Ottawa Chamber Music Society

Artist Bios

Richard Margison – tenor

One of the most critically acclaimed singers on the international stage, Richard Margison has performed in the world’s leading opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, Vienna Staatsoper, Deutsche Oper Berlin, San Francisco Opera, Sydney Opera and Netherlands Opera. During the 2005-06 season he appeared in La Gioconda in Barcelona, Un Ballo in Maschera in Covent Garden, Fidelio at the Metropolitan Opera, as Radamès, one of his signature roles, in Aida in Montreal, and in Un Ballo in Maschera and Aida in Cincinnati. A sought after concert artist, he has sung with the Royal Philharmonic in London, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco, Montreal and Toronto symphony orchestras, and National Arts Centre Orchestra, Ottawa. He has performed at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, and Bryn Terfel’s Faenol Festival in Wales. His discography includes a recording for the film on the life of Mario Lanza, in which he sings the title role, and he is featured on the CBC’s Millennium Opera Gala recording. He was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2001.

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Joanna G'froerer – flute

Joanna G'froerer became principal flute of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in1992 at the age 20. A native of Vancouver, she studied with Kathleen Rudolph and at McGill University with Timothy Hutchins. In 1990, she was winner of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra competition’s wind and brass division. A frequent soloist with the NAC Orchestra, she has also performed with the CBC Radio Orchestra, and Vancouver, Victoria, Quebec, and Kingston symphony orchestras. As chamber musician, she has participated in the Vancouver, Montreal and Ottawa chamber music festivals, and has been guest artist with groups such as the Penderecki and Tokyo string quartets. She has taught flute at the Scotia Festival of Music and McGill University, regularly gives master classes, and is on faculty at the University of Ottawa. She is featured on a recording of Mozart's flute quartets that Opus Magazine named best 2001 Canadian chamber music recording, and on an all-Rodrigo CD recorded in Spain with Maestro Maximiano Valdes.

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Aaron Au – viola

Aaron Au is a first violinist with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and sessional lecturer of viola at the University of Alberta where he is pursuing his doctorate in music. Heard often on CBC Radio, he has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician on both violin and viola across Canada, the United States, Cuba and Europe. He has participated as faculty member, adjudicator and performer at festivals throughout Canada, including the Agassiz, Ottawa International and Victoria chamber music festivals and 2002 National Music Festival. He has conducted ensembles and orchestras in western Canada, was resident conductor of Edmonton’s Mill Creek Colliery Band and guest conductor with the University of Alberta Academy Strings Orchestra. He studied violin and viola with Andrew Dawes and Gerald Stanick at the University of British Columbia and with Thomas Riebl and Claudia Bussian at the Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg (Austria). He won various competitions and toured Canada and Japan as concertmaster of the National Youth Orchestra of Canada.

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Marie-Annick Béliveau – soprano

Appreciated and recognized for her musical intelligence, her exceptional versatility and her vocal quality, soprano Marie-Annick Béliveau has made an impression on the musical scene in a wide variety of repertoire spanning from the medieval to the present.

Over the years, Marie-Annick Béliveau has become a well-known figure on the contemporary music scene in Québec. Composers value her musical erudition, her profound respect for the work, precision of technique, and dramatic interpretation. In the past ten years she has premiered more than fifteen works, most of which were written expressly for her by composers from various countries.

She has worked with conductors such as Lorraine Vaillancourt, Walter Boudreau, Véronique Lacroix and Raffi Armenian, and with ensembles such as Tuyo, Kore, and les Percussions de Strasbourg. She can be heard regularly on Radio-Canada, CBC Radio, and Radio-France.

In the Fall of 2004 in Royaumont, France, her performance of the world premiere of Puff IV by Takashi Tokunaga under the baton of Rachid Sakir received high acclaim. In Montreal and Ottawa, and again at the festival Octobre-en-Normandie in France, many were impressed by her interpretation of R. Murray Schafer’s Beauty and the Beast with the Molinari Quartet. Her dedication and talent have inspired many composers such as Marco-Antonio Pérez-Ramirez, for whom she sang the world premieres of Celos in Royaumont in 1998 and la beauté at l’École des Beaux-Arts de Montpellier in 2004. She will be performing the title role of Pérez-Ramirez’s Rimbaud at l’Opéra de Montpellier in 2006. The opera, based on a libretto by Christophe Donner, was written expressly for her voice.

She was recently featured in the film The Pines of Emily Carr, performing music by Jean Coulthard. Directed by Donald Winkler and produced by Peter Haynes, the film was presented on CBC Television and at the 2005 International Festival of Films on Art.

