Program Biographies

Thomas Annand | Julian Armour | Murielle Bruneau | Marie Bérard | Yehonatan Berick | Jonathan Crow | Andréa Armijo Fortin | Marjolaine Fournier | Victor Herbiet | Angela Hewitt | Guylaine Lemaire | Kerson Leong | Brian Manker | Jethro Marks | Manuela Milani | The New Orford String Quartet | Eric Nowlin | Philippe Sly | Kimball Sykes | Andrew Tunis | Andrew Wan | Arianna Warsaw-Fan | Monica Whicher

Thomas Annand – harpsichord, organ and piano

Thomas began his musical studies in his native Nova Scotia and went on to obtain Bachelor and Masters degrees in music from McGill University where he studied organ with John Grew and harpsichord with Hank Knox. A grant from the Quebec Government allowed him to pursue his studies in France with Marie-Claire Alain and to undertake research on the works of Widor and Vierne at the Bibliothèque Nationale.

After winning the First Prize in the RCCO National Organ Competition in 1987, Thomas began a career as soloist, first as organist and recently as harpsichordist. He gives many recitals each year throughout North America and every year since 1995, he is a guest soloist at the Carmel Bach Festival in California. He has appeared as soloist in the International Congress of Organists, the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, and the Organ Historical Society Convention.

Julian Armour – cello

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, Principal Cellist of the chamber orchestra Thirteen Strings and teaches regularly at the University of Ottawa, offering courses in both music performance and arts administration. For six years, he served as President of Ottawa Festivals. He has served as President of the Friends of the Concert Hall, and is a voting member of the Canadian Music Centre. For two summers, he offered cello masterclasses at the Orford arts centre. For thirteen years he was Artistic and Executive Director of the highly successful Ottawa Chamber Music Society, an organization that he founded in 1993. Under his direction, it won the Lieutenant Governor's Award for the Arts, more than any organization in the history of this award. For two years he worked for one of Canada's oldest and largest festivals, The Canadian Tulip Festival, serving as both Executive Director and programmer for their Celebridée series, Canada's international festival of ideas, humanities and the arts. He is a graduate of McGill University where he was a student of the distinguished Canadian cellist, Walter Joachim. After graduation, he continued his studies with some of the greatest cellists of our time including Janos Starker, Ralph Kirshbaum, Aldo Parisot and Leonard Rose. One of Canada's most active cellists, he has performed throughout Canada and Europe and is heard regularly on CBC radio. As a chamber musician he has appeared in television broadcasts on CBC, CTV, PBS, EWTN and Vision TV. He has played in most of Canada's concert halls and many in the United States and Europe. He has recorded over 30 CDs for many labels including Marquis, Crystal, ATMA, CMS Classics, CentreDiscs, SRI, CanSona, Studea Musica and CBC. His recordings regularly receive extensive critical acclaim. His seven most recent chamber music CD's have all received the full five stars on the CBC show, Sound Advice. One of the country's foremost experts on Canadian music, Julian Armour has programmed and performed works by over 400 different Canadian composers and premiered over 200 different works, most of which were written especially for him. He has a strong track record of attracting capacity audiences for contemporary music and has programmed over 30 full-concert tributes to individual composers. He has recorded works on CD by over 15 Canadian composers. He is a voting member of the Canadian Music Centre. As well, he has arranged over 100 works for chamber music groups, several of which have been broadcast on CBC Radio and Radio-Canada. Mr. Armour's interest in promoting the arts in the Ottawa community led him to serve on the Arts Advisory Committee for the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton for three years. He regularly serves on numerous arts juries and advisory panels for the Canada Council, the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Ontario Arts Council, the Ontario Lottery Corporation and the City of Ottawa. He has also served on the Mayor's Panel for Business and the Arts and on the board of Ottawa Tourism. Julian Armour was awarded the 2000 Victor Tolgesy Arts Award by the Council for the Arts in Ottawa, which recognizes the accomplishments of residents who have contributed substantially to enriching the cultural life in the city. In 1999, he was awarded the Community Foundation's Investing in People Award, in recognition of the work he has done bringing classical music to new audiences. For two years, Ottawa Life Magazine named him one of Ottawa's Top 50 Movers and Shakers. 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. In 2003, he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal by Her Excellency the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of Canada. Julian Armour was chosen as "Arts Newsmaker of the Year" in January 2006 by the Ottawa Sun. He was recently awarded the 2011 Friends of Canadian Music Award from the Canadian League of Composers and the Canadian Music Centre.

Murielle Bruneau – double bass

Murielle Bruneau has been a member of the National Arts Centre Orchestra since 1989 and has performed as a soloist with them on many occasions. She has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician at numerous festivals in Europe and North America. She was the solo bass of the Montreal ensemble, La Pietà, with whom she made six recordings. She was also principal bass of the McGill Chamber Orchestra.

She plays her 350 year-old double bass with the Chamber Players of Canada on several highly-acclaimed recordings including Schubert's Octet and Trout Quintet and the Chopin piano concertos with Janina Fialkowska. She studied at the Conservatoire de Trois Rivières and with the renowned bass teacher Franco Petrachi in Rome. She has taught at McGill University and the Chicoutimi and Trois-Rivières conservatories.

Marie Bérard – violin

Best known as the concertmaster of the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra, Marie Bérard is also a sought-after chamber musician, soloist, recording artist and teacher. Ms. Bérard received her training at the Trois-Rivières Conservatory and further studies took her to the University of Toronto where she studied with David Zafer. Other teachers include Lorand Fenyves, Sydney Harth and Nathan Milstein. Highly regarded as an interpreter of contemporary music, Ms. Bérard's recording of A Paganini by A. Schnittke was voted "best performance of the year" by the CBC Radio audience and in 2002, she released a recording of a concerto by Henry Kucharzyk for violin and brass ensemble on the Opening Day label. Ms. Bérard is a regular performer at numerous chamber music festivals, notably the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival and Domaine Forget in Charlevoix, Québec and holds the position of Associate Concertmaster of the Mainly Mozart festival orchestra in San Diego, California.

