Joel Ivany is the Artistic Director at Edmonton Opera and the Artistic Director of Opera at the Banff Centre. He is also the founder of Against the Grain Theatre in Toronto. His directing credits include productions of Macbeth (Minnesota Opera), Carmen (Vancouver Opera), Orphée+ (Edmonton Opera), Gavin Bryars’ Marilyn Forever (Adelaide Festival, Australia), and The Marriage of Figaro (revival at Norwegian National Opera). He is the author of seven (and counting) original librettos for companies such as the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and the Canadian Opera Company. Recent mainstage directing credits include Don Giovanni at both the National Arts Centre (Ottawa) and Edmonton Opera. He has directed productions for the Canadian Opera Company (Hansel and Gretel, Carmen), Toronto Symphony Orchestra (Mozart’s Requiem, Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins), the Canadian Children’s Opera Company (Brundibár), Vancouver Opera (Carmen, Dead Man Walking), and Claude Vivier’s Kopernikus (AtG and Banff Centre). He is a proud graduate of the Opera School at University of Toronto and is a member of the Alumni Wall of Fame at his alma mater, Western University.