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Centennial ArtsFest Concert  

7:30 p.m. Friday April 18  
Free to all

An integral part of Marianopolis College’s annual arts celebration, this year’s Centennial edition of the ArtsFest concert was a singular evening of musical showmanship as current and former students performed a variety of pieces from klezmer to jazz to classical.

This wide breadth of musical styles reflects the calibre of musicians educated at Marianopolis and the College's rich music-education history (French version). No other school offers budding musicians the ability to take private music lessons and ensembles at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music, one of the world’s top-ranked music faculties. Marianopolis is very honoured and proud to have shared this unique musical evening with the community at large.

The evening included performances from, among others:

Alumni

 

• Since 1999, the Bozzini String Quartet has been playing about 40 events per year, moving freely between avant-garde shows and traditional concerts. The group includes Isabelle Bozzini '88 and Nadia Francavilla ’86. The group tours regularly in Europe and America. It recently launched its own recording label. They performed Fargion’s String Quartet No. 3 Sette Canzoni and his String Quartet No. 4.

• Since graduating from the College in 1978, Ron Di Lauro has been one of Montreal’s busiest freelance trumpet players in the studio, radio, television, pop and jazz fields. He has performed with everybody from Dizzy Gillespie to Michel Legrand to Petula Clark to Gino Vannelli. A jurist for several provincial and federal arts councils, he teaches Jazz Trumpet and directs jazz orchestras at McGill University and the University of Montreal.

• From his first professional gig at 13, to his musical training at Marianopolis, to his graduate studies at McGill University ’s Schulich School of Music, Chet Doxas ’99 (saxophone) is not an atypical Marianopolis music student. The recipient of no fewer than three Canada Council for the Arts grants, he can be heard on more than 80 CDs. Accomplished both as a saxophonist as well as a composer and arranger, the Montreal native has appeared at Carnegie Hall and received the Rico Golden Reed Award at Music Fest Canada in Toronto. He was honoured as Jazz Report Magazine's Best Secondary Jazz Musician in Canada and was awarded second place at the 2007 edition of the European Young Jazz Soloist Competition in Switzerland. He has also recorded and composed for numerous film soundtracks throughout the world, including the Academy Award-nominated soundtrack of Les Triplettes de Belleville.

• Bassist Richard Rosato’s Marianopolis musical education took him to The Banff Center for the Arts and then New York City. While there, the 2007 graduate is studying jazz at The New School and performing. At the Centennial ArtsFest concert, he performed jazz with Di Lauro, Doxas and drummer Marc Béland. Native Montrealer Béland has been playing music since the age of 8. He will attend The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City in the fall.

• From Marianopolis, Tristan Lauber ’87 (piano) has gone on to tour Asia three times as a guest artist of the Canadian and Swiss embassies. He holds a Doctorate degree from the University of Montreal and has won prizes in various competitions. He has performed at the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival as well as with the Arcadia Chamber Orchestra in Kobe, Japan. The 2007 Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival’s programming director, he often serves as adjudicator for various piano competitions in Canada. He performed Rachmaninoff’s Prélude Op. 32 No. 10 in B minor.

• Henri Oppenheim (accordion) and Mark Simons ’81 (clarinet) played Freilechs by Feidman and the traditional A Nacht in Gan Eydn. Simons and Oppenheim have been major forces in Canadian klezmer, the traditional music of nomadic Jewish musicians who traveled throughout Eastern Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. With award-winning klezmer group Kleztory, Oppenheim has given more than 200 concerts in North America during the last four years, as well as produced three albums with I Musici de Montréal. Simons, the former conductor of the Westmount and National youth orchestras, has played Principal Clarinet with I Musici de Montréal, has toured extensively and recorded under the Chandos and Analecta labels. He is also frequently called upon to play with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and other Quebec orchestras. He has performed at the Montreal International Jazz Festival with numerous ensembles including the Juno-winning Gypsy Bulgarian group Kaba Horo.

• The winner of the 2007 Prix d’expression musicale, Rosa Pyon ’07 (piano) is studying at McGill’s Schulich School of Music. She has won numerous other local and international competitions. She performed Chopin’s Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23.

Current Students

• Pianist Evelyne Arsenault Cooper ’08 has played on many of Montreal's concert stages, starting at age 10. A frequent national finalist of the Canada Music Competition, as well as laureate in many of McGill's Conservatory of Music concerto competitions and Montreal classical music festivals, she is studying with Tom Plaunt. She performed a Mozart sonata. 

• Justin Lamy ’09 took up the violin at age 5. He studied at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec from 1998 to 2004 and participated in the Morningside Music Bridge held in Calgary in 2005 and in China in 2006. This summer, he will join the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival's International Orchestral Academy in Germany. At the concert, he played Paganini's Caprice No. 24.
  

• The winner of this year’s Prix d’expression musicale, soprano Léa Weilbrenner-Lebeau ’09 has sung in choirs since the age of 5. Before coming to Marianopolis, she studied voice with Christiane Riel. She is now studying with Joanne Kolomyjec. She performed Sure on This Shining Night by Barber and Fêtes Galantes by Hahn.

• A violinist since age 5, Aline Homzy ’08 has had the opportunity to study with two great violinists and teachers, Andrew Dawes and Mark Fewer. Attending Jazz In July last summer inspired her to pursue her university studies in jazz music. She and Evelyne Arsenault-Cooper were joined by faculty member and cellist Gwendolyn Smith to perform Primavera Portena (Spring) from Piazzolla’s The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires.