Kevin Park
Artistic Director
DATE
Mon. January 29 - 1:00 PM
Anvil Centre, New Westminster
Tue. January 30 - 1:00 PM
North Delta Centre for the Arts, Delta
Wed. January 31 - 1:00 PM
Highlands United Church, North Vancouver
Sun. February 4 - 3:00 PM
Evergreen Cultural Centre, Coquitlam
PROGRAM
MATINEE PROGRAM
*Our matinee series consists of one-hour performances with a program separate from the evening concerts.
Piano Trio in G minor, opus 17
Clara Schumann
I. Allegro moderato
II. Scherzo. Tempo di menuetto — Trio
III. Andante
IV. Allegretto
Piano Quintet in E-flat major, Op.44
Robert Schumann
I. Allegro brillante
II. In Modo d'una Marcia. Un poco largamente.
III. Scherzo. Molto vivace — Trio I — Trio II
IV. Allegro ma non troppo
David Lakirovich, violin
John Marcus, violin
Jacob van der Sloot, viola
Joseph Elworthy, cello
Ian Parker, piano
FULL-LENGTH PROGRAM
* [Coquitlam] Series
Clarinet Quintet, Op.115
Johannes Brahms
I. Allegro
II. Adagio
III. Andantino
IV. Con moto
Piano Trio in G minor, opus 17
Clara Schumann
I. Allegro moderato
II. Scherzo. Tempo di menuetto — Trio
III. Andante
IV. Allegretto
Piano Quintet in E-flat major, Op.44
Robert Schumann
I. Allegro brillante
II. In Modo d'una Marcia. Un poco largamente.
III. Scherzo. Molto vivace — Trio I — Trio II
IV. Allegro ma non troppo
David Lakirovich, violin
John Marcus, violin
Jacob van der Sloot, viola
Joseph Elworthy, cello
AK Coope, clarinet
Ian Parker, piano
DAVID LAKIROVICH
David Lakirovich was born in Brisbane, Australia, and started his violin studies at the age of three with his father, Jacob Lakirovich. David has taken part in various master classes with renowned violinists such as Felix Andrievsky, Nelly Shkolnikova, Jose-Louis Garcia, Pinchas Zukerman, Victor Tretyakov, Maurico Fuks, Haim Taub, Pavel Vernikov, and Michael Frischenschlager. His teachers have included David Zafer in Toronto, Arkadij Winokurow and Boris Kuschnir in Vienna, Vadim Gluzman and Shmuel Ashkenasi in Chicago, and William Preucil in Cleveland.
David has performed in many recitals and concerts in Australia, USA, Canada, Israel and Europe, including solo performances in Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall, Bronfman Auditorium in Tel Aviv, Stradivari Museum in Cremona, Italy, along with solo performances with the Calgary Philharmonic, Scarborough Symphony, York Symphony, and Chicago College of Performing Arts Symphony Orchestra. He also performed in the “Young Stars of the Young Century” concert in George Weston Recital Hall for the Vladimir Spivakov International Charity Foundation. He performed in a Stradivari Society concert in Chicago, playing on the 1692 ‘Lord Falmouth’ Stradivari. He has also performed solo on Chicago WFMT 98.7 Classical Radio. An avid chamber musician, he has collaborated with Peter Salaff, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Ilya Kaler, Mark Kosower, Atar Arad, William Wolfram and Vadim Gluzman. He has also collaborated with ensembles, including the Pacifica Quartet, Cavani Quartet, and the Vermeer Quartet. He has performed in the Jupiter Chamber Players in New York and the North Shore Chamber Music Festival in Chicago. In 2014, his quartet at the Cleveland Institute of Music won “Quartet of the Year” at the Hvide Sande Festival in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has also performed at the Instrumental Society of Calgary on several occasions. David has participated in and achieved top honours in numerous violin and chamber music competitions worldwide. He was a participant at the Keshet Eilon International Violin Mastercourse in Israel for two summers and the Pinchas Zukerman Young Artist Program in Ottawa.
