Up Next > TRIO INK

Sunday, February 18th, Calvin Presbyterian Church, 7:30 PM

Monday, February 19th, Rosedale House Concert, 7:30 PM

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Download the program > HERE

Yosuke Kawasaki, Violin

Yosuke Kawasaki currently serves as Concertmaster of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra. He is also a member and co-Concertmaster of the Mito Chamber Orchestra and Saito Kinen Orchestra in Japan, both under the baton of Seiji Ozawa. Prior to his position in Ottawa, he served as Concertmaster of the Japan Century Orchestra and Montgomery Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Kawasaki is currently on faculty at the University of Ottawa School of Music and the Affinis Summer Music Festival.

Mr. Kawasaki has made solo appearances with Aspen Chamber Symphony, Greenwich Village Orchestra, Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra, Idaho State-Civic Orchestra, Japan Century Orchestra, Kyushu Philharmonic, Mito Chamber Orchestra, Orquesta Filarmonica de Lima, Saito Kinen Orchestra, South Carolina Philharmonic, Thirteen Strings, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, and Singapore National Youth Symphony.

As a chamber musician, Mr. Kawasaki is a founding member of the D’Amici String Quartet along with Federico Agostini, Sadao Harada, and James Creitz, as well as Trio+ with Vadim Serebryany and Wolfram Koessel. The two ensembles have toured extensively in North and South America, Europe, and Japan. He is also a founding member of the Arkas String Quartet, a resident ensemble in Sasebo, Japan. His most recent recordings include chamber works by Beethoven, Mozart, and Schumann on the TDK Core Label and Denon Label. He has also recorded Bach’s Double Concerto and the Complete Brandenburg Concertos with Walter van Hauwe and the Saito Kinen Chamber Players, both on the King Label.

Mr. Kawasaki began his violin studies at the age of six with his father, Masao Kawasaki, and continued with Setsu Goto. At the age of ten, he was accepted into the Juilliard School Pre-College Division and further continued his education, graduating from The Juilliard School in 1998 under the tutorship of Dorothy DeLay, Hyo Kang, Felix Galimir, and Joel Smirnoff.

Wolfram Koessel, Cello

Since his critically acclaimed Carnegie Hall debut, cellist Wolfram Koessel has embarked on a diverse career as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician, performing internationally in the world’s most distinguished concert halls. STRAD magazine wrote of “the exceptionally attractive cello playing of Wolfram Koessel.” He has established himself as a sought-after musician, performing concertos with the Jupiter Symphony, the New York Metamorphoses Orchestra (which he co-founded in 1994), Jerusalem Symphony, the Osaka Symphony, the Mannes Orchestra, and symphony orchestras in Stuttgart, Cordoba, Mendoza, Costa Rica, Iowa, and New York.

In 2006, Mr. Koessel joined the American String Quartet, with whom he performs regularly at the Berlin Philharmonie, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Köln Philharmonic Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Kimmel Center, among others. He has performed with artists such as Rene Fleming, Richard Stoltzman, Edgar Meyer, Menahem Pressler, Zakir Hussain, Ute Lemper, Sharon Kam, and Jeremy Denk. He is on the cello and chamber music faculty at the Manhattan School of Music and also in residence at the Aspen Music Festival and the Great Wall Academy in China. He served as Music Director of the Mark Morris Dance Group from 2004-2008 and has toured extensively with the company, performing hundreds of concerts and world premieres with them worldwide. Based in New York City, Mr. Koessel appears with a wide range of ensembles and chamber music groups, including the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic.

Upcoming performances will lead Mr. Koessel to Israel, Japan, Germany, Spain, Canada, and across the United States. He is a founding member of the group Trio Ink, together with violinist Yosuke Kawasaki and pianist Vadim Serebryany. This unique group expands the idea of a piano trio with creative programming and distinctive performance atmospheres.

Vadim Serebryany, Piano

Vadim Serebryany has been highly sought after as a recitalist, concerto soloist, and chamber musician. He has performed in Europe, South America, Australia, and throughout the US, Canada, and Japan. In recent seasons, Mr. Serebryany has been a guest soloist with the National Arts Center Orchestra, The Kingston Symphony, the Osaka Century Orchestra, and the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra.

In 2005, Vadim founded Trio+ with violinist Yosuke Kawasaki and cellist Wolfram Koessel. The ensemble is known for its creative programs, which explore a large portion of the chamber repertory, including duos, trios, and larger ensembles in which they frequently collaborate with guest artists. The trio has performed to critical acclaim throughout North America and Japan.

Mr. Serebryany is a graduate of the Royal Conservatory of Music of Toronto, the Juilliard School, and Yale University. His teachers have included Marina Geringas, Oxana Yablonskaya, Jacob Lateiner, and Boris Berman. From 2005 to 2008, Mr. Serebryany served as Artist in Residence at La Sierra University in Riverside, California, and has also served as a visiting professor at Lawrence University. From 2008 to 2016, Mr. Serebryany was a professor of music at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama, and in 2015 was named Huntingdon’s first-ever Belcher-Cheek Artist in Residence.

Mr. Serebryany joined the piano faculty at the Ithaca College School of Music in 2016.

Sunday, February 18th, Calvin Presbyterian Church, 7:30 PM > Tickets Here

Monday, February 19th, Rosedale House Concert, 7:30 PM > Tickets Here

Our ongoing fundraising series >

Please enjoy our previous Ukraine fundraiser, Anna Sagalova’s concert, from January 17, 2023, produced by pickle underground (Anna Pidgorna, and Canzona Chamber Players) in Toronto.

Thank you to Evan Mitchell & John s. Gray, for filming and recording, and to the arts & letters club, toronto, for hosting the event.

About us >>

Canzona Chamber Players is an annual classical and jazz chamber music concert series in its 20th year featuring some of Canada's top musicians. The series has been hosted at various venues on Toronto Island and in downtown Toronto.

Founded by Jacob Stoller, Jonathan Krehm and Roger Sharp, we exist and thrive because of the enthusiastic support of the St.-Andrew-By-the-Lake Congregation and the Toronto Island community and our music patrons in the GTA.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we were able to broadcast recitals on our YouTube page, which were recorded to the highest standard. The series has featured Winona Zelenka, Joseph Johnson and Jonathan Crow (TSO), Marie Bérard (COC), 2020 Juno recipient Angela Schwarzkopf, Yosuke Kawasaki and Jessica Linnebach (NACO) and many more.

We thank John S. Gray for audio recording these acoustic performances and Evan Mitchell for video recording, editing and broadcasting them. All performers were paid for their performance. In light of the war in Ukraine, we recently presented two fundraising events.

Click here to learn more and make a donation to Ukraine.

For the past ten years, we have held an annual fundraising concert in memory of Elizabeth Krehm, and to date have raised over $242 000 for the St. Michael's Hospital Foundation.

Click here to learn more and make a donation to St. Michael's Hospital.

Now in our 20th season, 2022-23, we are presenting live events again, beginning with John Kameel Farrah in November.

Please sign up to receive concert updates here.

We hope to see you soon.

Jonathan Krehm and Canzona Chamber Players