All proceeds from the concert will go to El Sistema Aeolian. El Sistema Aeolian is part of a global movement designed to offer free iniversal access to an intesive collaborative music program. There are millions of participants in over 80 countries and the program has spread across Canada quickly. Canadian Provincial and National Associations are forming. Our local program offers five days of instruction to our participants including orchestra, choir and piano lessons. Meals and snacks are also provided. Our participants give approximately 10-20 concerts per year in various settings.

Piano: Marion Miller
Violin: Gillian Carrabre
Viola: Katie McBean
Cello: Adrian Wright

PROGRAM

Ástor Piazzolla, The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires For Violin, Cello & Piano

Francis Poulenc Sonata for Piano & Violoncello

Interval 

Gabriel Faure Piano Quartet No.1 op.15

MARION MILLER: 

MARION MILLER began piano at four, was teaching at twelve, and entered the University of Western Ontario at 16, graduating with a Master’s degree in piano performance and the President’s Gold Medal for academic excellence. Canada Council Arts Grants subsequently enabled her to study in Paris with Marcel Ciampi. Other teachers included Cecile Genhart in Zurich and Ozan Marsh in Chautauqua.

She has soloed with orchestras in Canada and the U.S., and recorded several CBC programs. Long a member of Orchestra London, she now focuses primarily on chamber music with numerous  friends, most frequently piano duet partner Clark Bryan.  She has twice been a London Music Award nominee for Best Classical Artist, but has excelled in other genres as well, having put herself through university partly by playing in a professional swing band, and over the years gained a varied background in musical theatre.

She has taught in university, conservatory and festival settings, and adjudicated music festivals from coast to coast. She maintains a consistently full studio of private piano students ranging from young beginners to adults, with whom her priority is always to emphasize expressiveness.

GILLIAN CARRABRE: 

Violinist, M Gillian Carrabré, has cultivated a diverse career that includes both popular and classical music projects. A graduate of performance programs at Mount Royal (Dip.), McGill (BMus), and the University of Ottawa (MMus) respectively, she is currently in her fourth and final year of a PhD in Musicology at the University of Western Ontario. Ms. Carrabré’s extensive orchestral experience includes: two National Youth Orchestra of Canada tours (2006, 2011); Concertmaster of the University of Calgary, University of Ottawa, and University of Ottawa Opera Orchestras; Associate Concertmaster of the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra; alongside positions in the McGill Symphony Orchestra, the Brandon Chamber Players and as a substitute for the National Arts Center Orchestra.

Ms. Carrabré’s work as an academic developed from her fascination with electronic dance music. Her dissertation topic in Canadian rave music and culture has led to numerous conference presentations including MUSCAN, Stony Brook University, Ncounters, and more recently for the upcoming IASPM Canada conference in May. She will complete her PhD in 2018.

For the past year, Ms. Carrabré has also been the director and host of a radio show on CHRW in London, ON called Elektribe. which features the work of DJs, producers, and singer-songwriters involved in the Canadian electronic dance music scene. Elektribe was conceived initially as a fan (maga)“zine” featuring articles on the Canadian rave scene and can be viewed online. In June of this year, Elektribe will release a YouTube channel presenting interviews and live performances from Canadian artists.

ADRIAN WRIGHT

​Adrian now plays as a freelance cellist with the Windsor Symphony and was a regular extra cellist with Orchestra London, now playing with the newly formed London Symphonia. He has played in Musicals at the Grand Theater most years since moving to Canada, something new and very rewarding for him. He enjoys playing in many permanent and ad hoc chamber ensembles which, along with teaching, provide untold opportunities for growth for any player. Of particular significance for him was the three years of playing with the Aeolian Trio, a group brought together by Clark O’Brian in 2012. Mary Beth Brown and Marion Miller were wonderful chamber music partners and taught him so much. His other chamber music partners, both in the community and at Western, are too numerous to mention, but all have been a huge part of his musical and social life. He teaches a cello pedagogy class at UWO as a part time lecturer in the Education Faculty, offers Sectional and Chamber Music Coaching in Ontario and has his own Private Cello studio. After a gap of three years due to ill health he is delighted to be back at El Sistema Aeolian on the teaching staff. Every day there since restarting in January 2017 has been a joy.  Adrian joined the Early Music Studio at Western for 2015 – 16 to meet a shortfall. He found this to be an inspiration and has continued to develop this new, or should I say old, approach to earlier musics.

After three years with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain from 1976 at the age of 16 and then three years at the Royal Academy, in London UK, the major part of Adrian Wright’s work as a cellist was spent as a member of the National Orchestra of Wales in Cardiff, U.K. The broad repertoire of a BBC orchestra and significant resources of the BBC made this an interesting time. During his years in the U.K., Adrian was able to work with a number of orchestras on a freelance basis. He himself has mainly a classical musical education. However, he now plays a variety of musical styles, courtesy of the theatre and other performing opportunities. In his teaching, he frequently uses his own arrangement of Musicals, Pop Tunes, or Disney tunes, where the student is interested. He believes that the students should all  have the freedom to play a wide variety of music and is a keen believer in aural as well as notational learning. He firmly believes that all students of string instruments benefit hugely from understanding the simple physiology and physics behind what they do. It quite simply makes sense and therefore “Makes Easy”, allowing the student to become her own teacher. He would like to acknowledge a huge debt to Alexander Method in this regard, informing both his playing and his teaching. This latter is now available to music students at Western, a hugely welcome development.

An invitation.

If anyone here plays a musical instrument, particularly (but not only) strings at this stage, do feel free to email me. I am looking to set up a simple way for people to form their own small ensembles, maybe through a Facebook Group. Just an easy way to contact others who may be seeking the same thing. If you are older there is no reason not to start “social music making”, if you are about to leave school there is reason to stop playing! At any level, at any time. A bold claim: It could add years to your life, enriched years at that. We are raising money for El Sistema because all children deserve active music in their life. We want it to be lifelong, for them, for you.

adrian.wright60@gmail.com