David Lakirovich was a faculty member of the Rochetta Ligure Masterclass in Palazzo Spinola, Italy, and has been on faculty at the Cremona International Music Academy since 2013. In 2017-18, he served on the faculty of the Mount Royal Conservatory in Calgary and has given numerous masterclasses and seminars in their Advanced Performance Program. He also taught at the University of Calgary the same year. He is on the Vancouver Academy of Music faculty and the VSO School of Music.
David completed his Undergraduate Degree at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University in 2013 with Shmuel Ashkenasi and Vadim Gluzman and his master’s degree at the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2015 with William Preucil. He previously served as the Associate Concertmaster of the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra in Columbus, Ohio. He played three seasons with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (2 years as Tutti 1st Violin and one year as the Assistant Concertmaster). He was also invited to perform as guest Associate Concertmaster with the Jalisco Philharmonic during the entire summer of 2015 in Guadalajara, Mexico, and guest Concertmaster of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra in April and November 2019.
David joined the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra as the new Assistant Concertmaster at the beginning of the 2018/19 season.
JOHN MARCUS
John Marcus is a native New Yorker, and a graduate of The Juilliard School, where he received his pre-college division diploma, and his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees. He also holds a postgraduate certificate from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. His teachers include Dorothy DeLay and David Takeno. As a member of the Grammy-nominated Enso String Quartet, John has performed extensively as a chamber musician throughout the United States, Latin America, and Europe. He gave his first public performance at the age of nine at the Mozarteum in Salzburg; and at fifteen, he performed at Lincoln Center as the winner of the Julliard Violin Competition. For the 1993 gala opening of the Harris Concert Hall in Aspen, Colorado, John appeared as a soloist alongside Pinchas Zukerman and the Aspen Chamber Symphony. For this occasion, the Stradivarius Society of Chicago lent John the 1742 “Burmeister” Guarnerius del Gesu violin. John has frequently toured Germany as a recitalist, and recently premiered the John Corigliano Sonata for Violin for Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Germany’s leading public radio network. In his hometown of New York City, John has performed for numerous concert series, including LPR, Barbes, BargeMusic and in collaboration with members of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project. John has also performed with the Mark Morris Dance Group, and the New Juilliard Ensemble. As a member of the New York-based chamber music group “The Knights” he has toured throughout the United States and Europe. John has performed at many festivals, including Ravinia, Aspen, Tanglewood, Interlochen, San Miguel de Allende, Campos do Jordao International Winter Festival, Verbier, and Spoletto. Musicians with whom John Marcus has worked include James Dunham, Vera Beths, Ursula Oppens, Sam Rhodes, Peter Oundjian, and Cho-Liang Lin. John loves to cook for his family, and plays on a Samuel Zygmuntowycz violin made in 2003 in Brooklyn, New York.
JACOB VAN DER SLOOT
Jacob van der Sloot started playing the violin under the instruction of his mother and father, Daphne and Michael van der Sloot, when he was 5. He then switched to viola with his Father when he was 13 and was accepted to the Juilliard School to study with Steven Tenebom, where he would earn his bachelor's degree in 2019. Shortly after his undergraduate studies, Jacob became the youngest Canadian member of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra at age 22.
Growing up in Victoria, BC, Jacob had the opportunity to solo with the Sidney Classical, Sooke Philharmonic and the VCM Senior string orchestras, being praised for his “..deep, rich sound with flying colours.” (Times Colonist, Canada) Jacob has gone on to perform in halls around the world, such as Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York City, Museo Del Violino in Cremona, Bing Concert Hall in Stanford and the Beijing Conservatory Concert Hall, among others. He has enjoyed dedicating his summers to the study of music, participating in programs such as the Perlman Music Program, Morningside Music Bridge, the NAC’s Young Artist Program, Banff International Masterclass Program, PRISMA Music Festival, Casalmaggiore Festival in Italy and a fellowship at the Bowdoin Music Festival. It was at these festivals where Jacob had the opportunity to study with and play alongside renowned faculty such as Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Dimitri Murrath, Roberto Diaz, Atar Arad, Máté Szücs and Michael Gieler. Jacob also made his solo Carnegie debut in 2019 playing the Brahms E-flat Major viola sonata as part of Julie Jordan’s “International Rising Stars” concert series.
