Amici faculty members – Fiona Carnie, Andrea Case, Diane Lane, Olena Kilchyk, Leila Linton, and Andrea Poon – welcome local and guest performers for Amici String Camp and Calgary Stringfest.
DANIEL BROWN viola
Violist and educator Daniel Brown currently runs the Strings program at William Aberhart High School. He has conducted orchestras through both the Amici String Program and the Mount Royal University Junior Orchestras Program. As a violist, he maintains a busy schedule of chamber music and private teaching. Mr. Brown has performed professionally with Syracuse’s Symphoria, the Michigan Philharmonic, and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. In Calgary, Mr. Brown has appeared in concert series for the Instrumental Society of Calgary, the Health Arts Society of Alberta, the National Music Centre, the Kensington Sinfonia, and more. He received his Bachelor of Music from the University of Michigan where he studied with Yizhak Schotten, and performed with the University Symphony Orchestra, including the recording of Milhaud’s L’Orestie d’Eschyle Triology, which was nominated for a GRAMMY award. Further studies include a year at Stanford University, where Mr. Brown worked with the St. Lawrence String Quartet while obtaining his Master’s of Arts in Education. Mr. Brown also holds degrees from the University of Michigan in French Language and Literature, as well as German Studies.
CATHERINE ORDRONNEU piano & KAI GLEUSTEEN violin
Catherine Ordronneau performed her first recital at the age of twelve and it wasn’t until the age of twenty, after two years of law school, that she decided to devote herself entirely to music. She received the highest distinction at the Conservatory in Rouen and later the prestigious Concert Award at the Ecole Normale Alfred Cortot in Paris. She devotes a large part of her time to the duo with Kai Gleusteen and the Trio Liceu.
Violinist Kai Gleusteen studied violin from the age of five in his native city, Calgary. By the age of seventeen, Kai was awarded the top prize in the Commonwealth Concerto Competition in Australia and the prestigious Skene Award in Scotland. Kai is the concertmaster of the Orchestra ‘del Gran Teatre del Liceu’ in Barcelona, where he is also
Professor at the Escuela Superior de Musica de Catalunya. He continues to perform extensively as a soloist in Europe and North America and has released numerous critically acclaimed recordings.
BETH ROOT SANDVOSS cello
Cellist Beth Root Sandvoss has a notably varied career as a recitalist, chamber musician and pedagogue. Beth’s early professional activities took her to Hong Kong, where she became a member of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra as well as the Victoria String Quartet, performing throughout Asia. After completing undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison with cellist Parry Karp, Beth finished graduate work at the Cleveland Institute of Music as well as further studies in San Francisco. Beth settled in Calgary, Alberta where she enjoys an active performance career in Canada and abroad. Beth has recorded six commercial CDs and has premiered more than 50 new works for solo cello, cello/piano and chamber ensemble.
Beth has an intense interest in new music and is a founding member of the acclaimed Land’s End Ensemble, whose most recent Centrediscs release, Gravity and Grace, won a Juno Award and a Western Canadian Music Award in the category of Classical Composition of the year (2014) for the work Field Notes by Allan Gordon Bell. In addition to her Land’s End Ensemble activities, Beth is a member of the UCalgary String Quartet in residence at the University of Calgary. Nominated as Instrumental Group of the Year, the UCalgary String Quartet has completed live recordings of all the Beethoven String Quartets as well as the CD Far Behind I left My Country which features Klezmer and East European Folk Music.
Along with her performance career, Beth is a very dedicated pedagogue. As a sought after clinician she has worked with both teachers and students on her methods. Her pupils have won numerous competitions in Canada and are regularly invited to summer festivals around the world. Beth’s students have continued on as scholarship students to major universities and conservatories such as New England Conservatory, Mannes College of Music and the Juilliard School. She is a faculty member at Mount Royal University as well as the University of Calgary and spends her summers teaching and performing at music festivals throughout Canada and the United States. Beth has the great pleasure and privilege to perform on an award – winning cello made by her husband, Luthier, Christopher Sandvoss.
“The performance brought out its depth of passion….Beth Root Sandvoss has a beautiful sound, coupled with an excellent sense of harmony—“ Gordon Rumson, Music and Vision
DANIEL SCHOLZ viola
Originally from Regina, Daniel studied at the University of Regina, McGill University and at the University of British Columbia. He was a prize winner at the Lionel Tertis Viola Competition, the most prestigious event of its kind, held on the Isle of Mann. Daniel is the Principal Viola of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, and is a member of the Winnipeg Chamber Music Society, and the Rembrandt String Quartet. As a solo artist, Daniel has performed with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, Musickbarock, the Okanagan Symphony and the Vancouver Chamber Players. Daniel has also toured Europe with the Nordic Symphony of Tallinn, Estonia as Guest Principal Viola.
Daniel is an instructor at the Marcel A. Desautels Faculty of Music at the University of Manitoba as well as the conductor of the Winnipeg Youth Symphony Orchestra. Daniel also adjudicates for many of Canada’s major music festivals. He has performed and taught at many of Canada’s major festivals and is a faculty member of the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, Rosamunde Summer Academy in Winnipeg and the Amici Summer Strings in Calgary. Daniel was also invited to perform and teach in Perth, Australia by the Australian String Teachers Association and the West Australian and New Zealand Viola Society. Daniel plays on a contemporary viola made by Garth Lee of Winnipeg.
LOUISE STUPPARD violin
Louise Stuppard is a founding member and co- artistic director of String Theory Music Collective, Calgary’s visionary early music ensemble. She is Principal Second Violin of the Red Deer Symphony Orchestra and a member of the Juno Award winning Baroque ensemble Rosa Barocca. An active free- lance musician, Louise also maintains a busy teaching studio.