence at the Toronto Reference Library and the Toronto Public Library System. With teacher Trevor Owen she founded and ran the school program "Writers-in-Electronic-Residence" through The Writers' Development Trust. She was President of PEN Canada in 1997-98, and from 1989-1992 chaired the Writers' Development Trust, a charitable organization promoting Canadian literature and writers. Katherine succeeds Christopher Dewdney as Co-Chair of the Literary Committee.

Meirion (Mei) Kelly is a multifaceted instrumentalist at home in the jazz settings, recording studios and broadcast stages of Toronto and beyond. Freelance work as a trombonist has brought him engagements in all major Toronto jazz festivals (Toronto Downtown Jazz, Beaches Jazz Festival, Distillery Jazz Festival), music broadcast work for CTV, numerous club dates and performances in the Caribbean for Barbados Cropover. This fruitful music career has its roots in the Toronto schools where Mei studied and had opportunities to learn and improve on an instrument. Born abroad and of multiple ethnic extraction, Mei points to his early working class roots and childhood experiences in Toronto’s west end as key identifiers. Connecting arts and culture to youth via his activities as an arts educator and to civic engagement such as arts jury and adjudication work, characterizes Mei’s public life outside of performance.

William Lau, born in Hong Kong and raised in Montreal, studied both Chinese classical dance and classical ballet. A disciple of the opera masters Shen Xiao Mei and Song Chang Rong, he specializes in the challenging "Dan," or female roles in the Peking Opera. Over the past twenty years, he has pushed back the boundaries of traditional dance through collaborations with artists from many different cultural backgrounds. He is founder and artistic director of the Little Pear Garden Collective, whose mission is to develop and promote the Chinese performing arts in Canada through performances, lectures, exhibitions, demonstrations and choreographic workshops. Its concerts feature excerpts from the Peking Opera, a mixture of singing, dancing, theatre, the martial arts and poetry. In addition to his performing career he has worked as an arts administrator and advisor, arts advocate and scholarly researcher. He holds a masters degree from the York University dance program and is a PhD candidate in Ethnomusicology at York University. He is President of the Board of CanAsian Dance Festival and a member of the Board of the Canadian Conference of the Arts. William succeeds Rina Singha as Chair of the Dance Committee.

Randal Levine is a Chartered Accountant with over 25 years of finance and management experience. He graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) in 1979 and obtained his Chartered Accountant’s designation the following year. Mr. Levine has held a variety of senior financial management positions and is currently the CFO of Vector Areospace, a TSX listed company. He has experience in all aspects of treasury and finance. He has served on a number of Boards including not-for-profit and charitable organizations. Randy succeeds Gabe Nachman as Treasurer.

Jini Stolk is founding Executive Director of Creative Trust, a six-year, $6.1 million program to improve the financial health and sustainability of Toronto’s most innovative and accomplished performing arts organizations. She is an acknowledged leader in the arts and culture community, with senior management experience in a range of producing and membership organizations. She was Managing Director of Toronto Dance Theatre for six years between 1994 and 2000, and guided that company through a major artistic and organizational transition. Before that she spent 10 years as Executive Director of the Toronto Theatre Alliance, where she promoted the interests and concerns of Toronto’s performing arts industry to government, the media, the private sector and the public. She has also served as Associate Director of the Association of Canadian Publishers and General Manager of Open Studio. She continues her involvement in many community and cultural advocacy activities, and is President of the board of Hum dance theatre, and a director of the 215 Centre for Social Innovation; she previously served as President of the boards of Toronto Artscape and the Six Stages Theatre Festival.

Toronto Arts Council Foundation - New Director

Sara Diamond was appointed President, Ontario College of Art and Design, July 1, 2005. Sara Diamond is an award winning television and new media producer/director, video artist, curator, critic, researcher, teacher and artistic director. Born in New York City, Sara has resided in Western Canada and has represented Canada at home and internationally for many years. Prior to joining OCAD, she was Director of Research and Artistic Director of the Banff Centre’s New Media Institute. She is credited with establishing the Institute, generating world attention for Banff’s programs and research initiatives and bringing recognition to new media as an area of serious artistic investigation. Diamond has earned an international reputation as an artist whose installations and video works have been collected by the National Gallery of Canada, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the MOMA in New York and many international galleries, universities and colleges.