Ms. Bérard was recently heard in a performance of "Time Chant" by Wolfgang Rihm, "Dedication" by Valentin Silvestrov as well as "Offertorium" by Sofia Gubaidulina with the Esprit Orchestra, as well as being guest soloist with the Peterborough, Saskatoon and Trois-Rivières Symphony Orchestras. In the fall of 2000, Ms. Bérard joined the faculty of the Glenn Gould School in Toronto and is an active member of their chamber ensemble "ARC" with whom she toured China in 2006. The ensemble has also recorded three discs of chamber works for Sony Records,two of which have been nominated for a Grammy Award.

Yehonatan Berick – violin

Currently in the midst of a worldwide tour of the complete Paganini Caprices, violinist YEHONATAN BERICK's BluRay disc will also include commissions of new works inspired by the iconic cycle. In high demand internationally since becoming a prizewinner at the 1993 Naumburg Violin Competition, he enjoys a busy concert schedule as soloist, recitalist, chamber musician, and pedagogue, throughout North America, Europe and Israel. Berick has performed, among others, with the Quebec, Winnipeg, Windsor, Ann Arbor, Grand Junction, Jerusalem and Haifa Symphonies, the Israeli, Cincinnati, Montreal andManitoba Chamber Orchestras, Thirteen Strings and Ensemble Appassionata.

Berick's many recital programs include offering of complete cycles, including Bach's complete Sonatas and Partitas, Paganini's 24 caprices (each cycle performed in a single day or concert), as well as complete Sonata cycles by Brahms, Beethoven, Schumann, and Grieg. He has collaborated with many world renowned artists, including pianists Menahem Pressler, James Tocco, Gilbert Kalish, and Awadagin Pratt; violists Michael Tree, Paul Neubauer and Kim Kashkashian; cellists David Soyer, Peter Wiley, Stephen Isserlis, David Finckel, Michel Strauss, and Yehuda Hanani, clarinetists Wolfgang Meyer and James Campbell, flutist Julius Baker, and many others from a long list of internationally renowned artists.

Yehonatan Berick's many festival and chamber series' credits include Marlboro, Ravinia, Seattle, Vancouver, Ottawa, Jerusalem, El Paso, Maui, Domaine Forget (Canada), Great Lakes (Michigan), Close Encounters with Music (Great Barrington, MA), Giverny (France), Leicester (U.K.), Moritzburg (Germany), Lapland (Sweden), Riihimaki (Finland), Strings in the Mountains (Colorado), Alpenglow (Colorado), Four seasons (N. Carolina), Agassiz (Winnipeg), Kfar Blum (Israel), Killington (Vermont), and Bowdoin (Maine).

Berick is currently a member of the Los Angeles Piano Quartet. He previously held the position of co-artistic director of the Quebec Chamber Music Society. Touring as a chamber musician with Musicians from Marlboro, The Lortie-Berick-Lysy Piano Trio, the Huberman String Quartet, Concertante Chamber Players, The Walden Chamber Players, and other chamber ensembles, he has been featured in the world's most important music centers: in Europe (London's Wigmore Hall, Paris's Musee du Louvre, Milan's Sala Verdi), the US (New York's Carnegie Hall and Metropolitan Museum, Washington's Kennedy Center, Freer Gallery and the Phillips Collection) and Canada (Toronto's Glenn Gould Studio and St. Lawrence Centre, North York's Ford Centre and Quebec City's Grand Theatre and Palais Montcalm).

On CD, Berick has recorded for the Centaur, Summit, Gasparo, Acoma, JMC and Helicon labels. His recording with the Amici ensemble, entitled Contrasts, has won rave reviews in the Canadian press. Other CD features include the Grand Concert for violin, pianoand string quartet by Chausson; The Complete Bartok and Berio Violin Duos; Chamber Music by Paul Ben Haim; The Impossible Dream by Gerhard Samuel ;and Mordechai Seter's unaccompanied violin sonata. Many of his concerts are broadcast on Radio and TV in Canada, Europe and Israel.

As a teacher, Berick is equally sought after as violin teacher and chamber music mentor. Prior to his current appointment as Professor of Violin at the University of Michigan, he served on the faculties of McGill University and the Eastman School of Music. He has been invited as teacher and artist-in-residence at Bowdoin Music Festival (Maine), Killington Music Festival (Vermont), The Shouse Institute (MI), The Beethoven Seminar (New York), Music@Menlo (CA), Keshet Eilon, Sounds in the Valley, and the JMC Young Players' Unit (Israel), and has presented masterclasses worldwide.

Yehonatan Berick started his musical education at the age of six. Having graduated from highschool at 16, he entered the Tel Aviv University's Music Academy, and completed his studies at the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, earning a full tuition and a Summacum Lauda. His principal violin teachers were Ilona Feher, Henry Meyer, Kurt Sassmanshauss, and Dorothy Delay, as well as Yair Kless. He had theory teachings with composer Sergiu Natra, and attended masterclasses with such artists as Isaac Stern, Henryk Szeryng, Max Rostal and Josef Gingold. One of the brightest talents of Israel, Berick won several Clairemont Awards, and received yearly stipends from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation.

Yehonatan Berick is currently playing on a violin by Honore Derazey Père from 1852, and on a viola by Stanley Kiernoziak from 2003.

