Praised
for their 'extraordinary commitment and maturity' (Montreal Gazette)
and 'talent, passion and mastery' (Jacques Robert, JR Multimedia), the
Cecilia String Quartet is one of Canada's most exciting emerging
ensembles today. Second Prizewinners of the 2008 Osaka International
Chamber Music Competition and winners of the 2007 Galaxie Rising Stars
Award in
Canada, they
are currently recipients of the Joseph Fisch and Joyce Axelrod String
Quartet residency at San Diego State University in association with the
La Jolla Music Society.
Since
their inception in 2004, the quartet has held residencies at Laurier
University, The Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music
in Toronto, and at the University of Toronto where the quartet was
formed. Their debut performance at the Arts and Letters Club in
Toronto was met with high praise, and their first season culminated in
the receipt of the Felix Galimir Award for Chamber Music Excellence
after only 6 months as a quartet. Subsequently, they participated
in the Juilliard String Quartet Seminar in New York, the Stanford
Chamber Music Seminar in California, and the Schleswig-Holstein Chamber
Music Festival in Germany. One of two quartets invited to attend
the 2006 Deer Valley Music Festival's Emerging Quartets and Composers
Program in Utah, the CSQ worked extensively with the Muir Quartet and
Joan Tower to premiere Belinda Reynolds' "Static Motion", a work
commissioned for the CSQ by the festival. In summer 2007, the
CSQ were fellows at the Aspen Music Festival and School in the
prestigious Advanced String Quartet Studies Program.
The CSQ has performed across North America on series such as the Barrie
Colours of Music Festival, the
Toronto Music Garden, the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Music Society,
Chamber Music Hamilton, the Northern Lights Music Festival in
Ajijic, Mexico, and the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival.
They also recently toured Ontario, Quebec, and British
Columbia with Jeunesses Musicales Canada on their Desjardins Concert
Series. This past summer the CSQ were Shouse Artists at the Great
Lakes Chamber Music Festival in Michigan and the Resident String
Quartet at the Austin Chamber Music Festival in Texas. Upcoming
highlights include a debut performance for the La Jolla Music Society
in California and the third of a three-concert appearance on Music
Toronto's Discovery Series.
The Cecilia String Quartet takes its name from St.
Cecilia, the patron saint of music. They have worked with members
of the Juilliard, Emerson, Tokyo, Takacs, St. Lawrence, Ying, American,
Penderecki, and Orford Quartets. Members of the CSQ have
attended the University of Toronto, the Glenn Gould School of the Royal
Conservatory of Music, the HARID Conservatory of Music, the New England
Conservatory, the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, and the
Hochschule fur Musik und Theatre Munchen in Munich, Germany.
<August 2008>