On the pan-Canadian Génération 2002 Tour with the Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal, her performances of Berceuses pour enfants perdus d’avance au reste du monde by Patrick Saint-Denis and Déflagration by Louis Dufort received wide critical acclaim. She has been invited by the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne to perform the world premiere of Les Villes Invisibles by Simon Bertrand and Jacques Tremblay.

Marie-Annick Béliveau’s recording of Claude Vivier’s Wo bist du, Licht! with the Ensemble de la Société de Musique Contemporaine du Québec was awarded the Opus prize for Contemporary Music Album of 2002. Her recording of André Ristic’s Catalogue de Bombes Occidentales with the Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal was also nominated for an Opus prize in 2003.

Upcoming engagements include a repeat performance of Lost by Fausto Romitelli for the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne’s Annual Grand Concert, Microphone Song by Michel Gonneville with conductor Véronique Lacroix, and the world premiere of Michelle Boudreau’s la fesse noire with Musiques Itinérantes.

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Femke Bergsma – recorder, fiddle

After her studies at the conservatory in Utrecht in the Netherlands, Femke Bergsma moved to Montréal where she started her professional activities as assistant to the renowned recorder maker Jean-Luc Boudreau and soon also commenced performing and teaching. She has played with many ensembles including Arion, Les Boréades de Montréal, and Tafelmusik. Since 1997, her interest in medieval music has led her to playing the vièle and participating in numerous concerts and recordings with the ensembles Stadaconé and Memoria in Quebec City. She has recently co-founded the
medieval ensemble Eya!. Since 2004, she has been performing in a play for children presented by Le Théâtre de Quartier in Montreal. During summer, she teaches at the CAMMAC music camp on Lake McDonald.

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Daniel Bolshoy - guitar

Committed to bringing classical guitar to audiences, Daniel Bolshoy is praised for his informative introductions, programming and performance of solo and chamber music. He has appeared at the Ottawa International Chamber Music and Halifax Guitar festivals, among others, has toured under auspices of Debut Atlantic and Musique Royale, and performed in young artist debut series in Montreal and Ottawa. After his concerto debut in 2004/05 performing Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez with the Toronto Philharmonia, he performed the work with the New Mexico Symphony, Vancouver Philharmonic and Peterborough Symphony orchestras. Often heard on CBC Radio, he also performs and records with mezzo-soprano Julie Nesrallah and was featured as soloist and part of the Nesrallah/Bolshoy Duo in Bravo! TV documentaries. He teaches classical guitar and guitar history at Indiana University. Winner of international prizes, he studied in Canada with Garry Elliott, Stephen Rollins, Eli Kassner and Norbert Kraft, and then at the University of Denver where he worked with renowned classical guitarist Ricardo Iznaola.

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Jacques Boucher – organ

Jacques Boucher, a key player in the Canadian organ world, is the organist at Montreal’s St. Jean Baptiste Church where he has been at the centre of the church’s dynamic musical life since 1986. While a producer at Radio-Canada from 1972-1997, he was director of musical programming (1984-87) and chaired the music committee of the association of French public radio networks of Belgium, Canada, France and Switzerland (1991-95). He was General and Artistic Director of Jeunesses Musicales from 1998-2001. An active performer and recording artist, he has given concerts in major cathedrals and churches in Quebec, across Canada and the United States, and widely in France, including in Paris at the Madeleine, St-Germain-des Prés, St-Denis and St-Augustine. As musician and broadcaster, he has produced, in collaboration with over 100 Quebec organists, over 1,500 radio recitals featuring organ playing and building. He has directed over 200 recordings and designed thematic series on organ music and chamber music composed by French organists.

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Jimmy Brière – piano

Jimmy Brière is recognized as one of the most brilliant Canadian pianist of his generation. Praised by the critic for his inspired performances, his career has taken him in all parts of Canada, in the USA as well as Europe.

He has been heard, among others, with the Québec Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal, I Musici de Montréal, the Sherbrooke Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Symphonique du Saguenay Lac St-Jean and the orchestre de la Francophonie Canadienne. Abroad, he has played with the Pleven and the Ruse Philharmonic in Bulgaria, the Orchestra Classica of Porto, the Indiana University Symphony Orchestra, and the South Bend Symphony Orchestra (USA) joining Alexander Toradze in Mozart's Concerto K. 242. He has collaborated among others with Yoav Talmi, Leon Fleisher, Tsung Yeh, Stéphane Laforest, Simon Streatfield, Yuli Turovsky, Paolo Bellomia, Jean-François Rivest, Marc David and Jacques Clément and Jean –Philippe Tremblay.

