Join us in the salon:
Saturday January 24, 2026 in Point Grey, Vancouver
6:30PM Light refreshments
7:00PM Music begins
All proceeds will go towards Opera Unbound's 2026 programming.
Intimate and adventurous, the Salon 18 program marries lush romantic harmony and jazz flair in a celebration of musical play. Join house concert veterans Derek Stoll (piano) and Taryn Plater (mezzo), along with special guest Roan Shankaruk (soprano and composer) for an evening unbound by genre.
Roan Shankaruk
Soprano
Roan Shankaruk is a composer and interdisciplinary artist based in Vancouver, BC. Performances of her compositions have been presented by Sonic Boom, Re:Naissance Opera, and Vancouver Opera. Roan is the composer of Opera Unbound’s April 2026 production, The Fox, in which she will also be a lead singer/actor.
Roan’s first opera, The Woman Who Borrowed Memories, premiered in spring of 2018. It was later mounted in Montreal by the 23 Degree Theatre Company and then produced as part of the 2019 Vancouver Fringe Festival – their first ever opera. In 2024, Roan was commissioned by Good Mess Opera Company and Muse 9 to compose the music for their new opera, Monsters Made. Her current commissioned project is U-29 - a horror piece set aboard a sinking submarine that marks her second collaboration with Opera Unbound.
When not composing, Roan is always hard at work playing vintage jazz, busking on Granville Island, and learning double bass!
Taryn Plater
Mezzo-soprano
Taryn Plater is a versatile singer and creator, recognized for her “dramatic and vocal thrust” (Opera Canada). Driven by an interest in opera’s relationship to different genres and mediums, her portfolio focuses on Ukrainian art song, new works, and the intersection of jazz and classical music. As a founding member of Opera Unbound, Taryn pursues projects that open new avenues for artistic collaboration. She was an emerging artist with Manitoba Opera’s 2024 DEAP program and a 2021-2022 RBC Artist Fellow with the Association for Opera in Canada. Taryn created the digital artist statement First Steps through Against the Grain’s 2021 National Opera Intensive, and continues to explore non-traditional opera creation with the development of her original multi-media performance piece, Pamyatayesh.
Derek Stoll
Piano
Derek Stoll obtained a Bachelor of Music degree in Composition from the University of Calgary. He has composed works for concert band, jazz band, small ensembles and solo instruments. He studied jazz and brass performance at the Banff Centre. He was commissioned to compose and arrange for the Canadian Brass, trumpet virtuoso Jens Lindemann, and the Calgary Stampede Grandstand show. He has been teaching jazz piano at Mount Royal University in Calgary since 2001, and has taught jazz theory at the University of Calgary. He has performed solo and with numerous ensembles backing up world-class singers and instrumentalists.
