Kyrie Kristmanson is a Canadian singer/songwriter, trumpet player, guitarist and scholar of medieval music. Kyrie began composing at a young age and toured the Canadian Folk Festival circuit as a teenager. Public and college radio stations widely promoted her first two albums and this earned her the Best Young Performer’s Award at the Canadian Folk Music Awards and the Colleen Peterson Award for song writing. Emily Loizeau, a celebrated French pop star, invited her to open for her Pays Sauvage tour in France. While on tour, the label NØ FØRMAT! offered Kyrie a contract and she relocated to Paris for the release of her Origin of Stars album in 2010. For the subsequent tour, Kyrie performed in Europe, England and Japan and, following this, she enrolled at La Sorbonne to study the medieval trobaïritz, the first women composers known to history. In 2013, she defended her master’s thesis dedicated to the reconstruction of their lost songs. A contract with the French label Naïve came next, for which she wrote a song cycle inspired by the medieval repertoire. Fascinated by Canadian composer T. Patrick Carrabré’s classical arrangements of her songs for Origin of Stars, Kyrie recorded the new album with a string quartet. With arranger Clément Ducol, she recorded the work with the acclaimed Voce Quartet at the Noirlac Abbey. Modern Ruin, released in 2015, was met with universal acclaim as being the most “audacious and unusual contribution to the independent music scene of the year”.

Hailed for her “soaring cantilena” (Gramophone Magazine), violinist Kerry DuWors has performed across Canada, the United States, Europe, Mexico, Japan and New Zealand. In demand as a versatile chamber musician, Kerry champions collaboration across an array of ensembles from her duo work to leading chamber orchestras. Highlights include performances with duo526, James Ehnes, Yo-Yo Ma, Dame Evelyn Glennie and NYC-based The Knights. Praised for “always finding the music behind the notes” and her “fearless competence” (Winnipeg Free Press), she has been soloist with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Winnipeg Symphony, Saskatoon Symphony, and Manitoba Chamber Orchestra. Kerry has won prestigious awards including Grand Prize at the 26th Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition, Felix Galimir Award for Chamber Music Excellence, and two Canada Council Career Development Grants. She is a four-time laureate of the Canada Council for the Arts’ Musical Instrument Bank and played on Gagliano, Pressenda and Rocca violins between 2003-2015. She currently plays on a modern instrument by Felix Krafft modeled after the 1735 “Plowden” Guarneri.

As the winner of The Artist’s International competition, violinist Ji Eun “Jenny” Lim was awarded a debut recital at the Carnegie Weill Hall and also made her debut at the Lincoln Center and the Kennedy Center with the Juilliard Orchestra after winning the Juilliard competition. Ji Eun has appeared with numerous orchestras, toured playing recitals, chamber music concerts and international festivals in Australia, Austria, Canada, China, England, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Japan, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, and USA. After her education with Gerard Kantarjian in Canada, Ji Eun achieved her Bachelor’s, Master’s degree and professional studies program under the guidance of Hyo Kang at the Juilliard School in New York. Her studies continued with legendary artists such as Arnold Steinhardt(Guarneri Quartet), Donald Weilerstein(Cleveland Quartet) and Norbert Brainin (Amadeus Quartet).

Violinist, M Gillian Carrabré, has cultivated a diverse career that includes diverse performance work in popular and classical music projects. A graduate of performance programs at Mount Royal University (Dip.), McGill University (BMus), and the University of Ottawa (MMus), Gillian is completing a PhD in Musicology at the University of Western Ontario. Her orchestral experience includes two National Youth Orchestra of Canada tours, Associate Concertmaster of the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra as well as concerts with the Brandon Chamber Players, the Regina Symphony Orchestra, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, and the National Arts Centre Orchestra. As a popular musician. Gillian regularly pairs with DJs in Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal on electric violin, improvising over electronic dance music. She has also performed in on stage bands for Jane Siberry and Michael Bublé. As a studio musician, she has recorded with Canadian bands such as John Allaire, Pony Girl, Blakdenim, Sketch Williams, and Cast in Cadence.