First Prize Winner of the Hong Kong International Piano Competition (1997) and Prize Winner at the Porto International Piano Competition (1996), Jimmy Brière has played in recital or chamber music concerts in Indianapolis, in Dallas, in Holland, in the Place des Arts of Montréal in Pro Musica series, in Palais Montcalm in Québec city, National Arts Center in Ottawa, and various festivals including the Lanaudière International Music Festival, the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival, the International Music Festival of the Domaine Forget, Orford Festival, Festival of the Sound in Parry Sound, and Festival of Ste-Pétronille. He has played with Edgar Meyer, James Campbell, the New Zealand String Quartet, Alexandre Da Costa, to name a few. Many of his performances in recital, in chamber music or with orchestra have been broadcasted by the CBC and Radio-Canada.

Jimmy Brière is a member of Trio di Colore, along with Guy Yehuda on clarinet and Yuval Gotlibovich on viola. Gold medal winner of the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition 2004, the group has played for the past three years in Canada and the USA.

Graduate of the Université de Montréal, of the Indiana University School of Music and of the Glenn Gould School of Toronto, Jimmy Brière's main teachers have been Marc Durand, Menahem Pressler, Leon Fleisher and André Laplante.

Jimmy Brière is Guest Professor at the Faculté de Musique of the Université de Montréal.

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Naida Cole – piano

Naida Cole received worldwide attention on winning the 1997 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition awards for best performance of commissioned work and chamber music. She has since performed frequently with the Toronto and Montreal symphony orchestras, and with orchestras in Europe, South America and Japan. She has appeared in recital throughout North and South America, Europe and Asia, including at Washington’s Kennedy Center and London’s Wigmore Hall. She has participated in major chamber music festivals in the United States, Canada, Austria and France. She has performed regularly with Gidon Kremer and his ensemble Kremerata Baltica in Europe and North America. Her first CD was hailed as “a stunning debut”, her second also met with critical acclaim, and she performs on Gidon Kremer’s 2002 Grammy Award-winning Mozart recording. A graduate of Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music, the Peabody Conservatory, and Université de Montréal, she presently divides her time between performing and pre-medical studies at Columbia University in New York City.

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Denise Djokic – cello

Denise Djokic has performed as soloist with major orchestras in Canada, the United States and Mexico, including the Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and Calgary symphony and National Arts Centre orchestras, Buffalo Philharmonic and Orquesta Filharmonica UNAM. Appearences as recitalist and chamber musician across North America and in Europe, include the Phillips Collection and Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC, Bargemusic and Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players in New York, Chicago's Dame Myra Hess Series, Mexico City, Cologne and major Canadian centres. She has regualrly participated in many chamber music festivals including Caramoor, Ravinia, Ottawa, Parry Sound and Domaine Forget. While touring Canada, she was featured on a documentary film, Seven Days, Seven Nights, that aired on Bravo! TV and was screened at the Atlantic Film Festival. She was a featured performer at the 2002 Grammy Awards. Her debut recording won a 2002 East Coast Music Award for Best Classical Recording, and her second, Folklore, was nominated for a 2006 Juno award.

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Hilario Durán – pianist, composer

A 2003 JUNO Award Nominated Artist for his “Havana Remembered” CD, and a 2005 JUNO Award Winner for his “New Danzon” CD, Hilario Durán, Pianist, Composer, Bandleader and Arranger of the first order, is one of the greatest virtuoso Jazz pianists emerging from Havana, Cuba.

Hilario Durán was a member of the Arturo Sandoval’s band for nine years (1981 – 1990). As a composer, arranger and producer, as well as a performer -playing both piano and keyboard- he toured at major Jazz Festivals around the world, sharing stages with legendary musicians such as the late Dizzy Gillespie, and composer/arranger Michael Legrand.

In 1990, Hilario formed his own band “Perspectiva” which toured successfully through Latin America and Europe. One year later, Hilario participated as a pianist in Jane Bunnett’s JUNO Award Winner CD “Spirits of Havana”. In 1995, following a successful European tour with his band “Perspectiva”, Durán decided the time was then right for him to pursue his solo career, allowing him more scope to follow the many different areas of his musical interests.