Jonathan Crow – violin

The 2011-2012 season marks the début of Canadian violinist Jonathan Crow as Concertmaster of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. A native of Prince George, British Columbia, Jonathan earned his Bachelor of Music in Honours Performance from McGill University in 1998, at which time he joined the Montreal Symphony Orchestra as Associate Principal Second Violin. Between 2002 and 2006 Jonathan was the Concertmaster of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra; during this time he was the youngest concertmaster of any major North American orchestra. Jonathan continues to perform as guest concertmaster with orchestras around the world, including the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Filarmonia de Lanaudiere and Pernambuco Festival Orchestra (Brazil).

An avid chamber musician, Jonathan has performed at chamber music festivals throughout North America, South America and Europe including the Banff, Ravinia, Orford, Domaine Forget, Seattle, Montreal, Ottawa, Incontri in Terra di Sienna, Alpenglow, Festival Vancouver, Pernambuco (Brazil), Giverny (France) and Strings in the Mountains festivals. He is a founding member of the New Orford String Quartet, a project-based new ensemble dedicated to the promotion of standard and Canadian string quartet repertoire across the country. As an advocate of contemporary music he has premiered works by Michael Conway Baker, Eldon Rathburn, Barrie Cabena, Ana Sokolovic, Marjan Mozetich, Christos Hatzis, Ernest MacMillan and Healey Willan, and includes in his repertoire major concerti by such composers as Ligeti, Schnittke, Bernstein, Brian Cherney, Rodney Sharman, and Cameron Wilson. Mr. Crow has recorded for CBC, Oxingale, Skylark, XXI-21 and ATMA labels. He has made six recordings with the Chamber Players of Canada.

Jonathan is currently Associate Professor of Violin at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University where he has been teaching since 2005. Current and former students of Mr. Crow have received prizes at competitions across North America, including the Montreal Symphony Orchestra Competition, Shean Competition, CBC Radio's NEXT competition, Eckhardt-Grammatte Competition, Canadian Music Competition, and Stulberg International String Competition, and work regularly with orchestras such as the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Verbier Chamber Orchestra, Vienna Kammerphilharmonie and Vienna Symphony Orchestra.

Jonathan plays the ex-Wm. Kroll Guarneri del Gesù 1738 violin, made available to the TSO for the use of the Concertmaster thanks to the generosity of Dr. & Mrs. Edward Pong.

She has performed with the foremost North American orchestras, among them the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Houston Symphony and the Pittsburgh Symphony as well as with all of the principal Canadian orchestras, including the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Ottawa, the Calgary Philharmonic and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. In touring Europe each year, Ms Fialkowska has appeared as guest artist with such prestigious orchestras as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Halle Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, London's Philharmonia Orchestra, the BBC Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic, the Scottish National Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic and the French and Belgium National Radio Orchestras. She has also performed with the Israel Philharmonic, the Osaka Philharmonic and the Hong Kong Philharmonic and has worked with such renowned conductors as Sir Andrew Davis, Charles Dutoit, Hans Graf, Bernard Haitink, Kyril Kondrashin, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Sir Roger Norrington, Sir Georg Solti, Leonard Slatkin, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and Klaus Tennstedt.

She has won special recognition for a series of important premieres, most notably the world premiere performance of a newly discovered Piano Concerto by Franz Liszt with the Chicago Symphony in 1990. She has also given the world premiere of a Piano Concerto by Libby Larsen with the Minnesota Orchestra (October 1991) and the North American premiere of the Piano Concerto by Sir Andrzej Panufnik with the Colorado Symphony (February 1992) and the Piano concerto by Marjan Mozetich with the Kingston Orchestra (March 2000).

Andréa Armijo Fortin – violin

In 2002, Andréa Armijo Fortin obtained a Prix avec Grande Distinction in violin and chamber music from the Conservatoire de musique de Québec (studio of Liliane Garnier Le Sage). She then graduated with an Artist Diploma from the Longy School of Music, where she studied with Malcolm Lowe. Andréa was a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center in 2004 and 2005, where she worked with musicians including James Levine, Emmanuel Ax, Seiji Osawa and Kurt Masur. In 2007, Andréa was named a Richard Li Young Artist as part of the National Arts Centre Institute for Orchestral Studies. She is the recipient of the Québec Council for the Arts Scholarship, the FCAR scholarship, the CBC Rising Star in Chamber Music scholarship and a winner of "Les Jeunes Artistes de Radio-Canada" competition. Andréa performs regularly with ensembles including the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Thirteen Strings and l'Orchestre Symphonique de Québec.

Marjolaine Fournier – double bass

Born in Toronto, Marjolaine Fournier was raised in Chicoutimi after her family moved to the Saguenay in 1974. Long standing principal double bass with the Orchestre Symphonique du Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, she was a founding member of its Orchestre de Chambre in 1986. A bass student at the Conservatoire de musique de Chicoutimi and Trois-Rivières, she graduated with a Premier Prix in double bass and a Premier Prix in chamber music in 1989. In 1991, after having been solo-double bass with the Jeunes Virtuoses of Montreal and the New York Chamber Soloists, she won a position with the National Arts Centre Orchestra. Marjolaine was appointed Assistant Principal Bass with NACO in 1997. In addition to playing in Ottawa, she enjoys teaching double bass at the Conservatoire de musique à Gatineau and is a member of the Kikyo Ensemble. On the side, Ms Fournier plays the viola da gamba, the violone, the clarinet and likes to play other styles and musical instruments. Marjolaine is a very proud recipient of the National Arts Centre's "Good Ambassador Award".