Jacob was an avid chamber musician in the Noctis Quartet, which won second place at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition and the WDAV Young Artists Competition. His chamber groups have also performed numerous times in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium. Jacob’s passion for chamber music also carries into music outreach, playing chamber music all over New York City in hospitals, prisons, retirement homes, schools and psychiatric facilities as part of Juilliard’s “Gluck” Fellowship program and through GroupMuse concerts. He also enjoys private teaching, has served on the Victoria Summer Strings Academy faculty, and was recently added to the viola faculty at the VSO School of Music and Vancouver Academy of Music.
Jacob's orchestral journey began with the Greater Victoria Youth Orchestra. He has since played with the Juilliard Orchestra, the Juilliard Lab Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra and the Principal Violist of both the Sidney Classical Orchestra and the New York Concerti Sinfonietta. Jacob joined the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra full-time in 2020 and is incredibly happy to call Vancouver his home.
JOSEPH ELWORTHY
President & CEO of the Vancouver Academy of Music, Joseph Elworthy, has been a featured soloist, recitalist, and chamber music performer on such stages as Alice Tully Hall, Suntory Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, and Sejong Hall. Mr. Elworthy has been named a Fellow of The Royal Conservatory of Music for his extraordinary contribution to Canadian Arts and Culture, an honour he shares with such cultural icons as Oscar Peterson, Robertson Davies, Adrienne Clarkson and Leon Fleisher. His recordings can be heard on EMI, Sony, Archtype, Naxos and Bose record labels. In addition to receiving the Sylva Gelber Award of $15,000, Joseph has received multiple Canada Council career grants exceeding $50,000. Mr. Elworthy is a Juilliard School and Yale University graduate, where he received the Aldo Parisot – Yo-Yo Ma Prize – the highest honour issued by Yale University to a graduating cellist.
Mr. Elworthy has been a visiting artist at the Beijing Conservatory, Harvard University, Royal Northern College of Music, Glenn Gould School, and the Royal Conservatory of Music. Joseph Elworthy co-founded the Koerner Piano Trio, the first chamber ensemble in residence at the Vancouver Academy of Music. In 2013, Mr. Elworthy was appointed Western Music Advisor for the newly established Haw Par Music Foundation – a collaborative educational initiative linking Vancouver and Hong Kong. Joseph Elworthy was a member of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra for 12 years before retiring from the orchestra in 2014. Joseph plays on a rare Ferdinando Gagliano circa 1760 that once belonged to the legendary German cellist Hugo Becker.
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 debut with the Savannah and Bakersfield symphonies and 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 the 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 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.”
AK COOPE
AK performs with an eclectic array of ensembles, including the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Opera Orchestra, Turning Point Ensemble, and Victoria’s Aventa Ensemble, among others, with global concerts. She is a long-time member of Standing Wave, one of Canada’s premiere contemporary chamber music ensembles, with whom she has released three recordings, including the recent award-winning New Wave. AK is also a founding member of both the AdMare Wind Quintet and Cascadia Reed Quintet and has enjoyed many musical adventures, from Couperin to cutting-edge, with both groups.
During the Pandemic, she has been busy making various recordings and looks forward to many new releases in the coming months. On the video front, she is thrilled to have been a part of Antarctica: Life Emerging and to have been able to contribute a solo work (Leaning) to the Canadian Music Centre BC Chapter’s Unaccompanied video series in July 2021, currently viewable on their website.
AK holds a BMus from UBC and an MMus from Northwestern University, Chicago. She is a respected adjudicator and clinician and is proud to have many award-winning private students, a number of whom currently hold professional orchestral positions.
