Date:
February 15, 2009 — Time: 3:00pm

Venue:
Gladstone Hotel
1214 Queen Street West

Cost: $15/$10

Jeunesses Musicales Ontario is proud to present pianist Jacynthe Riverin and saxophonist Mathieu Gaulin with their concert as part of the Desjardins Concerts 2008-2009. This tour will bring the two musicians in many cities throughout Quebec and Ontario.

Jacynthe Riverin, piano
Jacynthe Riverin was born in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec. She first studied music at the conservatories in Val-d’Or and Montreal, then at the Faculty of Music of Université Laval, where she worked with Francis Dubé and obtained her Master’s degree in performance in May of 2001. Through grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, she then went on to study with Dominique Weber in Geneva. She also worked with Richard Raymond at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music.

In November 2000, Ms. Riverin won First Prize in the OSM Standard Life Competition and subsequently made her OSM debut in Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2. The following year, she was invited back to perform again with the OSM under Charles Dutoit, this time in the Piano Concerto No. 1 by Shostakovich. She has also appeared with the Quebec Symphony, the Sinfonia de Lanaudière, and the Orchestre franco-québécois pour la jeunesse playing major concertos of the repertory. In 2004, she won the John Newmark Prize and the prize for best performance of a Canadian work in the Prix d’Europe of the Académie de musique du Québec.

Proficient in contemporary music as well as in the classical and romantic repertoires, Jacynthe Riverin has performed with the SMCQ (Société de musique contemporaine du Québec) and with ECM (Ensemble contemporain de Montréal), including in Michel Gonneville’s concerto Adonwe. She is also an accomplished performer of chamber music. Ms. Riverin has been playing for several years as a duo with saxophonist Mathieu Gaulin and is a member of the Fibonacci Trio.

Mathieu Gaulin, saxophone
Saxophonist Mathieu Gaulin won the prize for best performance of a Canadian work at the Montreal Symphony Standard Life Competition in 1999 and in 2002. Three times he has won grants from the Amis de l’Art Foundation – in 1999, 2000 and 2001. He has also been a national finalist several times in the Canadian Music Competition, and has won four first prizes in the Festival des harmonies du Québec and two first prizes in the Baie-Saint-Paul Saxophone Competition. In recognition of his exceptional merit, the Fonds FCAR gave him a research grant to continue his studies at the Master’s level at the Université de Montréal’s Faculty of Music.

Mathieu Gaulin is a member of Montreal’s KORE Ensemble and a founding member of the Nota Bene Saxophone Quartet. Since 1997, he has been playing as a duo with pianist Jacynthe Riverin, specializing in twentieth-century music. They have recorded two programs for broadcast on Radio-Canada’s Young Artists program and, in the fall of 2005, they took part in performances at the Festival de musique émergente in Abitibi-Témiscamingue.

While at university, Mr. Gaulin studied with Jean-François Guay. In addition, he has learned from renowned saxophonists like Jean-Marie Londeix, Jean-Michel Goury, Daniel Gordon, Rémi Ménard, and Claude Delangle. He is well-known on the local scene, and plays regularly with the Nouvel ensemble moderne (NEM), the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ), and the Ensemble contemporain de Montreal (ECM). At the Congrès mondial de saxophone (July 2000), Mathieu performed and recorded Hiroyuki Yamamoto’s Noli me tangere with ECM. The recording on the Fontec label is presently distributed in Japan.

In addition to his work as a performer, Mathieu Gaulin teaches saxophone at the Music Faculty of the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and at College Regina Assumpta.

Since 1949, Jeunesses Musicales of Canada has had a dual mission: to bring fine music to audiences of all ages, especially 3 to 12-year-olds, and to foster the careers of outstanding young professional instrumentalists, singers and composers in Canada and abroad. Thanks to the support of its partners and the work of hundreds of volunteers, Jeunesses Musicales of Canada has become Canada’s largest classical music performance network and produces some 800 concerts a year. In 2000, the organization opened a new building in Montreal that includes a 100-seat chamber music hall.

JMC is affiliated with Jeunesses Musicales International (JMI), founded in 1945 in Belgium and considered today by UNESCO as the world’s leading cultural organization dedicated to youth and music. Each year, Jeunesses Musicales International’s 41 national chapters organize more than 30,000 musical events, reaching an audience of some six million people.

This tour is made possible thanks to the financial support of the Mouvement des caisses Desjardins, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, The Canada Council for the Arts, Canadian Heritage, the Conseil des arts de Montréal and The Toronto Arts Council.