Victor Herbiet – saxophone

Victor Herbiet studied saxophone and composition at the University of Ottawa where he obtained a Bachelor's and Master's degree in saxophone performance. At the University of Ottawa, he studied saxophone with Peter Smith and Noël Samyn and composition with Steven Gellman. Victor later pursued his saxophone studies with Sébastien Tremblay in the Réseau des Conservatoires du Québec where he was awarded the "Prix de Conservatoire." Since 1999, Victor has been employed by the Canadian Forces bands. He is currently a member of the Central Band of the Canadian Forces based in Ottawa. Outside of the Canadian Forces mandate, Victor is active as a soloist, composer and teacher. Victor has been playing in concerts for the Ottawa Chamber Music Society and International Chamber Music Festival since 2004 where he has performed numerous premieres, including some of his of his own works. Victor Herbiet teaches saxophone at the University of Ottawa.

Angela Hewitt – piano

Angela Hewitt is a phenomenal artist who has established herself at the highest level over the last few years not least through her superb, award-winning recordings for Hyperion. Completed in 2005, her eleven-year project to record all the major keyboard works of Bach has been described as "one of the record glories of our age" (The Sunday Times) and has won her a huge following. She has been hailed as "the pre-eminent Bach pianist of our time" (The Guardian) and "nothing less than the pianist who will define Bach performance on the piano for years to come" (Stereophile). She has a vast repertoire ranging from Couperin to the contemporary. Her discography also includes CDs of Granados, Beethoven, Schumann, Rameau, Chabrier, Olivier Messiaen, the complete solo works of Ravel, the complete Chopin Nocturnes and Impromptus, a Handel/Haydn album, and three discs devoted to the music of Couperin. Her recordings of the complete solo keyboard concertos of J.S. Bach with the Australian Chamber Orchestra entered the billboard charts in the U.S.A. only weeks after their release, and were named Record of the Month in Gramophone magazine.

Angela Hewitt has performed throughout North America and Europe as well as in Japan, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Israel, China, Mexico, Turkey and the former Soviet Union. Highlights of recent seasons include her debuts in Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw and with the Cleveland Orchestra, as well as a North American tour with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Her recitals have taken her to the festivals of Edinburgh, Osaka, Prague, Hong Kong, Schleswig-Holstein, Brescia/Bergamo, and Oslo to name but a few. Her frequent Wigmore Hall and Royal Festival Hall recitals in London sell out months in advance. As a chamber musician she has joined international artists at Lincoln Center in New York and in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London. With German cellist Daniel Mueller-Schott she has recorded the Bach Gamba Sonatas for Orfeo, and the complete works of Beethoven for Hyperion.

Angela Hewitt's entire 2007-2008 season was devoted to performances of the complete Bach Well-Tempered Clavier in major cities all over the world, including London (Royal Festival Hall), New York (Carnegie Hall), Los Angeles, Berkeley, Portland, Vancouver, Denver, Ottawa, Toronto, Mexico City, Bogota, Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Macao, Sydney, Melbourne, Warsaw, Milan, Lisbon, Venice, Bilbao, Zurich, Stuttgart, Glasgow, Pretoria, and Hong Kong. A special DVD lecture-recital entitled "Bach Performance on the Piano" was released by Hyperion to co-incide with the tour. Before the end of the tour, she re-recorded the work which was released by Hyperion in 2009 to great critical acclaim from around the world.

In July 2005, Angela Hewitt launched her own Trasimeno Music Festival in the heart of Umbria near Perugia. Now an annual event, it draws an international audience to the Castle of the Knights of Malta in Magione, on the shores of Lake Trasimeno. Seven concerts in seven days feature Hewitt as a recitalist, chamber musician, song accompanist, and conductor, working with both established and young artists of her choosing.

Born into a musical family (her father was the Cathedral organist in Ottawa, Canada) Angela Hewitt began her piano studies aged three, performing in public at four and a year later winning her first scholarship. During her formative years, she also studied violin, recorder, and classical ballet. At nine she gave her first recital at Toronto's Royal Conservatory of Music where she later studied. She then went on to learn with French pianist, Jean-Paul Sévilla, at the University of Ottawa. She won First Prize in Italy's Viotti Competition (1978) and was a top prizewinner in the International Bach competitions of Leipzig and Washington D.C. as well as the Schumann Competition in Zwickau, the Casadesus Competition in Cleveland and the Dino Ciani Competition at La Scala, Milan. In 1985 she won the Toronto International Bach Piano Competition.

Angela Hewitt was named Gramophone Artist of the Year in 2006. She was awarded the first ever BBC Radio 3 Listener's Award (Royal Philharmonic Society Awards) in 2003. She was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2000, and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. She was awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 2006. She has lived in London since 1985 but also has homes in Ottawa, Canada and Umbria, Italy.

Guylaine Lemaire – viola

One of Canada's busiest and most versatile musicians, violist Guylaine Lemaire performs regularly as a chamber musician and as an orchestral player. A member of the Chamber Players of Canada, she has appeared at virtually every major Canadian festival including the Festival de Lanaudière, Festival of the Sound, Festival de musique de Lachine, Musique de chambre à Ste Pétronille, Festival international du Domaine Forget, Festival Canada at the National Arts Centre, and the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival. She is heard regularly on CBC Radio and Radio-Canada. Guylaine Lemaire has recorded on many different labels and her chamber music recordings have all received strong critical acclaim. Her most recent recording, Mozart Piano Concertos with Janina Fialkowska has received unanimous praise and was selected as one of the top CD's of the year by the Ottawa Citizen. It has so far received excellent reviews from publications around the world including BBC Music Magazine, CBC's sound Advice, the Toronto Star and the Montreal Gazette. She has performed across Canada and around the world on first violin, second violin and viola with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and the chamber orchestra, Thirteen Strings. She has also been a member of the Montreal Baroque Orchestra. Her viola was made by one of the great Italian luthiers and teachers of the 20th century, Otello Bignami. He was so proud of this instrument he signed it in three places including two places where he inlayed his intitials in gold.

