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Violin

Caroline Chéhadé

Caroline Chéhadé is a full time student at the Manhattan School of Music of New York in Lucie Robert’s studio. She completed her studies at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal in spring 2005, obtaining the Prix avec grande distinction.

Born in Montreal to a musical family, she starts studying the violin at the age of four. In 2005 and 2006 she received the John Newmark Prize at the competition Prix d’Europe. She also won many national competitions and played with the chamber orchestra I Musici. She participated in recordings for Radio-Canada (radio) in the Jeunes Artistes series.

Ms. Chéhadé participated in the New York String Orchestra Seminar under Maestro Jaime Laredo’s direction and the 2005 tour of the Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra in China and Europe. She has performed in many summer programs as a violinist and chamber musician such as Casalmaggiore International Festival (Italy), Les Rencontres musicales internationales d’Enghien (Belgium), the Texas Music Festival (Houston), The Orford Arts Centre and Le Domaine Forget. She played for Gil Shaham, Augustin Dumay and other renowned masters who acclaimed her exceptional expressiveness and presence on stage.

Marc Djokic

Born in Halifax, Marc Djokic began his violin studies at the age of six with his father, violinist Philippe Djokic. He completed his undergraduate studies at the New England Conservatory as a scholarship student of Donald Weilerstein, and is currently pursuing graduate studies at Indiana University School of Music with Jamie Laredo.

Mr. Djokic is known for his solo performances as well as his performances as a chamber musician. He has performed as a guest artist in festivals and series such as the Ottawa Atlantic Scene Festival, Scotia Festival of Music, New Brunswick Summer Music Festival, St. Cecilia Concert Series and has made numerous appearances at the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival. His concerts have been recorded and broadcast by CBC Radio and he has appeared in the Bravo television series The Classical Now.

Mr. Djokic has received many awards such as the Royal Bank of Canada’s Award for Musical Excellence, the Governor General’s Millennium Award, the Lieutenant Governor’s Award (2003) and several awards from the Nova Scotia Talent Trust.

Kerry DuWors

Kerry DuWors is currently on faculty at Brandon University in Manitoba, while maintaining a demanding concert career as soloist and chamber musician. She began music studies in Saskatoon, followed by the University of Victoria (Bachelor of Music) with the Lafayette String Quartet, and the University of Toronto (Master of Music) with Lorand Fenyves, receiving the Eaton Graduate Scholarship, the Yo-Yo Ma Fellowship, and the Felix Galimir Award for Chamber Music Excellence.

Winner of the 26^th Eckhardt-Gramatté Competition, Ms. DuWors made a Canada-wide recital tour with pianist Lydia Wong. She is currently first violinist of the Toronto-based Rocca String Quartet. She has collaborated with James Ehnes, Angela Cheng, Denise Djokic, Martin Fröst, Yehonatan Berick, Jonathon Crow and Marc‑André Hamelin. From 2003 to 2006, Ms. DuWors played on the 1902 Enrico Rocca violin on loan from the Canada Council’s Musical Instrument Bank. Performing contemporary Canadian music and promoting the works of contemporary Canadian composers are a major focus of her career.

Recent engagements include performances at the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society, Agassiz Chamber Music Festival, Vancouver Recital Society Summer Combustion, Maureen Forrester Young Canadian Artist Series (Stratford Summer Music Festival), Gustin House Concert Series, CBC’s Galleria, Music Around Us and In Performance broadcasts, the world première of David R. Scott’s Concerto for Violin and Cello, and triple quartet collaborations with the Penderecki and Lafayette Quartets.

Pascale Giguère

Pascale Giguère has been a member of the Quebec chamber orchestra Les Violons du

Roy since 1995, and since 2000 she has held the position of joint solo violin. With the ensemble she has performed in concerts at Carnegie Hall as well as in festivals in Canada, the United States and Europe. Also with Les Violons du Roy, Mme Giguère has appeared on several recordings, including Astor Piazzolla’s Four Seasons, which will be released on the Atma label next season.

Ms. Giguère has performed as a soloist with Les Violons du Roy in Canada and Europe, with l’Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal and l’Orchestre des Grands Ballets Canadiens. Next December, she will perform with l’Orchestre Symphonique de Québec in Stravinsksy’s Concerto in D, and with Les Violons du Roy on tour in Quebec, Argentina and Uruguay in Astor Piazzolla’s Four Seasons.

Ms. Giguère has won a number of prizes including Premier Prix in violin and chamber music at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, Grand Prize at the 1991 CIBC National Competition, First Prize in the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec competition and the Prix D’Europe (1993), which allowed her to continue her studies at Boston University with Roman Totenberg, Peter Zazovski and the Muir Quartet.

Yi-Jia Susanne Hou

Born in Shanghai but raised in Mississauga, Yi-Jia Susanne Hou began her violin studies when she was four, with her father Alec Hou. She was a scholarship student at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto and continued with full scholarship at the Aspen Music School and the Juilliard School where she completed her Bachelor of Music, Master’s and Artist Diploma.

