Ottawa Chamber Music Society

Artist Bios

Beverley Johnston – percussion

Beverley Johnston, is acclaimed as Canada’s foremost percussionist and internationally recognized for her virtuosity on a wide range of percussion instruments, combining classical transcriptions, contemporary music and a touch of theatre. Appearing as soloist and recitalist across North America, in Europe and Japan, her performances and recordings have been broadcast on radio networks worldwide. She has performed many premieres including Japanese composer Maki Ishii’s Afro Concerto, and concertos written especially for her by Canadian composers Gary Kulesha and Patrick Cardy, and Michael Colgrass’ Te Tuma Te Papa which she performed worldwide. Recent engagements include the world premiere of Christos Hatzis’ Pyrrichean Dances with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, guest appearances with ensembles such as the Penderecki String Quartet and Soundstreams Canada, and at festivals such as the Open Ears and Zeltsman Marimba festivals. Her performance collaborations have included combinations of dance, movement and theatre. She teaches at the University of Toronto and has given numerous school concerts, also with the Toronto Percussion Ensemble.

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Emma Kirkby – soprano

Emma Kirkby performs worldwide with leading Baroque orchestras and ensembles and major symphony orchestras. As an Oxford classics student and schoolteacher, she did not aspire to becoming a professional singer but sang in choirs and small groups, particularly enjoying Renaissance and Baroque repertoire. She joined the Taverner Choir in 1971 and in 1973 began her long association with the Consort of Musicke. At the time of her early recordings with the Consort of Musicke and the Academy of Ancient Music, most sopranos were not seeking a sound appropriate for early instruments but she found her own approach over the years, working with her teacher Jessica Cash, directors and fellow musicians. She has made over 100 recordings ranging from Hildegarde von Bingen to Renaissance madrigals, Baroque cantatas and oratorios, Mozart and Haydn. In 1999, Classic FM Radio listeners voted her Artist of the Year, and in 2000 she received the Order of the British Empire.

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Leipzig String Quartet

Founded in 1988 by violinists Andreas Seidel and Tilman Büning, violist
Ivo Bauer and cellist Matthias Moosdorf, the renowned Leipzig String Quartet has
performed in concert and at major festivals worldwide. In North America, recent engagements include premier venues such as New York’s Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall, and chamber music series and festivals across the United States and Canada. At the Gewandhaus, the Quartet’s concert series has presented since 1991, among others, a multi-year cycle of the major quartets of the two Viennese Schools including many world premieres. Dedicated to contemporary music, the Quartet also presents with the Leipzig Ensemble Avantgard the award-winning Musica Nova series at the Gewandhaus. The Quartet was one of the initiators of the 1996/97 Beethoven Quartet Cycle performed by six quartets in over 15 European centres as a sign of European friendship. To celebrate it's 20th anniversary, the Quartet will perform a Beethoven cycle worldwide in 2007/08. The Quartet’s eminent chamber music partners include Karl Leister, Michael Sanderling and Alfred Brendel, and its recordings, spanning from Mozart to Cage, have won coveted awards and prizes.

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Stéphane Lemelin – piano

Stéphane Lemelin regularly performs as a soloist and chamber musician in Canada, the United States, Europe and Asia. He has been guest soloist with major Canadian orchestras and has collaborated with artists such as Donna Brown, James Campbell and the Arthur-LeBlanc and St. Lawrence string quartets. Recipient of several national and international awards and prizewinner of the Robert Casadesus International Competition in Cleveland (Ohio), he studied with Yvonne Hubert, Karl-Ulrich Schnabel, Leon Fleisher, Boris Berman and Claude Frank, and holds a doctorate from Yale University. As evident from his recordings, his repertoire is vast, with a predilection for Romantic and especially French music. His 15 recordings include the complete Nocturnes of Fauré, works by Saint-Saëns, Debussy and Roussel, but also works by lesser-known composers such as Gustave Samazeuilh and Guy Ropartz. He is professor at the University of Ottawa, a member of Trio Hochelaga, and artistic director of the Prince Edward County Music Festival, an annual Ontario chamber music event.

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Les Boréades

Founded by Francis Colpron in 1991, Les Boréades focuses on Baroque repertoire and an interpretative approach that respects the spirit of the time by adhering to the rules of performance practice and playing on period instruments. Critics and audiences in Canada and abroad have acclaimed the ensemble's unique flair for Baroque aesthetics. Les Boréades' annual concert series, with internationally renowned guest artists, presented at Montréal’s historic Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel is often recorded and broadcast by Radio-Canada. The group has received many Quebec and Canadian government grants and has toured extensively in Canada and abroad, participating in major festivals. In 2005, the musicians performed at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and Salle Gaveau in Paris and was ensemble-in-residence at the Nova Scotia Festival. Les Boréades won the Conseil québécois de la musique Prix Opus for best performance of the 1998-1999 season, and in 2000 won the Prix Opus for best recording of the year in early and classical music. The ensemble's dozen recordings feature renowned artists such as Hervé Niquet, Skip Sempé, Manfredo Kraemer, Alex Weimann, Eric Milnes and Karina Gauvin.

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Mandelring Quartet

Formed by violinists Sebastian Schmidt and Nanette Schmidt, violist Roland Glassl and cellist Bernhard Schmidt, the Mandelring Quartet has appeared in the world’s great concert halls since winning a number of prestigious competitions. In addition to numerous engagements in Germany, the Quartet has appeared in many premier concert centres in Europe, including Amsterdam, Brussels, Copenhagen, Madrid, Paris and Vienna, and performed in major centres around the world such as New York, Vancouver, Sao Paulo, Algiers, Beirut, Damascus, P'yongyang and Ramallah. The Quartet has participated in festivals including Lockenhaus, Montpellier, Montreal, Schleswig-Holstein and Salzburg. The Mandelring is joined every year by world-renowned musicians at the HAMBACHERMusikFEST, established by the Quartet in 1997 and now a venue for chamber music lovers from all over the world. The Quartet’s repertoire and acclaimed recordings offer discoveries such as the works of early Romantic French composer Georges Onslow, and Friedrich Gernsheim, a close friend of Brahms, and the string quartets of exiled German composer Berthold Goldschmidt. The Quartet is presently recording Shostakovich’s complete string quartets; the first CD released has met with high critical acclaim.

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Manon Lafrance – trompette

Professeur de trompette et d’ensemble de cuivres au Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, Manon Lafrance est trompette solo de l’Orchestre des Grands Ballets Canadiens à Montréal et de l’Orchestre Symphonique de Laval. Elle est membre de l’ensemble de cuivres Capital BrassWorks et le Rideau Lakes Brass Quintet à Ottawa ainsi que l’Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal. Elle joue fréquemment avec l’Orchestre du Centre National des Arts à Ottawa et les Violons du Roy. Avec plus de 55 disques à son actif, elle enregistra en septembre 2005 un CD avec le trompettiste Jens Lindemann et le tromboniste Alain Trudel. Manon Lafrance enregistra le Concerto pour trompette et orchestre à cordes du compositeur américain James Cohn, avec le Latvian National Orchestra en Lettonie, Riga, New-York, en octobre 2001. Elle prend part à plusieurs tournées à travers les Etats-Unis, l’Europe et le Japon. Depuis 2001, Manon Lafrance fait partie du corps professoral de la session des cuivres au Domaine Forget.

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Marilyn McDonald – violin

Marilyn McDonald has toured worldwide as a member of the Castle Trio, Smithson String Quartet, Oberlin Baroque Ensemble and Pierrot Ensemble, a group specializing in contemporary music. She is a member of the Axelrod Quartet, an ensemble that performs on the Smithsonian Institute’s Stradivarius instruments. She has appeared as recitalist and soloist with orchestras across the United States, and is concertmaster of the Peninsula Music Festival Orchestra, Smithsonian Chamber Players and often of Boston Baroque. Her appearances reflect her versatility: soloist with the Milwaukee Symphony, concerts at Yale University, the Metropolitan Museum and Alice Tully Hall in New York, and at summer festivals including the Baroque Performance Institute, Fairbanks (Alaska) and Bowdoin festivals. An internationally recognized teacher of both baroque and modern violin, she is Professor of Violin at Oberlin Conservatory and visiting artist at Boston University, and has been visiting professor at Indiana University and Eastman School of music. Her recordings include the Castle Trio’s critically acclaimed Beethoven Trios.

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Shannon Mercer – soprano

Hailed as one of Canada's most promising young sopranos, Shannon Mercer began her career in the Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio Program. She is now a sought-after soloist in opera, recital, concert, early music and contemporary repertoire. In 2005, supported by a Canada Council grant, she studied German operatic repertoire in Vienna. Upon her return, she sang with Barbara Bonney in a Mozart recital with the The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York City. Recent engagements included a solo recital with Music Toronto in The Discovery Series, appearing as Nannetta in Verdi’s Falstaff with Opera Lyra Ottawa, and a Schubertiade recital in the Aldeburgh Connection Series at Glen Gould Studio in Toronto. In June, she reprised the role of Grace Goodbody in the new Canadian opera, The Midnight Court, in Covent Garden. In October 2006, she will star as Despina in Cosi fan Tutte, the Canadian Opera Company’s opening season production at Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.

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Manuela Milani - violin

Formerly with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, Manuela Milani joined the National Arts Centre Orchestra in 1998, and is also concertmaster of Thirteen Strings. As chamber musician, she has performed at major summer festivals in Lanaudière, Parry Sound and Ottawa, among others, and is heard regularly on CBC Radio and Radio-Canada. Her discography includes the Ottawa Chamber Music Society’s acclaimed recording of Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ and, with the Chamber Players of Canada, the chamber versions of the Chopin piano concertos. She was awarded a Premier Prix by the Conservatoire de musique du Québec where her teachers were Jean-François Rivest in Chicoutimi and Sonia Jeliniková in Montreal. With a Quebec Arts Council grant, she studied with Sylvia Rosenberg at the Manhattan School of Music and at Indiana University where she also studied baroque violin with Stanley Ritchie. As winner of the Janácek prize at the 1993 Montreal Czech and Slovak music competition, she performed recitals in Prague, Brno and Bratislava.

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Christopher Millard – bassoon

Christopher Millard, “one of the great bassoonists of the 20th century” (The Double Reed), became principal bassoon of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in 2004, after 29 seasons in this position at the Vancouver Symphony and CBC Radio orchestras. He has been a regular guest artist and teacher at major festivals including the Scotia, Orford, Vancouver, Ottawa, Domaine Forget, Banff Centre and Sante Fe festivals. He has appeared in concert and recorded with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Music from Marlboro, and World Orchestra for Peace, and as principal with the Grand Teton Festival Orchestra. His acclaimed recordings include the Schubert Octet with the Canadian Chamber Players and the Hetu Bassoon Concerto that won a 2004 Juno Award.

Bassoon professor for the National Youth Orchestra for 20 years and long-time faculty member at the University of British Columbia, he now teaches at the University of Ottawa. He is also weekly host of the National Arts Centre’s NacoCast.

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Moscow String Quartet

Schnittke described the Moscow String Quartet as "an extraordinary ensemble“. The members, violinists Eugenia Alikhanova and Galina Kokhanovskaia, violist Tatiana Kokhanovskaia and cellist Olga Ogranovitch, graduated from the Moscow Conservatory and Gnessin Musical Institute (Moscow), where they studied, among others, with Valentin Berlinsky of the Borodin Quartet with whom the Quartet continued to study after graduation. Since winning the 1978 Leo Weiner International Quartet Competition in Budapest and 1979 International Quartet Competition in Evian, France, the Quartet has played in Europe’s major concert halls, including Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Salle Gaveau in Paris, London’s Wigmore Hall, Leipzig’s Gewandhaus, and Berlin’s Academy of Arts. The Quartet has appeared in many prestigious festivals, including the Paris and City of London festivals, Berliner Festwochen, Casals Festival in Prades, and Catalonia Festival in Spain. The Quartet has performed across North America from New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Frick Collection, to San Diego and Seattle, Vancouver and Montreal. In residence at the Lamont School of Music, Denver, from1991-96, the Quartet has been at the University of Colorado, Denver, since 1997. Recent recordings include Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Schnittke and Glinka.

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Margaret Munro Tobolowska – cello

Margaret Munro Tobolowska, a member of the National Arts Centre Orchestra since 1999, also performs as solo recitalist and is much in demand as a chamber musician. She has performed at prestigious chamber music festivals in Europe and the United States, including the Verbier in Switzerland, Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Ravinia in Chicago, and in Canada at Parry Sound, Ottawa, Lanaudière and Domaine Forget. She has collaborated with noted artists such as Pinchas Zukerman, Trevor Pinnock, James Campbell and Judy Loman. Multi-talented, her new passion is writing stories, composing and performing for children. Her first project, A Cello for Chelsea, and accompanying CD, have received accolades from critics and audiences since its debut at the 2005 Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival. She presents her new project, Zara the Maggini, at this year’s Festival. A prize-winning graduate of the University of Toronto, she joined the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra after obtaining her Artist Diploma from the Curtis Institute in 1994.

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Penderecki String Quartet

The Penderecki String Quartet was formed in Poland in 1986 and named for Polish composer Krysztof Penderecki. Performing year-round on the great concert stages of North and South America, Europe and the Far East, the celebrated Quartet’s recent engagements have included concerts in New York, Amsterdam, St. Petersburg, Paris and Los Angeles, and international festivals in Poland, Lithuania, Italy, Venezuela, Hong Kong and Shanghai. The Quartet has collaborated with many eminent ensembles and artists such as the Borodin Trio, James Campbell and Janina Fialkowska. Championing music of our time, the Quartet performs a wide range of repertoire from Haydn to Zappa, and to date has premiered over 100 new works. The Quartet’s large discography includes the chamber music of Bach and Shostakovich and the Bartók cycle. Quartet-in-residence at Sir Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada, since 1992, the ensemble is dedicated to Quartetfest, an intensive Spring-term seminar where the Tokyo, Ying and Colorado quartets have been among the eminent guest faculty. The members of the Quartet are violinists Jeremy Bell and Jerzy Kaplanek, violist Christine Vlajk and cellist Simon Fryer.

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