Kerson Leong – violin

Kerson is the First Prize winner in the Junior Category (under-16) at the prestigious Menuhin Competition Oslo 2010, receiving international recognition at age 13. He also won the Grand Prize at the Canadian Music Competition for five straight years (2005-2009), each time achieving the highest mark of any age group or instrument.

Kerson has performed several times with the Oslo Philharmonic, including being feature in a 4-performance New Year Concert Series in 2012. He has also appeared numerous times with the National Arts Centre (NAC) Orchestra since his debut performance in 2007, including being featured by Maestro Pinchas Zukerman at two annual NAC Gala events. He recently performed at the prestigious Kavli Prize 2010 Ceremony with the Oslo Camerata and has also appeared as soloist with the Orchestre de la Francophonie Canadienne, I Musici de Montreal, the Wiener Kammersymphonie, the Czech Chamber Players, the Via Salzburg Chamber Orchestra, and the Ottawa Chamber Orchestra.

In the summer of 2011, Kerson completed several successful performance tours in Europe, including recitals at the Bergen Music Festival in Norway and the Menuhin Gstaad Festival in Switzerland, as well as a special concert at the Trasimeno Music Festival in Italy, and solo performances with orchestras at the "Assisi in the World" Festival in Italy and the Rheingau Music Festival in Germany. He was also invited to perform a special concert at the Menuhin Launch Event in London. An avid chamber musician, he has performed with artists such as Angela Hewitt and Gordon Back, and appeared at many Canadian music events such as the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival, the La Maison Trestler Summer Festival in Quebec, and Music and Beyond. Notable highlights in the 2012-2013 season includes his solo debut with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, a CBC Debut Series concert to be recorded for radio broadcast and presented jointly by the Chamber Players of Canada and the CBC, and a solo performance with orchestra in Beijing at the Opening Concert of the 2012 Menuhin Competition.

Kerson studies violin with Jonathan Crow and Laurence Kayaleh. His other musical interests include conducting and playing pop and jazz on the clarinet and saxophone. He has been a pre-college participant of the NAC Young Artist Program under the direction of Pinchas Zukerman for three years and has also participated in violin masterclasses with Zakhar Bron at the Kronberg Academy. He is also a mentor of the OrKidstra program (inspired by El Sistema) and strongly believes in getting young people excited about classical music.

In spite of his busy music-related activities, Kerson enjoys a rigorous and regular academic program at Ashbury College in Ottawa, Canada. He also finds time to participate in many sports, and has represented his school in several badminton tournaments. He excels in science and mathematics as well as the arts, and recently finished at the top of his Grade 8 graduating class.

Kerson performs on an beautiful 1705 Guarnerius violin courtesy of Canimex Inc, Drummondville (Quebec), Canada.

Brian Manker – cello

Solo Cellist of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal since 1999, Brian Manker enjoys a diverse and varied musical career as a performer and teacher. In addition to being a frequent concerto soloist with the OSM, Mr. Manker is a member of the New Orford String Quartet and the Adorno Quartet. He has performed throughout North America as a member of the Harrington String Quartet, the Cassatt Quartet, and the Atlanta Chamber Players, and performed chamber music with many distinguished artists including Walter Trampler, Laurence Lesser, Gary Graffman, Lee Luvisi, and Jean- Philippe Collard. A Grand Prize winner as a member of the Harrington Quartet at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, Mr. Manker also received a special commendation from Sir Yehudi Menuhin at the Portsmouth International String Quartet Competition. He has participated in many music festivals, including Norfolk, Blossom, Chamber Music East, Roundtop, Swannanoa, the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, masterclasses at Orford, Domaine Forget, and at the Canton International Summer Music Academy in China. He has performed for radio, television, and internet broadcasts on the CBC, WFMT Chicago, and WQXR New York, and can be heard on numerous recordings of chamber music and of course with the OSM.

Mr. Manker served on the jury of the prestigious and historic Prague Spring International Cello Competition in 2006. Currently on the faculty of McGill University, Brian Manker has also taught at West Texas State and Emory Universities. In 2007, Mr. Manker launched the Beethoven Project, which aims to perform all the quartets of Beethoven in their proper context, the private salon.

Jethro Marks – viola

Vancouver-born violist Jethro Marks was Associate Principal Viola of the National Arts Centre Orchestra from the beginning of the 2003-2004 season to spring 2011, when he was appointed Principal Viola. He has performed as soloist and chamber musician throughout the United States, Mexico, Europe, and Canada, and is a frequent collaborator with many artists and ensembles. Jethro is first violist of the Zukerman ChamberPlayers, a string ensemble led by Pinchas Zukerman that has completed highly acclaimed tours of festivals in Canada, the U.S., Europe, South America and New Zealand. The ensemble released its fourth CD in 2008.

An avid chamber musician, Jethro has collaborated with some of the most illustrious artists and chamber groups of our day including Lynn Harrell, Gary Hoffman, Jaime Laredo, Michael Tree, Itzhak Perlman, Yefim Bronfman, and the Orion Quartet, and has participated in festivals around the world including the Verbier Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Festival de musique de St. Barthelemy, Banff Festival of the Arts, Lanaudière Festival, Agassiz Festival, Ravinia Festival, Aspen Music Festival, Tanglewood Festival, Musica Mundi in Belgium, Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, and Mostly Mozart, as well as the Jupiter and Lyric Chamber Music Societies in New York City.

