Mark Fewer, Yolanda Bruno, Julian Schwarz, Joel Quarrington
Biography Mark Fewer, Yolanda Bruno, Julian Schwarz, Joel Quarrington
Mark Fewer
Described as “genre-bending” (National Post) and “freaky good” (The Gazette), Mark Fewer has performed around the world in halls such as Carnegie and Salle Pleyel. As a soloist, he has performed with the Vancouver and Toronto symphonies, to name a few, as well as with groups such as the Zapp Quartet. He was a founding member of the Duke Piano Trio, has been a member of the Smithsonian Chamber Players for over 15 years, and was violinist with the St. Lawrence String Quartet at Stanford University, where he was Artist-in-Residence. Mr. Fewer has been Artistic Director of the SweetWater Music Festival for 16 years, and in 2019 began a new appointment as Artistic Director of Stratford Summer Music. He is currently Associate Professor of Violin and the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto.
Yolanda Bruno
has been praised for her "total control of her instrument with infinite variety in the sound palette" (La Presse) and was recently named on CBC’s 30 Hot Canadian Classical Musicians Under 30.
Yolanda has performed across North America and Europe including solos with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Métropolitain, the Orchestra of the Americas and the London Mozart Players. She has appeared in festivals including the Montreal Chamber Music Festival, the Ottawa Chamberfest, Toronto Summer Music Festival, the BBC Proms and the International Musicians’ Seminar Prussia Cove. Yolanda’s performances have been broadcast on CBC Radio 2, ICI Musique as well as on BBC Radio 3. A devoted chamber musician, Yolanda has collaborated with Pinchas Zukerman, Menahem Pressler, Paul Lewis and Levon Chilingirian.
She is the recipient of numerous awards and scholarships, most recently winning the 2017 Isabel Overton Bader Violin Competition and was the grand prize winner at the OSM Standard Life Competition in 2013. Yolanda is a three-time recipient of the Sylva Gelber Career Development Award and is also the recipient of Canada Council’s Virginia Parker Award, a distinction shared with her fellow Canadian musicians Yannick Nézet-Séguin, James Ehnes and Marc-André Hamelin. A laureate of the 2015 Canada Council of the Arts Musical Instrument Bank Competition, Yolanda was generously loaned the 1700 Taft Stradivari violin.
Yolanda is passionate about her role in engaging music in the community in Canada and abroad. She has performed and presented workshops in schools, long-term care facilities, hospitals and airports. Yolanda has worked with young people through the Multi-Story Orchestra’s school concerts in South London, with the East London Youth Orchestra and with the Orchestra of the Americas. She has presented music in hospitals and long-term care homes through Health Arts Canada, the Alzheimer Society of Peel and the YMCA’s Brightspot program through partnerships with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
In addition to Yolanda’s performance career, she has worked as a broadcast contributor on CBC Radio 2’s In Concert program; her Hot Ticket episodes explored musical performances of interest happening in Canada and sharing why radio audiences should attend. She has also worked as guest emcee for concert events and competitions, and in 2020 was the host on CBC’s This Is My Music program.
Yolanda launched “The Wild Swans” album with longtime duo-partner, pianist Isabelle David, in 2019. The disc features music steeped in story-telling written by eleven women composers, and includes premiere recordings by Alexina Louie and a new commission from Kelly-Marie Murphy by Yolanda and cellist Carmen Bruno. The project was funded by over 140 contributors through a Kickstarter campaign.
In 2021, Yolanda created Music for Your Blues; the performance series offers free, one-on-one musical performances over Zoom with the goal of improving mental health and providing connectedness during this time of fluctuating lockdown restrictions. The sessions include a live performance with supporting material touching on philosophical, literary and scientific topics as well as casual conversation.
Yolanda comes from a family of Dutch, Italian and Argentinian heritage. Her mother is a violin teacher and sister, Carmen Bruno, is a cellist. Raised in Ottawa, Yolanda completed studies with Jonathan Crow at McGill University, with David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, UK and later with Julia Wedman on Baroque violin.
Yolanda joined the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 2019, having previously served as concertmaster of the Kingston Symphony Orchestra. She performs on a 1737 Domenico Montagnana violin on generous loan from Groupe Canimex Inc. in Drummondville, Quebec.
Julian Schwarz
was born to a multigenerational musical family in 1991. Heralded from a young age as a cellist destined to rank among the greatest of the 21st century, Julian’s powerful tone, effortless virtuosity, and extraordinarily large color palette are hallmarks of his style.
After making his concerto debut at the age of 11 with the Seattle Symphony and his father Gerard Schwarz on the podium, he made his US touring debut with the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2010. Since being awarded first prize at the inaugural Schoenfeld International String Competition in 2013, he has led an active career as soloist, performing with the symphony orchestras of Annapolis, Boise, Buffalo, Charlotte, Columbus, Des Moines, Hartford, Jacksonville, Louisville, Memphis, Modesto, Omaha, Puerto Rico, Richmond, Rochester, San Antonio, Sarasota, Seattle, Syracuse, Toledo, Tucson, Virginia, West Virginia, Wichita, and Winston-Salem, among others. Internationally, he made his Australian debut with the Queensland Symphony, his Mexican debuts with the Boca del Rio Philharmonic in Veracruz and the Mexico City Philharmonic with frequent collaborator Jorge Mester, and his Hong Kong debut at the Intimacy of Creativity Festival. He has also appeared at the Salzburg Mozarteum, and the Verbier festival in Switzerland.
