The 2011 Musicians
Bridging The Old And The New
|
Acclaimed Canadian pianist Stéphane Lemelin commands a broad and eclectic repertoire ranging from the Classical period to the 20th century, from art song to the Romantic concerto, and is particularly praised for his interpretations of Schubert, Schumann, Fauré and Ravel. He tours regularly in Canada, the United States, Europe and Asia. As a chamber musician, he has collaborated with artists such as Donna Brown, Peter Schreier, James Campbell, Wolfgang Meier, Jacques Israelievitch, Marc Grauwels, Martin Ostertag, and the St. Lawrence, Leipzig, Moscow, Muir and Vlach string quartets. Recital engagements have included London’s Wigmore Hall, the Phillips Collection in Washington and the Vancouver Recital Society. An active recording artist with more than twenty CDs to his credit, he is currently recording a several-disk series of French piano and chamber music. He is Professor and Director of the School of Music at the University of Ottawa and artistic director of the Prince Edward County Music Festival. |
|
Ana Sokolovic
|
|
Born in Montreal, Quebec, into a family of preachers and raconteurs, for the past decade Tom Allen has helped symphony orchestras reach new audiences by hosting concerts, explaining the music and offering insight into how it got to be what it is, and working as a programming consultant. Tom Allen has hosted shows for the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Nova Scotia, the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival, the Hamilton Philharmonic, the Hannaford Street Silver Band, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. He also created and hosted a series of history and music concerts at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and gave a lecture series in the summers for the National Youth Orchestra of Canada. He currently hosts the Afterworks series for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. A trombonist, he performed with the New York City Ballet and the American Symphony Orchestra. As a member of the Great Lakes Brass, Tom Allen returned to Toronto and was subsequently hired by CBC Radio Halifax in 1991. Over the years he has done guest stints on Morningside, This Morning, The Sunday Edition and others, created a documentary for CBC Television’s The National, and hosted his own shows: A Good Place to Be, Weekender, Fresh Air, Music and Company, and his current radio address, Shift. He has also written three books: Toe Rubber Blues (1999), Rolling Home: A Cross-Canada Railroad Memoir (2001), winner of the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction and The Gift of the Game (2005). |
|
Julian Armour has distinguished himself over the past 20 years as a performing musician, arts administrator and artistic director. He is currently Artistic and Executive Director of Ottawa's new classical music festival, Music and Beyond. As well, he is Artistic Director of the Chamber Players of Canada, President of Ottawa Festivals and Principal Cellist of the chamber orchestra Thirteen Strings. For fourteen years he was Artistic and Executive Director of the highly successful Ottawa Chamber Music Society, an organization that he founded in 1993. He has played in most of Canada's concert halls and many in the United States and Europe. Julian Armour was named a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in December 2002 by the Government of France for his contributions to music.
|
|
Marie Bérard, from Trois-Rivières, QC, studied at the Conservatoire de musique de Trois-Rivières and the University of Toronto. In addition to being concertmaster of the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra, she is on the faculty of the Glenn Gould School in Toronto and holds the position of associate concertmaster of the Mainly Mozart festival orchestra in San Diego, California.