Jethro Marks began his studies in Vancouver on the piano at the age of six but switched to the violin soon after, studying with his father and subsequently with Kenneth Sarch. Accepted into Indiana University at Bloomington, he studied violin with Levon Ambartsumian and then with Yuval Yaron. Intrigued by the rich, dark sound of the viola, he began to switch his focus and started studying with violist Atar Arad. Awards included first prize in the Kuttner Quartet Competition, first prize in the Concerto Competition, and receiving the prestigious Performers Certificate. In 1998, Jethro Marks was accepted into the Zukerman Program at the Manhattan School of Music as the only violist and he won first prize in the MSM Concerto Competition. Jethro first participated in the National Arts Centre's Young Artists Program in 1999, returning the following summer. He returned to the NAC Summer Music Institute in 2000 and 2001 as a mentor. Since arriving in Ottawa in 2003, Jethro has frequently been featured in chamber music concerts at the National Arts Centre. He made his CBC Radio debut in 2003 performing the Paganini 24th caprice on viola, and his debut with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in 2004, playing Harold in Italy. In 2007 he premiered the Steven Gellman Viola Concerto with the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra and in February 2010, he performed as soloist with Thirteen Strings.

Jethro plays a Helmuth Keller viola and, in his free time, a Wilson Pro-Staff.

Manuela Milani – violin

A member of the National Arts Centre Orchestra since 1998, Manuela Milani was appointed to the position of Concertmaster of Thirteen Strings in 2004. In addition she has been playing with the National Arts Centre Orchestra since November 1998. She was awarded a First Prize by the Conservatoire de musique du Québec where her teachers were Jean-François Rivest in Chicoutimi and Sonia Jelinková in Montreal. With a grant from the Quebec Arts Council, she studied with Sylvia Rosenberg both at the Manhattan School of Music in New York and at Indiana University, where she also studied baroque violin with Stanley Ritchie. She was awarded a special mention at the Prix d'Europe 1993. As the winner of the Janácek prize at the 1993 Montreal Czech and Slovak music competition, she was invited to perform recitals in Prague, Brno and Bratislava. She was concertmaster of the National Youth Orchestra in 1990 and assistant concertmaster of the Jeunesses Musicales' World Youth Orchestra in 1991. She was a member of the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra from 1995 to 1998. An avid chamber musician, Manuela can be heard regularly on CBC Radio and Radio-Canada. She has performed at major festivals including Festival de Lanaudière, Rendez-vous musicale de Laterrière, Festival of the Sound and the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival. She has recorded five CDS for the ATMA label with the Chamber Players of Canada. Manuela plays a 1785 J & A Gagliano violin on loan to her from the Zukerman Musical Instruments Foundation for the NAC Orchestra. The Gagliano was donated to the Foundation by NACOA (now Friends of the NAC Orchestra).

The New Orford String Quartet

Forty-five years ago a new Canadian string quartet was formed at the Jeunesses-Musicales du Canada summer camp at Parc National du Mont-Orford (today the Orford Arts Centre). The Orford String Quartet gave its first public concert on August 11, 1965. Through its many recordings and tours both at home and abroad, the Orford String Quartet became one of Canada's best-known and most illustrious musical ensembles. After 26 years and more than 2000 concerts on six continents, the Quartet disbanded, giving its last concert on July 28, 1991. In July 2009 the New Orford String Quartet arose from the fame and tradition of its glorious predecessor, giving its first concert for a sold-out audience at the Orford Arts Centre. In the short time since its creation the New Orford Quartet has seen astonishing success, giving two concerts at the Orford Arts Centre for national CBC broadcast and receiving unanimous critical acclaim, including three Opus Award nominations for Concert of the Year. Reviews of the New Orford String Quartet debut concert in the Montreal Gazette applauded a concert performance that was "sweet, balanced and technically inassailable less than a week after their members met for the first time... Lustily applauded in the Orford Arts Centre, the concert was true to the Orford name in its beauty and refinement. Indeed, there was no trace of roughness anywhere". Le Devoir described the musical result as "stupefying". Recent performances in Montreal and Quebec were met with immediate invitations for return engagements.

Hailed for their "ravishingly beautiful tone" as well as their "extraordinary technical skills and musicianship" the members of the New Orford String Quartet are all former or current principal players in the Montreal and Toronto Symphony Orchestras. In 2009, these like-minded musicians came together with a plan to revolutionize the concept of string quartet playing in Canada, bringing together four stars of the classical music field for an extremely limited touring schedule on a project-by-project basis inspired by the success of modern chamber orchestras such as the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Rather than committing to a year-round schedule, the members of the quartet meet for residencies in various centres for short periods of time, providing a fresh perspective on interpretations of standard string quartet repertoire. The New Orford String Quartet is also dedicated to promoting Canadian works, both new commissions and neglected repertoire from the previous century. Each New Orford String Quartet project has included performances of a major Canadian string quartet from the 20th century or a premiere of a newly composed work, and programs have included repertoire from a period that spans over 225 years, from Haydn and Beethoven to Sir Ernest MacMillan and Denis Gougeon.

Eric Nowlin – viola

Second-prize winner of the 2006 Walter W. Naumburg competition, violist Eric Nowlin has performed extensively throughout the United States as well as abroad. He has been described by the Springfield (MO) News-Leader as "having a full, warm tone, expressive phrasing, and effortless technical command that suggest an artist twice his age" and by the Santa Cruz Sentinel as "displaying the remarkable capabilities of the viola, with a rich tone and sensitive interpretive skills".

Past accomplishments include receiving first prize in the 2003 Irving Klein International String Competition; first prize in the 2002 Hellam Young Artists Competition; grand prize in the 2001 Naftzger Young Artists Competition; and winner of the 2001 Juilliard Viola Concerto Competition, which led to a performance of Hindemith's Konzertmusik with Roberto Minzcuk conducting the Juilliard Orchestra in Alice Tully Hall. Performances have included solo engagements with the Springfield Symphony in Missouri, Santa Cruz Symphony, Peninsula Symphony, and the Kumamoto Symphony in Japan, as well as recitals in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Mexico. Mr. Nowlin has been featured on NPR, WQXR in New York, WGBH in Boston, WFMT in Chicago, as well as television programs in Wisconsin and California, and has participated in festivals such as the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont and the Steans Institute for Young Artists at Ravinia. He is a regular member of the Jupiter Chamber Players in New York City, and has also toured with Musicians from Marlboro and Musicians from Ravinia's Steans Institute.