Robert Richardson Jr. teaches and conducts at Suzuki workshops, Institutes and music festivals on a regular basis throughout North America and beyond. He has been a guest presenter and an invited guest speaker at the Suzuki Association of the Americas Teachers’ conference and Leadership retreats. Along with maintaining an extensive violin and viola studio in the Suzuki Talent Education Program at Brandon University’s Eckhardt-Grammatté Conservatory of Music, Robert also conducts string orchestras and coaches chamber music. He is also the director of the Brandon Suzuki Summer Institute, which includes a quartet exchange program uniting young musicians from across Canada. Robert performs regularly on both violin and viola in numerous chamber ensembles including the Brandon Chamber Players of which he is a founding member. As well Robert teaches for an inner city school Community Outreach Suzuki Program with over 30 students using teaching materials translated into numerous languages. He has served on the board and on committees for the Manitoba Registered Music Teachers Association and the Festival of the Arts both locally and provincially.

Jae-Won Bang, viola, received her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music in Violin Performance from the Colburn School and Yale School of Music respectively, and Master of Music in Historical Performance from the Juilliard School. In 2012, she was featured on the NEXT Young Artist series on CBC Radio Two with pianist Ryo Yanagitani, as the first artist to be heard on both baroque and modern violins. Jae-Won has collaborated with Clive Greensmith, Gil Kalish, Ronald Leonard, Rachel Podger, Arnold Steinhardt, and has performed in Weill Hall and Stern Auditorium at Carnegie, David Geffen Hall, Kennedy Centre, Alice Tully Hall, the Greene Space at WQXR, and le poisson rouge. She has also appeared as a Young Artist with Da Camera Houston for the 2015/2016 season. Her teachers include Gerald Stanick, Robert Lipsett, Ani Kavafian, Laurie Smukler, and Cho-Liang Lin on violin and Robert Mealy, Cynthia Roberts and Monica Huggett on baroque violin.

Ariel Carrabré is currently pursuing doctoral studies in cello performance at the University of Montreal, studying with Yegor Dyachkov. His research project focuses on injury prevention and recovery for string players and incorporates the areas of biomechanics, body awareness methods, neurological patterning, the motor system, and the problem of muscular tension. Ariel has been the winner of numerous prizes and competitions, including the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s Young Artist Concerto Competition, which gave him the opportunity to perform eight times as a soloist on the Up Close and Orchestral series. Most recently he was a finalist prize winner in the Eckhardt-Grammaté National Music Competition. Ariel is a founding member of the Horizon String Quartet, that for the past six summers have given extensive tours of Saskatchewan and Manitoba schools in order to bring classical music to children who otherwise may never attend a live concert of chamber music.

Clarinettist Catherine Wood has established herself internationally as a performer, educator, and advocate of Canadian music. She has been featured as a guest artist at many festivals including the International Clarinet Association ClarinetFests and the Núna Iceland Canada Art Convergence. An enthusiast of new music, Wood has commissioned and premiered numerous works at festivals that celebrate new music, including the Winnipeg New Music Festival and Iceland’s Dark Music Days. A proponent of the piccolo clarinets, Catherine has commissioned works for both E-Flat and D clarinets. She has performed piccolo clarinet recitals across the globe. A sought-after clinician and adjudicator, Dr. Wood has worked extensively with students in Canada and has served on international competition juries. Catherine performs regularly with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, the Brandon Chamber Players, and with Victoria Sparks in their percussion and clarinet duo Viðarneisti. She is on faculty at Brandon University and serves as the Continental Chair of North America for the International Clarinet Association. Catherine is a Buffet Crampon performing artist.

Acclaimed Canadian pianist Jon Kimura Parker describes Madeline Hildebrand as “an extraordinary young artist whose communicative skills convey the essence of all that she plays. Her pianism is of the highest level, and she has an instinctive understanding of beautiful sound.”  Madeline is currently pursuing a Doctorate of Music Arts in Piano Performance at Stony Brook University, New York, where she studies with Gilbert Kalish and Christina Dahl. Madeline’s piano career has taken her coast to coast in Canada and the U.S.A, to Italy, and to Romania upon invitation of the European Cultural Arts Festival. Recent concert highlights include a solo performance of Philip Glass’s music along with Glass himself in the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s celebrated New Music Festival 2018, a concerto performance with the Thunder Bay Orchestra and a cross-Canada tour with soprano Sarah Kirsch. Madeline was awarded first prize for her solo performance with the WSO in the Women’s Musical Club’s McLellan Competition (2012), and a silver standing in Canada’s prestigious Eckhardt Gramatté National Competition 2013 where she won first prize for Best Performance of the Test Piece. Madeline is the pianist in Winnipeg’s new, fast-rising ensemble, Trio Exchange, that recently collaborated with Canadian composer Patrick Carrabré in a CD of his chamber works to be released in 2020. The trio will play a commissioned work by jazz pianist and composer David Braid in Groundswell’s 2020-21 concert season.