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News
Ang Li
- Winner of the 2007 Contemporary Record Society Competition, 1st prize and 5 special prizes at the 2003 Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal competition and many others
- Live broadcast performance from the Kennedy Centre in NYC, celebrating the Juilliard School’s centennial year
- Upcoming summer tour of China, where she has performed previously in the Forbidden City Concert Hall, the Beijing Concert Hall and the China National Center for the Performing Arts
Duo Concertante
- December 2009 Duo Concertante performs the Mendelssohn Double Concerto with the Timmins Symphony Orchestra, and will be featured on the Timmins Chamber Music Series in a performance of the Schumann Piano Quintet
- Winter/Spring of 2010: The Duo continues its busy touring schedule Saskatchewan and Newfoundland, following by a return to B.C., stopping in Vancouver, West Vancouver, Prince Rupert, Powell River and Pender Island
- World Premiere of R. Murray Schafer Commission by Duo Concertante
The Ottawa Chamber Music Festival presented Duo Concertante’s World Premiere performance of Duo for Violin and Piano, commissioned by the Duo and written by one of Canada’s most revered composers. The August engagement, where the Ottawa Citizen wrote that they played “beautifully”, also included a children’s concert and collaborative performances. Other festival appearances last summer included P.E.I.’s Indian River festival and of course the Tuckamore Festival: Chamber Music in Newfoundland, of which Dahn & Steeves are Artistic Directors.
- June, 2009 Duo Concertante prepares to record a Fifth CD with Barbara Budd
Hot on the heels of its April release of “It Takes Two”, the Duo will be releasing its fifth CD, featuring the Schafer Duo as well as a previously commissioned work by Canadian composer Chan Ka Nin, with spoken parts to be performed by the irrepressible Barbara Budd. Recording will take place in Toronto in June, at the end of a season of tours which included England, Germany, New England, B.C., and a second international tour of China.
- Tuesday, May 5, 2009 Duo Concertante performed at the Canadian Opera Company’s Free Concert Series at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. Featured will be repertoire from the newly released and warmly-received “It Takes Two”, a recording of encore chestnuts arranged especially for the Duo by Canadian composer Clifford Crawley.
Julia Halfyard
- Showcasing this September at Contact East, in Antigonish, NS!
- Julia was featured in last season’s hilarious and hugely successful show Fear of Flight, a large-scale choral, vocal and theatre production exploring the fears of a group of tremulous travelers on a plane together. Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland mounted this show with the help of 6 of Canada’s top playwrights, and it features music by Julia Halfyard’s longtime collaborator, Jonathan Munro.
- Proving her diversity, Julia is one of the artists featured on David Chafe’s 2007 award-winning gospel album “Bright and Beautiful” • Julia’s highly successful Summer Music Theatre is being held once again this summer, attracting students from far and wide to learn all aspects of entertaining and working in the music theatre milieu.
The Zodiac Trio
- The Zodiac Trio - chosen to showcase at the 2010 CINARS international conference November 15 - 21
- The Zodiac Trio is this year’s winner of the Encore Grant from the American Composer Forum, in association with composer Andrew List from Berklee College in Boston. The Zodiac Trio was chosen to perform Mr. List’s "Noa Noa. A Gauguin Tableau", which is now a feature of their 2009/10 programs
- First appearances in Canada garner standing ovations and glowing reviews, citing their performance of the Bartok Contrasts as “the best that I’ve ever heard…incredibly precise and fine sound.” (Jan Narveson, Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society, November 2009)
- 2009 – 2010 USA Highlights:
Russian River Music Festival - CA
Lincoln Friends of Chamber Music - Nebraska
Preston Hall- Chicago
Merkin Hall - New York.
- 2009 – 2010 Europe and Beyond Highlights:
The Louvre – Paris
Festival Montpellier – Radio France
Radio France “Soloists of the New Generation”
MozARia festival (southern France)
Musique a Flaine (Flaine, France)
Festival Autours d’un Piano (Paris)
2-week tour of China (Beijing, Dalian, Shanghai, Suzhou, Guangzhou, Zhongshan)
Recitals in Switzerland & Italy
- In 2007, the Zodiac Trio made Paris their headquarters, where they are on the artist roster of the Cziffra Foundation, an organization dedicated to promoting Europe’s top young artists. The young ensemble also enjoys support from Culture France, where they have been selected to receive sponsorship to represent France at international competitions.
Bowties
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May 2010 – As a result of Bowties showcase at last fall’s Manitoba Arts Network Showcase 2009 (October 17 in Neepawa, MB) , the group will be performing a 5-city tour in that province in April, 2011
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October 2009 – Bowties will perform showcases at both the Manitoba Arts Network Showcase 2009 (October 17 in Neepawa, MB) and at the Organization of Saskatchewan Arts Council’s Showcase 2009 (October 24 in Swift Current, SK). Bowties’ appearance in the Manitoba Arts Network showcase is made possible with the generous assistance of the Canada Council, as part of its Audience and Market Development Program.
- February of 2010, Bowties returns to its roots to perform another Atlantic Region tour! This unique show which explores the similarities and polar opposition of two music styles toured and recorded in Atlantic Canada in June of 2008 with a new show filled with music and laughter
- Classical violin/piano team Duo Concertante came to the table on its 10th anniversary of performing and touring internationally, with the presentation of the complete cycle of Beethoven sonatas and the release of its fourth CD as top events of the season. They were featured at last summer’s Ottawa Chamber Music Festival performing the World Premiere of a new work written for them by R. Murray Schafer, and they returned to China for the second time last September with another exciting and successful tour of that country.
- Master fiddler Gordon Stobbe along with acclaimed guitarist Greg Simm bring their expertise in the huge world of traditional music, with performances from the Yukon to Baffin Island to Louisiana and everywhere in between. Gordon’s fame as a fiddler and teacher take him everywhere from Halifax to Hollywood, and his latest CD has been lauded as “exuberant”, “excellent”, and “memorable”. In addition to his work with Bowties, Greg Simm has been directing, producing and performing with artists such as Natalie McMaster, Lennie Gallant, and the Mamas And Papas’ Denny Doherty, to name just a few.
Raffi Altounian
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Raffi Altounian will soon be heard on a Centrediscs CD release of new works by Canadian composer William Beauvais entitled “Invisible Cities”(CMCCD 14809). Mr. Altounian performs on this project as part of a quartet in a performance of 4 quartets by William Beauvais.
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In February, 2010, Raffi Altounian will be performing in a concert to promote the launch of a
CD of music by William Beauvais entitled "Invisible Cities". Mr. Altounian will be featured in duo performances with Mr. Beauvais, as well as in guitar quartet performances with Rob MacDonald and Michael Kolk.
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“Invisible Cities” has been broadcast on CBC Radio, NPR, and has made the Top Ten for CJSW FM in Alberta . As a chamber musician, Mr. Altounian performed in a live-to-air broadcast for CIUT Radio, featuring works from this recording.
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Past collaborations with William Beauvais have included a series of solo blues pieces entitled “Well Tempered Blues” published by Mel Bay in 2003. Mr. Altounian also premiered and was the dedicatee of a major solo piece entitled “Bound By Shadows” which is now included in the Royal Conservatory of Music Guitar Syllabus. Raffi Altounian and William Beauvais are now in the midst of an exciting new guitar duo project entitled “Music of the Americas”. Repertoire will include works by William Beauvais, Scott Joplin, Leo Brouwer, Antonio Lauro, Manuel Saumell amongst others.
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