In addition to solo and chamber music performances, Mr. Nowlin recently won the position of Associate Principal Viola with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and started in the 2008-2009 season. He previously played regularly as a substitute in the viola section of the New York Philharmonic, performing with them during their residency at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival as well as on their European tour in 2008, and has served as a guest principal with Cleveland's Citymusic and New York City's Metropolis Ensemble.

Mr. Nowlin was chosen as the recipient of a Rachel Elizabeth Barton Foundation Grant in 2004, an award intended for the advancement of young artists' performance careers, and received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees from The Juilliard School as a scholarship student of Samuel Rhodes. Eric plays on a 1910 Neapolitan viola made by Giovanni Pistucci. Prior approval . The Quartet . Jonathan . Andrew . Eric . Brian

Philippe Sly – bass-baritone

Originally from Ottawa, bass-baritone Philippe Sly is a new member of the Canadian Opera Compnay Ensemble Studio. A winner in the 2011 Metropolitan Opera's National Council Auditions Competition, recent performances include Bartolo in Il barbiere di Siviglia with the San Francisco Opera's Merola Opera Program; Marcello in La Bohème and Nick Shadow in The Rake's Progress at McGill University; Escamillo in Carmen at the Banff Centre; and, Masetto in Don Giovanni at the University of Ottawa. Upcoming engagements include the role Pilatus in Bach's St John Passion with Kent Nagano and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and a concert of opera arias with the Kuala Lumpur Philharmonic Orchestra. Mr. Sly will appear with the COC this season singing roles in The Tales of Hoffmann, A Florentine Tragedy/Gianni Schicchi and Semele and will understudy roles in Rigoletto and Tosca. Philippe holds a Bachelor of Voice Performance degree from McGill University.

Kimball Sykes – clarinet

Kimball Sykes joined the National Arts Centre Orchestra as principal clarinet in 1985. Born in Vancouver, he received a Bachelor of Music Degree from the University of British Columbia where he studied with Ronald deKant. In 1982 Mr. Sykes was a member of the National Youth Orchestra and was awarded the first of two Canada Council grants to study with Robert Marcellus in Chicago. He has participated in the Banff School of Fine Arts Festival, the Scotia Festival, the Orford Festival, Music and Beyond and the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival. He has performed and toured with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and was a member of the Vancouver Opera Orchestra. While in Vancouver, he was a founding member of the Vancouver Wind Trio. From 1983 to 1985 he was principal clarinet of the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Sykes has performed as a soloist with the NAC Orchestra on numerous occasions. In May 2000, he gave the premiere performance of Vagues immobiles, a clarinet concerto by Alain Perron commissioned for him by the NAC, and in November 2002, he performed the Copland Clarinet Concerto, both conducted by Pinchas Zukerman. Other groups he has appeared with as soloist include Thirteen Strings, the Honolulu Symphony and the Auckland Philharmonia. Mr. Sykes has performed numerous solo and chamber music programs for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He can be heard on the recent Chamber Players of Canada recording of Schubert's Octet. He has also recorded the Mozart Clarinet Quintet with Pinchas Zukerman and NAC Orchestra principal musicians Donnie Deacon, Jane Logan and Amanda Forsyth which is included in the NAC Orchestra's double Mozart CD for CBC Records which was nominated for a Juno Award in 2004. Kimball Sykes is currently on faculty at the University of Ottawa.

Andrew Tunis – piano

Andrew Tunis has been living and performing in the Ottawa area for over 20 years. He has given concerts in North America, Europe, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Asia. Among the many musicians with whom he has collaborated are violinists Pinchas Zukerman and Martin Beaver, cellists Desmond Hoebig and Steven Isserlis, as well as the Philharmonia Quartet of Berlin and St. Lawrence String Quartet. He has appeared as guest soloist with many Canadian orchestras, including the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic and Ottawa and Edmonton symphony orchestras. After studies at the University of Ottawa with Jean-Paul Sévilla and Douglas Voice, he went on to study with Artur Balsam at the Manhattan School of Music where he received the Pablo Casals Award for outstanding musical achievement. He won first prize in several national and international competitions and, with cellist Desmond Hoebig, first prize at the 1984 Munich International Competition. He is presently Professor of Piano at the University of Ottawa.

Andrew Wan – violin

Andrew Wan is equally at home as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral musician. In August of 2008, he was named co-concertmaster of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra (MSO) under Maestro Kent Nagano, making him one of the youngest concertmasters of a major symphony. His relationship with this orchestra began with performances of Elgar's Violin Concerto under Jean-Francois Rivest, which were hailed as one of the top two musical moments of 2007 by La Presse. As soloist, he has appeared with the orchestras of Montreal, Toronto, Newfoundland, Juilliard, Aspen, and Edmonton under conductors such as Casadesus, Oundjian, DePreist and Stern. Highlights of this year's concerto dates include performances of Brahms' Double Concerto and Beethoven's Violin Concerto with the MSO under the batons of Kent Nagano and Maxim Vengerov.

Arianna Warsaw-Fan – violin

Violinist Arianna Warsaw-Fan is an active soloist and chamber musician. As the winner of the Juilliard concerto competition, Arianna recently performed Witold Lutoslawski's Partita for Violin and Orchestra with the Juilliard Orchestra in Alice Tully Hall as part of the 2011 Focus! Festival. She has performed in Carnegie Hall, WNYC's Greene Space, Merkin Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and the Guggenheim Museum. She has also made appearances at the Ravinia, Verbier, Rencontres de Musique de Chambre de Bel-Air, Music@Menlo, and Aspen Music Festivals. She frequently collaborates with the Chamber Players of Canada and has performed with such contemporary music ensembles as ICE (International Contemporary Ensemble) and FIRE (Future in Reverse).

