IN RESIDENCE
The Afrosonic Innovations Residency is a community and academy engaged opportunity to dig deep into the reservoir of black musical life across any genre, to experiment, and challenge oneself artistically, Each year the Lab works with an individual whose music daringly diverges from established conventions, and refuses to be contained by industry standards, and norms.
Each resident proposes a project that integrates academic research and research creation. Projects can range from the creation of new musical works, archival research, performances, presentations or other possibilities yet to be proposed. Over the course of their residency, the Lab and the Artist collaborate to make the project proposal a reality. Together we immerse ourselves in musical communities and operationalize Lab supports such as recording space, musical instruments and digital equipment. The artist will have access to a variety of opportunities attached to the Department of Art, Culture & Media, including the Black Studies seminars, the Music & Culture Speaker series, the Studio Artist Speakers Series, our Spring and Fall Flourish concert series and our annual Artoutside festival.
The Afrosonic Innovations Lab is deeply invested in the myriad of musical formations which are both legible and illegible, oscillating around communities of practice, and influencing commercial industry. We love black musics and don’t love the stifling confines of genres, markets. As such we will culminate each residency with a live performance each June to mark Black Music Month in Toronto.
2025// Tandra Jhagroo
photo credit: Courtesy of Tandra Jhagroo
Meet Tandra Jhagroo, an accomplished audio engineer whose expertise spans multiple sectors, including film, music, immersive audio, gaming, teaching and development.
Ms. Jhagroo’s music journey began at the University of Windsor, where she earned a B. Sc. in Physics. During her studies, she actively pursued DJing, drawing inspiration from Detroit, Chicago, and Toronto’s vibrant house music scenes. This led to a successful DJ career in early 2002 in Toronto, where she secured residencies at renowned clubs like Manhattans, The Rose, Red Spot, and Tequila Lounge.
Her transition into audio engineering at Trabis Institute perfectly blended her scientific background with her passion for mixing music and film. After gaining significant experience as an audio engineering educator at the Toronto Film School - honing her skills in both audio (mixing, mastering) and film, as TA for Peter Harper, an industry film mixer-Ms. Jhagroo ventured to Jamaica, where she took on roles as a studio technician and ProTools instructor, helping engineers, studios, and labels transition from analog to digital.
“It felt like I’d gained access to the Kingdom,” she recalls. “I worked in every studio with legends like Sly & Robbie, Steelie and Clevie, Jeremy Harding, Clive Hunt, and Mikey Bennett, alongside studio musicians such as Robbie Lyn, Dean Fraser, Earnest Ranglin, Family Man, and Tyrone Downie, to name but a few. Every day was a living history lesson in music.”
Her mixing expertise, strong work ethic, and deep knowledge of synchronization opened doors to prestigious studios like Mixing Lab, Big Yard (Shaggy), Coppershot (Sean Paul, Anchor (VP Records), and world-renowned Geejam Studio. By 2008, she had risen through the ranks, engineering sessions for A-list artists such as Amy Winehouse, Drake, Jay Z, The Gorillaz, Major Lazer, Bob Sinclair, Wizkid, and Don Omar.
In 2012, Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA) hired her for their coveted Jamaica studio. This role expanded her reach into art, sports, lifestyle, and marketing, allowing her to bridge connections between the Jamaican music industry and international labels. “Tapping into the power of linking talent with labels-and labels with local professionals-set the stage to excel as an A&R,” she says.
Ms Jhagroo played a pivotal role in projects for Boy Better Know (UK), Moneybrothers (Switzerland), Elephant (Switzerland), Mexican Institute of Sound (Mexico), El Freaky (Colombia) and Zahed Zultan (Kuwait), 1-Xtra and BBC (UK).