As a chamber musician, Mr. Schwarz performs extensively in recital with fiancée Marika Bournaki. In 2016 the Schwarz-Bournaki duo was awarded first prize at the inaugural Boulder International String Competition’s “The Art of Duo”, and subsequently embarked on an extensive 10-recital tour of China in March 2017. Mr. Schwarz is a founding member of the New York based Frisson Ensemble (a mixed nonet of winds and strings), and the Mile-End Trio with violinist Jeff Multer and Ms. Bournaki. He performs frequently at Bargemusic in Brooklyn with violinist Mark Peskanov, on the Frankly Music Series in Milwaukee with violinist Frank Almond, as a member of the Palladium Chamber Players in St Petersburg FL, and has appeared at the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, and the Seattle Chamber Music Festival. In addition, he is the co-coordinator of chamber music at Eastern Music Festival, running programming for the Tuesday evening chamber music series.
Julian Schwarz is an ardent supporter of new music, and has premiered concertos by Richard Danielpour and Samuel Jones (recorded with the All Star Orchestra for public television in 2012, subsequently released as a DVD on Naxos). In the 17-18 season, he gave the world premiere of Lowell Liebermann’s first Cello Concerto with a consortium of six orchestras. Other premieres include recital works by Paul Frucht, Scott Ordway, Jonathan Cziner, Gavin Fraser, Alex Weiser, Ofer Ben-Amots, and the US Premiere of Dobrinka Tabakova’s Cello Concerto. On record, he has recorded Bright Sheng’s “Northern Lights” for Naxos, the complete cello/piano works by Ernest Bloch for the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music, and an album of concertos with the Seattle Symphony.
A devoted teacher, Mr. Schwarz serves as Asst. Professor of Cello at Shenandoah Conservatory of Shenandoah University (Winchester, VA) and on the artist faculty of New York University (NYU Steinhardt). He spends his summers teaching and performing at the Eastern Music Festival (Greensboro, NC). Past faculty appointments include artist-in-residence at the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance (Nova Scotia, Canada), faculty teaching assistant to Joel Krosnick at The Juilliard School, and artist-In-residence at the pianoSonoma Festival.
Born in Seattle, WA, Mr. Schwarz studied at the Academy of Music Northwest and the Lakeside School. He continued to the Colburn School in Los Angeles under Ronald Leonard, and then moved to New York City to study with mentor Joel Krosnick at The Juilliard School (BM 14, MM 16). Other influential teachers include the late David Tonkonogui, the late Toby Saks, Lynn Harrell, Neal Cary, and chamber music mentors Andre Roy, Arnold Steinhardt, Jonathan Feldman, Toby Appel and Paul Coletti. Julian plays a Neapolitan cello made by Gennaro Gagliano in 1743 and an American bow made by Paul Martin Siefried. He is an active contributor to Strings Magazine’s Artist Blog, and sits on the music committee of the National Arts Club. A Pirastro artist, he endorses and plays the "Perpetual" medium and edition sets of cello strings. Julian also proudly endorses Melos Rosin.
Joel Quarrington
Born in Toronto, Joel Quarrington began his formal studies of the double bass when he was thirteen. Upon graduation from the University of Toronto, he was awarded the “Eaton Scholarship” as the school’s most outstanding graduate. Joel is a winner of the Geneva International Competition and the CBC Talent Competition, and has made solo appearances across Canada, the United States, Europe and China.
Joel teaches in the summers at the Orford Arts Centre in Quebec’s beautiful Eastern Townships where his master classes have attracted players from around the world. He also teaches at the University of Ottawa and at the Royal Academy of Music in London where he is a “Visiting Artist”.
He has performed with many of the world’s leading string quartets including the Orford, Vermeer, Cleveland, Colorado, St. Lawrence, Allegri, Artis, Leipzig and Tokyo Quartets as well as the Pinchas Zukerman Chamber Players. Their Sony recording of Schubert’s Trout Quintet with Yefim Bronfman became an instant classic. He is particularly honoured to have been a part of a 1982 recording session with the legendary Glenn Gould for the soundtrack of Timothy Findley’s The Wars. Written for solo cello and bass and based on Brahms’ Intermezzi, this turned out to be the last music composed by Gould before his untimely death.
In April of 2005 he had the honour of playing the world premier John Harbison’s Concerto for Bass with the Toronto Symphony and conductor Hugh Wolf.
Joel has made several solo recordings that have made him famous at least in the bass world. His early Bottesini recordings on the NAXOS label are considered by many to be definitive. In April 2010, his recording, “Garden Scene”, won the 2010 Juno Award for Best Classical Recording. It was released by the Analekta label and features music of Korngold, Gliere, M.Weinberg, J.C. Bach and Bottesini. June 2013 marked the release of his most recent recording “Brothers in Brahms”, which features music of Robert Fuchs, Robert Schumann and the 1st Violin Sonata in G op.78 by Johannes Brahms. He was very happy to collaborate with the remarkable young Canadian pianist, David Jalbert for this project and in February 2015 this recording won the prestigious “Prix Opus” as the Outstanding Romantic Classical Recording of the year in Quebec.
In 2011, he received a Special Recognition Award for Outstanding Solo Performance from the International Society of Bassists and in 2015 they awarded Joel the same award for Outstanding Orchestral Performance.
He performs on an Italian bass made in 1608 by the Italian master, Giovanni Paolo Maggini and is an enthusiastic advocate of the historical practice of tuning the bass in fifths (CGDA, an octave lower than the cello) rather than the customary fourths. He believes fifths tuning leads to clearer and more accurate performance in all ranges of the bass, as well as greater tonal richness.
Joel is married to cellist Carole Sirois, and they live happily beside the Gatineau Park near Chelsea, Quebec with their prized cat Timinou.
