Meet the Winners of the 2025 Mary Alice Stuart Scholarship

Magda Baraczka is a second-year student in the Jazz Voice Performance program at the University of Toronto. She is a Toronto-born emerging vocalist who grew up in a musical household, with her Dad as a bass player and her uncle as a drummer. She started singing as a young child and began piano lessons at the age of seven. She started playing the alto saxophone at age ten which allowed her to enter the world of jazz and later switched to voice work in high school As a jazz artist, she has fallen in love with the nature and practice of the tradition and is fortunate to have been given opportunities to perform and participate in this musical genre.

Cameron Stewart is a fourth year student in the Music Performance program at York University, specializing in Jazz Guitar Performance. He is an multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who was featured in the 2023 season of our Jazzology program as well as a member of the jazz.fm91 Youth Big Band. He has studied with some of Toronto’s foremost jazz guitarists, including Lorne Lofsky, Nathan Hiltz, and Roy Patterson. Stewart works in a variety of ensembles, including various big bands and small combos, and as a leader in various jazz-oriented projects. Equally active in the Toronto indie scene, he is the guitarist and songwriter for the indie-pop group Meteor Heist, who perform extensively across Ontario. He is the lead guitarist in the indie-folk band Jacob’s Ladder and works as an accompanist for various singer-songwriters, playing guitar, pedal steel, and bass. Stewart has performed at renowned festivals including the Newport Jazz Festival and Summerfolk Festival, and many of Toronto’s prominent venues, including the Horseshoe Tavern and the Glenn Gould Studio.