|
|
Camille Churchfield, recently named to the University of Ottawa music faculty, served as Principal Flute of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra for the past 29 years. Now performing frequently with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Ms. Churchfield was a concerto soloist nearly every season with her own orchestra in Vancouver, as well as with other Canadian orchestras. She maintains a private teaching studio, coaches chamber and orchestral groups and often serves on faculty in the summers at Domaine Forget Music Academy and the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, where her skills have contributed to the successful professional lives of many Canadian flutists. |
|
Peter McGillivray Born in Saskatchewan and raised in Ontario, baritone Peter McGillivray gained international attention in 2005 by winning 2nd prize both at the Montreal International Musical Competition and at the Queen Sonja Competition in Oslo, Norway. He first attracted the national interest of Canadians both as the winner of the 2003 CBC Young Performers Competition and as member of the Ensemble Studio of the Canadian Opera Company. His 2009-2010 season included Messiah with the Elmer Iseler Singers, Die Fledermaus with Opera Hamilton, Massenet’s Manon with Calgary Opera, Opera to Go and Andrew Staniland’s Dark Star Requiem with Tapestry New Opera Works, the latter work a world premiere as part of the 2010 Luminato Festival in Toronto. He joins the roster of the Metropolitan Opera in New York for productions of La Boh&eagrave;me and Capriccio during the 2010-11 season. |
|
The NACO Winds is comprised of principal musicians of the orchestra: Joanna G’froerer, flute, Charles Hamann, oboe, Christopher Millard, bassoon, Kimball Sykes, clarinet and Lawrence Vine, horn. Much sought after each in his/her own right, the NACO Winds is a highly acclaimed ensemble that has recently recorded its debut CD on the Naxos label. |
|
The SuperNova String Quartet (Mark Fewer, Jonathan Crow, violins, Denise Djokic, cello and Douglas McNabney, violist), was formed at the Scotia Festival of Music in Halifax in 2001. Members of the SuperNova are among Canada's bestknown chamber musicians and are renowned for their performances of contemporary works along with critically acclaimed performances of late Beethoven quartets. In 2006, the SuperNova launched its first Canadian tour, with concerts in Quebec and Ontario, including recordings for CBC. The SuperNova Quartet hosted the Haydn 2009 event in Montréal featuring the performance of the complete string quartets of Joseph Haydn in four days. Jonathan Crow will be performing at the Oeno Gallery concert on 23 September and will be replaced by Marie Bérard, concertmaster of the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra at the final Festival performance on 24 September. |
|
Born in Toronto, Margaret began playing the cello at the age of twelve in the public school system and was admitted to the University of Toronto at age sixteen. She continued her studies on full scholarship at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Upon graduation, she won a position with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and is presently a member of the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Ottawa. Margaret works with the children of the OrKidstra and KidSingers through The Leading Note Foundation. She is also on the Board of Directors of the Foundation and the Director of Pedagogy for the program. |
|
For the last ten years, Trio Hochelaga (violinist Anne Robert, cellist Paul Marleyn and pianist Stéphane Lemelin) has toured extensively throughout Canada, Great Britain, the United States, Bermuda, Japan, China and Taiwan. Their winter 2010 tour of England included a Wigmore Hall debut garnering enthusiastic acclaim in the press. In the spring of 2011, they make their Venice debut at the Palazetto Bru Zane. Trio Hochelaga’s concerts are regularly recorded for broadcast on both French and English networks of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. |
|
Ellen Wieser holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Manitoba, School of Music, and a Masters of Music degree and Artist Diploma from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music. A strong advocate for contemporary work, her Artist Diploma was dedicated to the research and performance of Canadian song literature. Equally comfortable on concert and operatic stages, Ms. Wieser has appeared as a soloist with the Lansing Symphony Orchestra, the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra and the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra. |
Stéphane Lemelin
Born in 1968 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, Ana Sokolovic studied composition with Dusan Radic at the University of Novi Sad and with Zoran Eric at the University of Belgrade before completing a Master’s degree at the Université de Montréal under José Evangelista. Her catalogue includes orchestral and piano works and several chamber music compositions. She has also written numerous scores for the theatre. In 1999, she was awarded first prize in the CBC National Young Composers’ Competition. In 2005, she won the Joseph S. Stauffer Prize from the Canada Council for her work as a composer, and in 2007, the Conseil québécois de la musique named her Composer of the Year. Further, in 2008, she won the Jan V. Matejcek Concert Music Award at SOCAN’s Montreal awards gala. Sokolovic has received commissions from the Ensemble contemporain de Montréal, the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec, the Brune dance company, the Quatuor Molinari, the Esprit Orchestra, the Orchestre baroque de Montréal, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the Queen of Puddings Music Theatre Co., the Penta&eagrave;dre wind quintet and pianist Marc Couroux. Queen of Puddings commissioned her to write Sirens/Sir&eagrave;nes, a bilingual work for six women’s voices, and staged it in 2000. That, in turn, led to Sokolovic’s most extensive theatrical work so far: The Midnight Court, a chamber opera also for Queen of Puddings. Premiered in 2005 and remounted in London’s Covent Garden theatre the following year, it was based on an 18th-century Irish poem about sexual politics in Fairyland. In 1996, she was the Quebec Delegate at the Unesco International Rostrum of Composers in Paris. In the 2011-12 concert season, Montreal will be the epicentre of a year-long celebration of her music, organized by the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec. Ana Sokolovic lives in Montreal and teaches as a guest composition professor at Université de Montreal.
Tom Allen
Julian Armour
Marie Bérard
Camille Churchfield
baritone
National Arts Centre Orchestra Winds
SuperNova String Quartet
Margaret Tobolowska
Trio Hochelaga
Ellen Wieser