By 2017, she shifted focus to local Jamaican artists (Tanto Blacks, Lisa Hyper, Mr. Peppa, Papa Jack), mentored young talent through GURLES Limited, a charity addressing women’s unique challenges in the industry. As a board member, she launched Jamaica’s first all-female compilation, Big Woman Tingz, a groundbreaking project uniting artists from Jamaica and Canada-and helped produce a Prime Minister’s Youth Award in Music recipient.
In 2020, she pivoted to film and gaming, joining BP SolarPunk(Toronto) for CCF’s Solstice Stories, a project tackling inclusivity and accessibility in VR audio. Thetis marked her early exploration of immersive audio for enhanced experiences.
Recently, Ms. Jhagroo earned Dolby Atmos certification through Dolby Labs, EngineEars.com, and SheIsTheMusic, furthering her mission to empower women in audio engineering. She plans to launch a Dolby Atmos studio, focusing on advertising, film, gaming, and immersive audio for art installations.
2024// Maria Luiza de Barros
photo credit: Raissa Santos With a Master’s degree in Geography from the Federal University of Espírito Santo [PPGG/UFES], her expertise lies in Space, Culture, and Languages. As a PhD student at the School of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of São Paulo [FAUUSP], she delves into the research project “vi.bra.tion: composition about ways of being and ways of doing the city through afrodiasporic sonorities in Brazil”, exploring sound and its relation to urban spaces in Brazil. A recipient of a CAPES scholarship, Maria Luiza also is conducting a research project at UTSC on “vibration digging”, inspired by her practice as a vinyl collector, to investigate the epistemology of vibration and the role of sound in shaping urban spaces in afro diasporic communities in the Americas.
Maria Luiza is the founder and curator of vi.bra.tion, a platform for critical perspectives on the city, architecture, language and sound. Additionally, she co-founded Coletiva Terra Preta, a collective of Black women dedicated to creating multi-lingual narratives and curatorial processes aimed at de-whitening the city through research and artistic practices. Her involvement extends to co-founding and coordinating Cidade Quintal, an organization transforming urban spaces through participatory urbanism and design in Vitória. Among other projects, collaborations and productions.
2023// ALANNA STUART
photo credit: Joshua Rille
Alanna Stuart is a Toronto- and Kingston, Jamaica-based music artist, researcher, curator, and documentarian.
As one-half of the Polaris Prize-nominated duo Bonjay, Alanna created and performed a bass heavy, soul-driven sound that the New York Times calls ‘Canadian Dancehall’. Bonjay’s sonic hybrid established them with praise from NPR, KCRW, BBC, CBC, The New York Times, The Guardian, Pitchfork, Globe & Mail, Exclaim Magazine, and others.
Alanna is also a proud member of the Queer Songbook Orchestra, a chamber pop ensemble performing orchestral interpretations of pop classics and jazz standards, and sharing the obscured queer histories through poetry and recited stories.
Alanna is currently in the thick of an exciting solo work centered on what she dubs ‘femmehall’: a movement promoting the presence of women in dancehall production and presentation. She co-produced and engineered her forthcoming solo debut, To All The Girls I've Loved Before, with added vibes and ideas from La-Nai Gabriel (Maylee Todd, Madam Gandhi) and Robin Dann (Bernice), and some rhythmic contributions from Jamaican music icons, Sly & Robbie. The record features Jamaican music-inspired versions of songs by a mix-up selection of the women who have influenced her, from Liz Fraser to Solange to Casey Mecija.
Outside of the studio, Alanna is the founder of creative research consultancy Maroon Creative, exploring the relationship between the term ‘diversity’ and cultural innovation in tastemaking scenes around the world. Alanna is a Toronto Arts Council Leaders Lab Fellow and Radio Starmaker Fund and Pop Montreal board member.
Outside of the studio, Alanna conducts research that problematizes the concepts ‘diversity’ and ‘innovation’, and explores how creative industries engage with socially marginalized tastemakers around the world. Alanna is a Queen’s University Cultural Studies MA student, Toronto Arts Council Leaders Lab Fellow, and Radio Starmaker Fundboard member.