She won gold medals at Concours International Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud in France, Rodolfo Lipizer International Violin Competition in Italy and Pablo Sarasate International Violin Competition in Spain. In North America, she has been awarded many other prizes including first place at the Canadian National Music Competition, the Juilliard Dvorak Violin Concerto Competition, the Juilliard-Lehigh Valley Chamber Orchestra Competition and the F. Nakamichi Sibelius Violin Competition. Recently, she toured with Debut Atlantic, Prairie Debut, & Bowfire, and travelled throughout North America, Asia, and Europe for solo recitals and orchestra concerts.

Ms. Hou has been a guest artist with many orchestras including Toronto Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo, Osaka Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Monte Carlo Philharmonic and the Juilliard Symphony & Orchestra. Her debut CD features the Sibelius Violin Concerto and concert works by Sarasate. She has two CD recordings to be released this fall and next spring. In 2003, Ms. Hou took first place and was awarded the 1729 “ex-Heath” Guarneri del Gesù violin by the Canada Council’s Musical Instruments Bank.

Judy Kang

Since her critically acclaimed performance with the National Arts Centre Orchestra at the age of 10, Judy Kang, of Ottawa, has appeared with major Canadian orchestras and ensembles and has given solo recitals across North America, Asia, Europe and the Caribbean Islands. She has performed in such prestigious venues as Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Glenn Gould Studio, Seoul National Arts Center and Wigmore Hall, and at festivals such as Aspen, Evian, Banff and the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival. Ms. Kang played for former Canadian prime-minister Brian Mulroney, former U.S. president Bill Clinton, and current Korean president Noh Moo Hyun.

She has performed with world-renowned musicians and worked with many notable composers including Pierre Boulez. She is a founding member of the piano quartet Made in Canada, which received awards such as the eminent 2006 Galaxie Rising Stars Award.

Ms. Kang studied on full scholarship at the Curtis Institute of Music at the age of 11. She received her Bachelor of Music at 17 and is one of the youngest graduates in the institute’s history. She has released two CDs on CBC Records Label. In recognition of her outstanding achievement and contribution to the arts, she is featured in the upcoming book entitled Korea and Canada: A Shared History. In 2003, she was awarded the loan of the 1747 Palmason Januarius Gagliano violin by the Canada Council’s Musical Instrument Bank.

Jessica Linnebach

Born in Edmonton, Jessica Linnebach currently lives in Ottawa, where she is a member of the National Arts Centre Orchestra. Since her solo debut at seven, she has appeared with orchestras across North America. In 2000, she was guest soloist with the National Arts Centre Orchestra under the direction of Pinchas Zukerman on their historic tour of the Middle East and Europe, where she played to sold-out audiences in Tel-Aviv, Berlin, Paris, Locarno and Glasgow.

Ms. Linnebach has collaborated with artists such as Leon Fleisher, Gary Hoffman, Jaime Laredo, Michael Tree, Pinchas Zukerman and the Orion and Boromeo String Quartets. She is a member of the Zukerman Chamber Players, a string quintet led by Pinchas Zukerman. The quintet completed their fourth international tour at the end of August 2006. They will also be releasing their third CD by the end of this year.

Ms. Linnebach remains one of the youngest ever Bachelor of Music graduates in the history of the Curtis Institute of Music and, at 19 she received a Master of Music from the Manhattan School of Music.

After winning the Grand Prize at the National Finals of the Canadian Music Competitions twice, Ms. Linnebach went on to garner major prizes in many other competitions. She is the 2000 recipient of the Canada Council for the Arts Sylva Gelber Foundation Award, and, in 2003 she was awarded the loan of the Ca. 1700 Bell Giovanni Tononi violin by the Canada Council’s Musical Instrument Bank.

Véronique Mathieu

Véronique Mathieu won many prizes in Canada before completing her Bachelor in Music at the Conservatoire de musique de Québec. In 2002, she was invited by Pinchas Zukerman to participate in his Young Artists Program.  She obtained an Artist Diploma with outstanding achievement in violin performance from McGill University (2003) as a student of DENISE LUPIEN and was a recipient of the Ethel J. Ivey Award, and the Lloyd Carr Harris Scholarship.

She has participated in various summer programs in Austria, Canada, France, Switzerland, and the United States. Ms. Mathieu is the associate concertmaster of the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic, the concertmaster of the Indiana University New Music Ensemble, and has been concertmaster of the National Orchestral Institute, a member of the Jerusalem International Symphony Orchestra and the Spoleto Festival USA.

Ms. Mathieu broadcast recitals for the CBC, Radio-Canada, the Classical Radio in Costa Rica, and the Radio Suisse-Romande. She was recently invited to perform and teach master classes in Costa Rica as part of the series Promising Artists 2006. She premiered many works written by American composers, appeared with different ensembles, and recorded for the CD series New Music at Indiana University. Ms. Mathieu is currently working on her Doctorate under the guidance of Mark Kaplan at Indiana University. Future projects include a recording of the Suite for Violin and Organ by the Japanese composer Mutsuhito Ogino and Claude Baker’s Elegy for Solo Violin.

