Kevin Park
Artistic Director
PROGRAM
TBA
VIDEO
KERSON LEONG
“It would be madness on the part of the musical world not to understand he is one of the great violinists of the 21st century.” - AUGUSTIN DUMAY
Kerson Leong has been described as “not just one of Canada’s greatest violinists but one of the greatest violinists, period” (Toronto Star). Forging a unique path since his First Prize win at the International Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition in 2010, he continues to win over colleagues and audiences alike with “a mixture of spontaneity and mastery, elegance, fantasy, intensity that makes his sound recognizable from the first notes” (Le Monde).
His latest album, featuring the Britten and Bruch violin concertos with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Patrick Hahn for Alpha Classics, was released to widespread critical acclaim, including having been awarded ‘Editor’s Choice’ by Gramophone, ‘The Strad Recommends’ by The Strad, and the ‘Choc de Classica’ by Classica as well as five-star recommendations from the Sunday Times and Diapason among others.
Recent season highlights include solo performances with such ensembles as the Royal, Oslo, Brussels, Kansai, and Liège Royal Philharmonic Orchestras, the Seattle, Singapore, Toledo, Montreal, Tucson, Bilkent, Toronto, Vancouver, Stavanger, and Wuppertal Symphony Orchestras, a tour of Sweden with the Camerata Nordica, a recital tour of the Midwestern United States, and recording John Rutter’s Visions with the composer himself and the Aurora Chamber Orchestra, after giving its world premiere in London, UK.
As a sought-after soloist, he was hand-picked by Yannick Nézet-Séguin to be his artist-in-residence with the Orchestre Métropolitain during the 18/19 season and has performed in such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, Wigmore Hall, the Auditorium du Louvre and the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing. As a passionate chamber musician, he has performed at such international festivals and concert series as the Verbier Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival, Gstaad Menuhin Festival, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Flâneries musicales de Reims, and Bergen International Festival among others.
Passionate about pedagogy and music outreach, he has been invited to give masterclasses and teach at various festivals and universities including the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, the Gustav Mahler Academy, the Domaine Forget Festival Academy, the University of Ottawa, and Dalhousie University among others. Fostering a significant audience away from the concert hall as well, he is cementing his noteworthy role in reaching young people, aspiring musicians, and potential music lovers alike with his art in creative and engaging ways on social media. He is an associate artist of the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium, where he was mentored by Augustin Dumay.
He has always been keen on making connections between music and other fields. Ever since his dad started introducing him to physics concepts about string resonance, they have strongly influenced his playing and philosophy on sound production. Together with his dad, he has given lectures about this subject in places such as the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, the Barratt-Due Music Institute in Oslo, and various universities in California.
Kerson performs on the ‘ex Bohrer, Baumgartner’ Guarneri del Gesu courtesy of Canimex Inc, Drummondville (Quebec), Canada.
IAN PARKER
Magnetic, easy-going, and delightfully articulate, Canadian pianist/conductor Ian Parker captivates audiences wherever he goes. As a pianist, he has appeared with top Canadian orchestras including the symphonies of Toronto, Quebec, Vancouver, Victoria, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Orchestre Métropolitain, and the Calgary Philharmonic. In the U.S., orchestral highlights include the San Francisco, Cincinnati, National, Santa Barbara, Richmond, and Honolulu symphonies as well as the Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom, to name just a few. During the 2019/20 season, Mr. Parker will make his debuts with the Savannah and Bakersfield symphonies, and will return to the Pensacola and Okanagan symphonies, among others.
In addition to his work at the keyboard, Ian Parker is currently in his second season as music director and principal conductor of the VAM Symphony Orchestra at the Vancouver Academy of Music. Working with some of Canada’s most promising young orchestral players, Mr. Parker programs and conducts four concerts per season in Vancouver’s historic Orpheum Theatre. In July 2020 he will lead the orchestra in a 50th anniversary tour throughout China. He is also artistic director of the Resonate chamber music series at the Kay Meek Centre in North Vancouver.
An enthusiastic recitalist, Mr. Parker has performed across the United States, Europe, Israel, and throughout Canada on tours with Debut Atlantic, Jeunesses Musicales du Canada, and Piano Six. Recital highlights include the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, UCLA, the University of British Columbia, and collaborative performances at the Hawaii International Music Festival and the Morgan Library in New York City.
Mr. Parker’s recordings include a CD with the London Symphony conducted by Michael Francis featuring three piano concertos: Ravel Concerto in G, Stravinsky Capriccio, and Gershwin Concerto in F, released by ATMA Classique, and an all-fantasy solo CD including fantasies of Chopin, Schumann, and Beethoven on Azica Records. Additionally, CBC Records released a recording of three Mozart concertos for one piano (K. 467), two pianos (K. 365), and three pianos (K. 242) featuring Mr. Parker and his two cousins, Jon Kimura Parker and Jamie Parker, with the CBC Radio Orchestra and Mario Bernardi on the podium.
First Prize winner at the 2001 CBC National Radio Competition, Ian Parker has also won the Grand Prize at the Canadian National Music Festival, the Corpus Christie International Competition and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra Competition. At The Juilliard School, he received the 2002 William Petschek Piano Debut Award and, on two occasions, was the winner of the Gina Bachauer Piano Scholarship Competition. Heard regularly on CBC Radio, he has also performed live on WQXR (hosted by Robert Sherman) in New York.
Born in Vancouver to a family of pianists, Mr. Parker began his piano studies at age three with his father, Edward Parker. He holds both the Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School, where he was a student of Yoheved Kaplinsky. While at Juilliard, he was awarded the Sylva Gelber Career Grant by the Canada Council for the Arts, presented annually to the “most talented Canadian artist.”
