Summer Solo Series No. 5
The next shining light in our summer solo series is Lara St Johns incredibly emotive perfomance of Kommos.
Canadian-born violinist Lara St. John has been described as “something of a phenomenon” by The Strad and a “high-powered soloist” by The New York Times. She has performed as soloist with the orchestras of Cleveland, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Belgrade, Amsterdam, the Royal Philharmonic, NDR Symphony, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Camerata Ireland, Queensland, Adelaide, Auckland, Tokyo, Kyoto, the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, the China Philharmonic, Shanghai, Hong Kong, São Paulo, Orquestra Sinfonica Brasileira and Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México, among many others. Recitals in major concert halls have included New York, Boston, San Francisco, Washington, Prague, Berlin, Toronto, Montreal, Bogotá, Lima and the Forbidden City. Lara manages her own label, Ancalagon, which she founded in 1999. Her Mozart recording won a Juno Award in 2011. In 2014, her Schubert album was chosen as one of the “Best CDs of Spring” by Der Tagesspiegel. Her 2016 release of re-imagined folk music, with pianist Matt Herskowitz, earned a five-star review from All About Jazz.
She has been featured in People, US News and World Report, NPR’s All Things Considered, the CBC, BBC, a Bravo! special and twice on the cover of Strings. Lara began playing the violin when she was two, made her first appearance as soloist with orchestra at four, and her European debut at 10. She entered the Curtis Institute at 13. Her teachers have included Felix Galimir and Joey Corpus. She performs on the 1779 “Salabue” Guadagnini. She is an activist for survivors of sexual abuse in music schools. All articles pertaining to Lara and The Curtis Institute can be found here: www.larastjohn.club.
Summer Solo Series No. 4
Continuing our Summer Solo Series is an original piece written and perfomed by Natalie Dzbiak. A Polish Canadian performer and composer. Born in Victoria, she began studying violin, piano and voice at a young age. This led her to eventually enroll at then Uiversity of Victoria and a chieve a degree in Composition and Theory.
Natalie studied violin performance with Sharon Stanis of the Lafayette Quartet, and composition with John Celona, Annette Brosin, and Christopher Butterfield. During her time at Uvic, Natalie was often sought as a performer in new compositions by other student composers, as she had an open mind and a willingness to try new things. In her first year of studies the conductor, Ajtony Csaba, asked her to join the new music ensemble, Sonic Lab, in which she played for the rest of her time at Uvic. After graduating from Uvic in 2017, she continued to perform in concerts such as the Oak Bay New Music Festival, hosted by the Victoria Composer's Collective, and other ensembles in Victoria. In 2018, she performed Regnvejr i Skoven by Brandon Chow, which won second place in the SOCAN Awards. Later in 2018, after taking an interest in writing music for films, Natalie attended the Palomar Film Scoring Workshop, run by film composers Larry Groupé and Roger Neill, where she learned the basics of how to score to picture. This began her career as a film composer. In 2019, she was accepted into the New York University's Screen Scoring workshops, in the Video Game Music scoring class, led by Tom Salta.
Natalie recently moved to Vancouver, Canada, to pursue a career as a violinist in several symphony orchestras in the surrounding area and continues to work remotely as a freelance film composer. She also works as a sound designer for the company Zenith FilmsMedia in Ann Arbor, MI, and teaches violin and piano in New Westminster
Summer Solo No. 3
Born in Vancouver, Korean Canadian violinist Joanna Lee commenced piano lessons at the age of 3. Two years later, she took up the violin. Her musical activities involved technique classes, theory and orchestra at the Vancouver Academy School of Music. At the age of 7, Joanna began competing at local music festivals and eventually progressed to provincial, national and international level. At the age of 12 Joanna moved to Edmonton where she studied with retired ESO concertmaster and Curtis Music of Institute alma mater, James Keene. During her summers, Joanna attended several music festivals including Summit Music Festival in New York and Banff Arts Centre where she studied with world-renowned teachers, such as: Aaron Rosand, Chin Kim, Lucie Robert, Ilya Kaler, Oleh Krysa and Roland Vamos. For her undergraduate studies, Joanna attended McGill University where she received her Bachelor of Music degree in violin performance. There, she studied under the tutelage of Andrew Dawes, Mark Fewer and Richard Roberts.
Immediately after finishing her undergraduate degree, Joanna became a faculty member of MacEwan University where she taught private violin lessons at the Alberta College Campus and performed as a soloist and a chamber musician. Several of her students have been awarded numerous prizes and scholarships in the Edmonton Kiwanis Festival and the Royal Conservatory of Music.
A couple of years later, Joanna received an invitation to study with former ESO concertmaster, Martin Riseley at the New Zealand School of Music, where she pursued a Master of Musical Arts in one year. At NZSM, Joanna participated in Concerts, Music forums, Orchestra and Masterclasses with violinists Cho-Liang Lin and Schmuel Askenasi.
Currently, Joanna is a Doctorate of Musical Arts Degree Candidate at the UBC School of Music on a Scholarship. During the school year, she finds time to perform with several groups such as: Artemis Musicians’ Society, Vancouver Film Orchestra, Chilliwack Symphony, Okanagan Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Island Symphony Orchestra, Plastic Acid, Kamloops Symphony, and Prince George Symphony.
Enjoy this stunning perfomance of a song for resiliance.
Summer Solo No. 2
Dan Bevan-Baker, a Toronto-based vocalist and Certified Music Therapist who is perpetually exploring the powers of music. Whether on stage or in a therapy space, he uses music to facilitate connection, comfort, and change within individuals and communities. Dan holds a BMus (Voice Performance) from McGill University where he sang under the guidance of late baritone, Sanford Sylvan. He performed the following roles/partial roles (*) with Opera McGill: Antonio and Figaro* (Le Nozze di Figaro), Maestro Spinelloccio (Gianni Schicchi), Starveling (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Nano (Volpone), and chorus in multiple productions. Dan is also an avid performer of choral, musical theatre, improv, and his original folk music. He currently sings as section lead in multiple choirs in Toronto, including Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, and recently performed with OperaQ, a new opera company amplifying queer and trans voices. He received an MA (Music Therapy) from Concordia University and currently works in private practice and at The Music Therapy Centre with children, youth, adults, and older adults with a wide range of life experiences and needs.