Guest percussionists

From 2025 onwards, Sixtrum decided to change its composition. The organization’s 4 founding musicians will now join forces with other Montreal percussionists to expand their repertoire and welcome up-and-coming musicians.

For 2024-2025, we are fortunate to welcome a number of talented musicians, including Catherine Cherrier, Léo Guiollot, Gina Ryan, Martin Daigle, Manuel Lopez Tovar, Stuart Jackson and Alexandre Lavoie, for our various activities (concerts, creative workshops, tours, residencies, etc.).

Catherine Cherrier

Catherine Cherrier has been practicing the art of percussion for 19 years. Surrounded by dedicated teachers such as Jean-Guy Plante and Michel Viau, she made her way to the Université de Montréal, where in 2020 she completed her master’s degree in performance under the direction of Julien Grégoire. Catherine works with passion and tenacity in many musical styles, in small and large ensembles. She can be found with the Orchestre des Grands Ballets Canadiens, the Orchestre Métropolitain, the Orchestre symphonique du Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean and many others. In contemporary music, she was part of the modern opera produced by Musique 3 Femmes, Racoon Opera, and took part in the production of Kathinkas Gesang in 2016 and 2019 (Opus Prize). Finally, Catherine plays and shines in the style of film music. The artist discovered this passion in 2014 and has had the pleasure of performing various pieces of film music through Filmharmonique, Kashamara and GFN productions.

Léo Guiollot

With a master’s degree in classical percussion from the Université de Montréal, Léo Guiollot has performed with the McGill Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre Symphonique de Trois-Rivières, Jeunesses Musicales du Canada, Bishop’s University Composers Forum, Sinfonia de Lanaudière, Sixtrum, SCRAP and the Orchestre du Festival de Lanaudière.His keen interest and aptitude for many “world” percussion traditions have also led him to travel and perfect his skills in Brazil, Cuba and Spain.Teaching is an integral part of Léo’s musical approach, and he is frequently called upon to share his wide-ranging musical knowledge in various institutions (École Joseph-François-Perrault, Collège de Montréal, École des Jeunes et Activités Culturelles de l’Université de Montréal, CAMMAC).

His qualities as a performer and teacher, his commitment and his desire to perfect his skills with specialist percussionists abroad have already earned him several scholarships and awards, including the Lieutenant-Governor’s Youth Medal, several academic and travel scholarships, and most recently the Best Workshop Leader Award (UdeM Cultural Activities).

Gina Ryan

Gina Ryan is a professor in the music department of the Université du Québec à Montréal.

As a composer and percussionist, she has presented her work in Canada, the United States, Thailand, Mexico, France, Japan and China.Gina is regularly invited to give workshops and master classes, and to act as a referee in Canada and abroad. She has been published in several journals and magazines, including International Journal of Music Education, Psychology of Music, Research Studies in Music Education, Percussive Notes and Canadian Music Educator.

Alexandre Lavoie

Originally from Abitibi, in 2018 Alexandre obtained a master’s degree and the Prix avec distinction from the Conservatoire de musique de Québec in Anne-Julie Caron’s class. Since 2019, he has held the position of principal percussionist with the Orchestre Métropolitain (Yannick Nézet-Séguin).

In 2014, he distinguished himself at the Canadian Music Competition, where he won first prize as soloist, and at the 2015 OSM Manulife Competition, where he won second prize for percussion as well as the prize for best performance of a Canadian work.In 2016, he is a member of the YOA Orchestra of the Americas for their Nordic-Baltic European tour. He participated in the Roots and Rhizomes program at the Banff Centre for the Arts in 2017, under the supervision of Steven Schick and Aiyun Huang. Teaching has always been part of his musical journey. Alexandre collaborates with several institutions, including the Conservatoire de musique de Québec, and currently teaches at Collège Notre-Dame de Montréal and McGill University’s Schulich School of Music.

Stuart Jackson

Stuart Jackson is a percussionist and piper originally from Virginia, now based in Montreal.

An active performer of both traditional and contemporary music, he eschews the popular tendency to frantically commission the creation of new works, instead devoting himself to an in-depth engagement with musical works dating primarily from the twentieth century. Graphic scores by John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen and others are seen not just as artifacts of recent music history, but as radical blueprints that offer endless possibilities for discovering new worlds of sound.
Recent projects include realizations of 27’10”554 for a percussionist, Duet for Cymbal, and Cartridge Music by John Cage, as well as transcriptions for keyboard percussion of Messagesquisse and Dialogue de l’Ombre Double by Pierre Boulez.
As well as using the bagpipes as a sound source in contemporary music projects, he has also studied the traditional music of pipers Seamus Ennis, Tommy Reck, Leo Rowsome and others.

Martin Daigle

Winner of Musique NB’s Innovator of the Year award for 2022, Martin Daigle is an interdisciplinary artist with a strong commitment to research and creation in the audiovisual arts.

He is enrolled in the doctoral program at McGill’s Schulich School of Music, where he is developing repertoire for electronically augmented drums.

As a performer, Martin plays in a variety of musical genres with a variety of artists; however, he is best known as a classical percussionist and rock drummer.

As a researcher, Martin has worked on haptic drum learning with vibrating bracelets attached to the student’s limbs to facilitate rhythm learning. He also observes a drummer’s balance with the help of an infrared camera system at the Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherche en Musique, Médias et Technologie (CIRMMT).

Manuel Lopez Tovar

Coming soon.