Earle Peach and Ariel Martz-Oberlander at the 2017 Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Awards

Earle Peach

Honouree

Earle Peach is a singer, songwriter, composer, conductor, arranger, teacher and performer. He leads four choirs in the city: the Highs and Lows, a mental health choir; the Solidarity Notes Labour Choir; the Gathering Place choir, a free drop in group which meets at the Gathering Place downtown; and InChoiring Minds, a community choir at Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House. Peach hosts a monthly community coffee house in Mount Pleasant called Beats on Broadway. He teaches privately, and records musicians for demos and albums. He has written extensively for choirs, and for various folk groups, for film, theatre and dance. Several of his choral arrangements have been published through Cypress and Silent Dawn. He performs with Barbara Jackson as a duo called Songtree, and also has a band called Illiteratty which performs mostly his songs and instrumentals. Peach is politically active, and likes to garden, swim and ride his bike.

Ariel Martz-Oberlander

Emerging artist

Ariel Martz-Oberlander is a theatre artist, writer and teacher. As a Jewish settler on Coast Salish territories with diasporic and refugee ancestry, her practice is rooted in a commitment to place-based accountability through decolonizing and solidarity work. She divides her time between theatre and community organizing, and specializing in creative protest tactics on land and water. Martz-Oberlander is a facilitator with the True Voice Theatre Project, producing new shows by residents of the Downtown Eastside, and vulnerably housed youth in collaboration with the Gathering Place and Covenant House. Her most recent work, created with support from the LEAP program, won a research and development prize from the Arts Club. Martz-Oberlander is also the associate producer for Vines Festival, presenting accessible, free eco-art in Vancouver parks. Good art is accountable to the community, raises up voices rarely heard, and is vital to repairing our world. Bios from the City of Vancouver website.

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