After two internationally released solo albums, “Francisco’s Song” (1996), and “Killer Tumbao” (1997, featuring a hosts of Cuban musical giants as Tata Güines and Changüito), Hilario Durán decided to move to Canada with his family and released the “Habana Nocturna” album, “… a round – trip ticket from Cuban music to Jazz and back…”

Since his move to Canada, Hilario Durán has become an integral and important part of the Canadian music scene. He is an invaluable member of the Jazz Faculty at Humber College, acting as both and adjunct Piano Professor and Ensemble Director. Hilario has appeared internationally with a variety of performance groups, including an appearance at “The Modern Drummer Festival” with Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez, John Patitucci, and Michael Brecker. Also, a memorable performance at “The Barranquilla Jazz Festival” in Colombia, in 2001, as well as engagements with an “All–Stars” band that included heavy-weight musicians Dave Valentin, Juan Pablo Torres, John Benitez, and “Patato” Valdés. Durán also performed in October 2002 (as a pianist and composer) with saxophonist Paquito D’ Rivera, violinist Regina carter and the living legend Brazilian singer Leny Andrade, joined by “The World Festival Orchestra” New Jersey Performing Arts Center (N.P.C.A.C)

Hilario is currently working as a composer with the classical ensembles of Gryphon Trio, and Quartetto Gelato.

In 2005, Hilario formed his explosive Big Band Orchestra with top Canadian and Cuban musicians in Toronto, being one of the highlights of the "Distillery Jazz Festival”, “Autoworkers Assembly Hall Big Band Festival”, in Port Elgin, and “Sound of Toronto Jazz Series”, critically acclaimed by the press.

Hilario’s latest releases are “New Danzon” (2005 JUNO Awards Winner), which has taken the wonderful classic Cuban music called “Danzon” to new heights (“New Danzon” melds the traditional with sophisticated Be-Bop and technical musical mastery), and “Encuentro en La Habana” recorded in Cuba, Feb. 2005, with the former members of “Perspectiva”. "Encuentro en La Habana" is a musical celebration. This CD shows the joy of the reunion, great energy, spontaneity, and creativity.

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Empire Brass – brass quintet

Empire Brass, acclaimed as North America's finest brass ensemble, is internationally renowned for its virtuosity and unparalleled diverse repertoire. The quintet’s members, Rolf Smedvig - founder and first trumpet, Marc Reese - trumpet, Michelle Perry - horn, Mark Hetzler - trombone, and Kenneth Amis - tuba, have all held leading positions with major American orchestras. In addition to playing across the United States, appearing with major orchestras and at summer festivals in North America and Europe, the quintet has toured the Far East 17 times, including a debut tour of China in 1999/2000, and is a frequent guest on US radio and television. The quintet is equally at home in Gabrieli’s antiphonal works and Rodgers and Lloyd Webber’s show-stopping Broadway tunes. Best-selling recordings of music spanning 500 years from a dozen countries have introduced a worldwide audience to brass music ranging from Hildegard von Bingen, Bach and Handel to Bartók and Bernstein, from arrangements for brass and percussion of music from 138 B.C. to 1611 A.D., to jazz and Broadway. Among many honours, the ensemble has received the Naumburg Prize and Harvard Music Award.

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Evelyn Greenberg – piano

Evelyn Greenberg, one of Canada’s foremost vocal accompanists, has performed at the National Arts Centre and Centrepointe Theatre in Ottawa, Toronto’s Ford Centre for the Performing Arts, the Canadian Embassies in Tokyo and Washington, DC, and often for CBC Radio and Radio-Canada broadcasts. A versatile ensemble pianist, she has accompanied musical theatre and opera as well as classical repertoire for singers, instrumentalists and choirs. For many years a member of the Department of Music, University of Ottawa, where she initiated and taught the accompaniment courses, she continues to lecture and give master classes on the art of accompaniment. She founded the National Arts Centre Orchestra Association and the Canada-Israel Foundation. In 2005, she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Ottawa in recognition of her dedication to the University and its students and her community volunteer work. In her honour, the University also established the Evelyn Greenberg Music Endowment Fund to purchase and maintain instruments for the Department of Music.

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Susan Hoeppner – flute

Canadian flute virtuoso Susan Hoeppner is a musician of international renown. James Galway calls her "one of the best talents of her generation." As a solo recitalist she performs throughout Europe, Asia, North and Latin America. Since her debut at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Ms. Hoeppner has performed as a guest soloist with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Lisbon Radio Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic, Metropolitain Orchestre de Montreal, Sacramento Symphony, Canadian Chamber Ensemble, New York Chamber Players, Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, among others. Her numberous recordings appear on EMI Classics, BIS, JVC Victor and Marquis Classics labels. A graduate of The Juilliard School, Ms. Hoeppner is currently a member of the University of Toronto's Faculty of Music. As Canadian Performing Artist for Yamaha, she travels and performs extensively throughout Canada and the U.S. giving masterclasses.

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