Jean-Sébastien Roy

Jean-Sébastien Roy, a native of St-Thomas-de-Joliette, QC, now living in Montreal,  began studying violin at a very early age with Father Roland Brunelle, later pursuing his musical training with Johanne Arel and Raymond Dessaints at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, where he received the Prix magna cum laude in 2002.  Mr. Roy obtained a Master’s degree in performance from the Université de Montréal  (2004). He studies with Paul Kantor at the Cleveland Institute of Music.  

Jean-Sébastien Roy has been heard in recital in several cities in Quebec, the United States and Europe where he recently gave recitals in London and Paris. He is a violinist with the Lloyd Carr-Harris Quartet, and has performed with the ensemble in concerts in Canada and recently on tour in Italy. 

He has received several prizes and bursaries, among them the Canadian Music Competition, the Orchestre symphonique de Trois-Rivières, the Festival de musique du Royaume in Chicoutimi, the Université de Montréal’s concerto competition and the Cleveland Institute of Music’s concerto competition. Roy was a laureate of the OSM Standard Life Competition in 2004, winner of the Prix Joseph-Rouleau in the Concours Musical International de Montréal (2003 and 2006) and winner of the Prix d’Europe (2006).

Cello

Soo Bae

Born in Seoul, Korea, and currently living in New Jersey, Soo Bae began her cello studies at the age of six, and then moved to Toronto at age eight, where she enrolled at the Royal Conservatory of Music. She went on to study at The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, from which she received her Bachelor of Music (2001). Ms. Bae received her Masters of Music (2003) and the prestigious Artist Diploma with full scholarship from the Juilliard School under Joel Krosnick and Harvey Shapiro.

Ms. Bae won the 2005 Concert Artists Guild International Competition, which made her the first artist on her instrument to win the award in nine years. In July 2006 she became the first Canadian to ever be awarded a prize at the 6^th Adam International Cello Festival & Competition in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Since her debut with the Korean Canadian Symphony at age eleven, Ms. Bae has appeared internationally as a soloist with such orchestras as the North York Symphony (Toronto) and National Youth Symphony (Puerto Rico). Ms. Bae has performed in Asia, Europe, Canada and the United States, including such prestigious venues as Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall. In addition, she was featured soloist for the closing ceremony of the 1997 Pablo Casals Festival, where she performed on Casals’ own instrument.

Emmanuelle Beaulieu Bergeron

Born in Roberval (Lac St-Jean) and raised in Montreal, Emmanuelle Beaulieu Bergeron received two prizes magna cum laude in cello and chamber music from the Montreal music conservatory prior to continuing her studies at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, where she earned a Master’s degree in 2005. During her studies in New York, she frequently held the position of solo cello with the Juilliard Orchestra, including during its most recent European tour.

She has performed in concert as a soloist and chamber player in several festivals in the United States, Mexico and Canada. In recent years she has won many prizes and bursaries, including a First Prize in the Jeunes Artistes de Radio-Canada competition.

Ms. Beaulieu Bergeron is currently in residence at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston. She is a member of the Kailas String Quartet, with whom she performs regularly in the United States. She recently obtained several prizes with the ensemble, among them in the Fischoff Competition and the Chamber Music International Young Artist Competition. She has also worked with a number of renowned ensembles including the Tackas, Emerson, Juilliard, American and Orion quartets.

Rachel Mercer

Rachel Mercer began cello studies at the age of three in Edmonton. She received her Bachelor of Music from the University of Toronto with Shauna Rolston, her Master of Music from the New England Conservatory with Laurence Lesser, and a solo diploma from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam with Dmitri Ferschtman.

She was a member of the Metro String Quartet (Toronto) from 1994-2000, collaborating with Menahem Pressler, Shauna Rolston and Laurence Lesser. She joined the Aviv Quartet (Israel) in 2002. First prize winner of the Melbourne and Bordeaux competitions, the quartet tours regularly on five continents playing in halls such as the Louvre, Zurich Tonhalle, Wigmore Hall, the Library of Congress in Washington DC, St Lawrence Centre in Toronto. The ensemble has released four CDs, three of which are part of a complete Shostakovich cycle to be performed at the 2007 Verbier Festival. 

Grand prize winner of the 2001 Vriendenkrans Competition in Amsterdam, Ms. Mercer made her European recital debut in the Concertgebouw. She has performed as a soloist across Canada, Europe, South Africa and Israel, including appearances with the Toronto Symphony, National Arts Centre, Durban, and Banff Festival orchestras.

Recent collaborations include piano quintets with Boris Berman, Pierre-Laurent Aimard and James Tocco. Ms. Mercer is also principal cellist of Via Salzburg, an 11 concert series of a chamber music ensemble led by Mayumi Seiler in Toronto.