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Canada’s leading young Afiara String Quartet and the outstanding Montreal-based pianist Wonny Song,
both of whom have won international honors, have added another –
the Young Canadian Musicians Award.
The announcement was made Sunday, April 25 at Toronto’s
Mooredale Concerts, at the Quartet’s performance for Mooredale
Concerts series. This year, the Award comprises $40,000 worth of
prizes, including $25,000 cash for the Quartet and $15,000 for
the pianist. In addition, the winners may submit career
enhancing projects which, if approved, the Young Canadian
Musicians Award Foundation will support with additional funds.
The Award was presented to the Quartet by pianist Anton Kuerti,
artistic director of Mooredale Concerts.
Wonny Song and the Afiara String Quartet will be featured in
their first joint performance, as part of Mooredale Concerts’
2010-11 season, Sunday, October 31, 3:15 p.m. at Walter Hall.
Details of the season were also announced, and will be posted at
www.mooredaleconcerts.com.
Potential recipients are recommended by an informal network of
musicians across Canada who are well acquainted with outstanding
young talent. Winners are then chosen by a panel of eminent
musicians – pianist Anton Kuerti, baritone Russell Braun, and
Peter Oundjian, music director of the Toronto Symphony. The
panel previously included Richard Bradshaw, the late general
director of the Canadian Opera Company.
“There is a huge reservoir of amazing Canadian talent,” said
Anton Kuerti, “and it was very difficult to choose among the
many remarkable artists that were nominated”.
The Young Canadian Musicians Awards were found by Maestro
Oundjian’s late father, Haig Oundjian, who died in 2001. A
prominent friend and great donor to musical causes, and an
enthusiastic amateur pianist, he wanted to help enable the
finest young Canadian artists to attain important careers. The
first winner was violinist Erica Raum in 1996, followed by such
acclaimed soloists as pianist Stewart Goodyear, cellist Yegor
Dyachkov, violinists Olivier Thouin and Benjamin Bowman,
mezzo-soprano Susan Platts and soprano Frédérique Vézina. All
are making excellent careers. This is the first time the Award
has gone to a group, and also the first time more than one
recipient has been chosen.
AFIARA STRING QUARTET
www.afiara.com
The all-Canadian Afiara String Quartet – violinists
Valerie Li and Yuri Cho, violist David Samuel, and cellist
Adrian Fung – is the graduate resident string quartet at the
Juilliard School in New York, where its members serve as
teaching assistants to the celebrated Juilliard String Quartet.
Formed in 2006, the Quartet named itself from “fiar”, Spanish
for “to trust”, and is committed to education, connecting with
diverse audiences and sharing music with those less fortunate.
All of the players are in their late 20’s and early 30’s.
In 2008, following a top prize at the Munich ARD International
Music Competition, the Afiara Quartet won the Concert Artists
Guild Competition in New York. The San Francisco Classical Voice
calls the Afiara Quartet “a terrifically unified, versatile, and
moving ensemble” with “startling intensity.” The same season
included performances all over North America, from New York’s
Chautauqua Institution to the San Jose Chamber Music Society,
Calgary’s Pro Musica Series, the Banff Centre and the Montreal
and Ottawa Chamber Music Festivals.
In this season’s schedule are concerts at the Library of
Congress, Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall,
the Banff Centre, the New School, and Purdue University. The
Quartet also began a visiting residency at the Royal
Conservatory’s Glenn Gould School, and has just released its
debut CD, featuring works by Mendelssohn and Schubert.
Home towns: Violinist Valerie Li is originally from
Vancouver, violinist Yuri Cho from
Edmonton, violist David Samuel from
Guelph, ON, and cellist Adrian Fung from
Mississauga, ON.
WONNY SONG,
Piano
http://wonnysong.com
“A versatile, intelligent, and deeply musical young pianist”,
according to the Washington Post, Wonny Song, who is in his
early 30s, has many awards to his credit, and has performed with
leading orchestras and at major Canadian festivals as well as in
the U.S. and in East Asia.
Born in South Korea and raised in Montreal, Song began piano
studies at age eight, and received a full scholarship to
Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music in 1994. After earning
a Bachelor’s degree from the Université de Montréal in 1998, he
continued his studies at the Glenn Gould Professional School
with Marc Durand and completed his doctoral studies with Lydia
Artymiw at the University of Minnesota in 2004.
Among his many awards are the 2005 Young Concert Artists
International Auditions (New York), the 2003 Prix d’Europe in
Canada (which presented him in recital throughout Canada,
France, Italy and Sweden), First Prize and Best Artistic
Interpretation Prize at the 1995 Montreal Symphony Piano
Competition, and a Gold Medal at the 1994 World Piano
Competition in Cincinnati.
Song gave a solo recital as Canada’s musical ambassador to the
1993 World Expo in Korea and a 1998 performance in Bangkok at
the closing ceremony of the Asian Olympic Games. He returned to
Korea in 2005 to perform in the opening concert of Seoul’s new
Chungmu Art Hall.
His debut CD, featuring Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an
Exhibition and Rachmaninoff’s Variations on a Theme of
Corelli, was released on XXI-21 Records and has sold very
well in Canada.
The subject of a cover story in the February issue of La
Scena Musicale, Mr. Song is also grooming the next
generation of concert pianists in Montreal as associate director
of the Lambda School of Music and Fine Arts.
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Afiara String Quartet and
Pianist Wonny Song