Prizewinner in the Corpus Christi International String Competition and NTDTV's Chinese International Violin Competition, and winner of the American Opera Society String Prize, Arianna has also performed as soloist with various orchestras in the Boston area. She was a National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts youngARTS winner, and garnered New England Conservatory's Zinaida Gilels Violin Prize.

As one of the concertmasters of the Juilliard Symphony and the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra, she has worked with such conductors as John Adams, James Conlon, Tan Dun, Bernard Haitink, James Levine, and Xian Zhang. She has performed with pianists Frank Braley, John O'Conor, and Rohan de Silva. Arianna received her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the Juilliard School. Her teachers include Masao Kawasaki, Cho-Liang Lin, Lynn Chang, Magdalena Richter, and Almita Vamos. She has coached with Ronald Copes, Joseph Kalichstein, Menahem Pressler, John O'Conor, Joshua Bell, Zakhar Bron, Renaud Capuçon, Claude Frank, Pamela Frank, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Ida Kavafian, Wu Han, Samuel Rhodes, Maxim Vengerov, and members of the Emerson String Quartet.

Monica Whicher – soprano

Style and musical elegance combined with an intuitive theatrical sense are the hallmarks of soprano Monica Whicher's performances on the concert and opera stage. In 2010-2011, Ms Whicher debuted with Houston's Mercury Baroque as Asprano in Vivaldi's MONTEZUMA, a presentation that represents the work's premiere in North America. Her discography expanded with the release of "Lullabies and Carols for Christmas" with world-renowned Harpist Judy Loman for Naxos as well as two CD boxed sets featuring the art songs of Mykola Lysenko and Yakiv Stepovyi, part of an ongoing series produced by the Ukrainian Art Song Project. In addition to her residency at the Colours of Music Festival, her many recitals include Lysenko at Toronto's Koerner Hall, return engagements with the Talisker Players and the Aldeburgh Connection, the University of Toronto's Faculty Artists Series with soprano Nathalie Paulin, the Ottawa Chamber Festival, the Leith Festival and the Indian River Festival. With Toronto's Bach Consort, she performed Handel's SILETI VENTI under the baton of Harry Bickett. The varied aspects of her artistry are reflected in recent performances including Strauss' VIER LETZTE LIEDER with Peter Oundjian and the Toronto Symphony, ELIJAH with the Calgary Philharmonic, the title role in THAÏS for Pacific Opera Victoria, Bach's JOHANNES PASSION for the Amadeus Choir, Bach's WEIHNACHTSORATORIUM with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Mozart's MASS IN C MINOR with the Kingston Symphony, and Grieg's PEER GYNT with the Victoria Symphony.

The coming season include concerts with Orchestra London, Thunder Bay Symphony, Toronto's Art of Time Ensemble, Symphony Nova Scotia and Ottawa's Thirteen Strings in repertoire ranging from opera to Villa Lobos to Faure and Bach.

Credits from the recent past include the Strauss songs for Orchestra London, the Hamilton Philharmonic and the Ottawa Symphony; MESSIAH with the Colorado Symphony and the Elmer Iseler Singers, the title role in Purcell's DIDO & AENEAS for Opera Atelier's tour of Korea, repeating the role for Toronto Masque Theatre; ARMIDE and ORFEO for Opera Atelier and a return to Pacific Opera Victoria for Female Chorus in THE RAPE OF LUCRETIA, (having previously appeared there as Cleopatra in Handel's GIULIO CESARE), ELIJAH with the Vancouver Symphony, DIE SCHÖPFUNG for Orchestra London, Bach's MASS in B MINOR for the Vancouver Bach Choir and Mozart's REQUIEM with the Victoria Symphony.

She has been featured in MESSIAH with the Toronto Symphony, the Calgary Philharmonic and the Edmonton Symphony, as Drusilla in Monteverdi's CORONATION OF POPPEA for the Cleveland Opera and she was lavishly praised for her Naxos recording of CASTOR ET POLLUX with Opera in Concert of Toronto. For Opera Atelier, she starred as the Countess in Mozart's LE NOZZE DI FIGARO, and her many appearances with the Aldeburgh Connection have included Wolf's ITALIENISCHES LIEDERBUCH with baritone Russell Braun and premieres of works by John Beckwith, John Greer and Gary Kulesha. She appeared at the Nürnberg Chamber Music Festival as the Governess in TURN OF THE SCREW and Female Chorus in THE RAPE OF LUCRETIA, the latter recorded for broadcast by Bayerischer Rundfunk. Other festivals have included Lanaudière, Westben, Festival of the Sound, Lamèque Baroque, Winnipeg New Music, Toronto Summer Music and the Michoacàn Festival of Music and Culture in Mexico. Her concerts are frequently broadcast by CBC radio.

Winner of the George London Award, Ms. Whicher has been nominated for a Juno Award for "Singing Somers Theatre (Centrediscs) as well as two Dora Mavor Moore awards (LE NOZZE DI FIGARO, DIDO AND AENEAS) and is featured on the Juno-award winning CD's "Beethoven Lives Upstairs", "Mozarts' Magic Fantasy" and "Daydreams and Lullabies". Her recordings of Bach, Schubert and Hatzis are available on Marquis Classics and other labels and her critically acclaimed portrayal of Mérope can be seen in the EuroArts DVD of Lully's PERSÉE. Ms. Whicher is on the faculty of both the Glenn Gould School and the University of Toronto.