Mozart, musique de chambre pour cordes

Violinist Michelle Seto has been a member of the dynamic Quebec City chamber orchestra, Les Violons du Roy since 1992. She has appeared as soloist with some of Canada’s leading orchestras, including the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, and with her own ensemble, Les Violons du Roy.

As a student, she distinguished herself by winning the first prizes in several of Canada’s national competitions, including the Canadian Music Competition, the CIBC Competition, the Début Series, and the Quebec Symphony Competition. She was the recipient of a Canada Council “B” Grant, which enabled her study to pursue her graduate studies in Boston at the New England Conservatory with James Buswell. Before that, she studied with Mauricio Fuks at McGill University and in London, England. Michelle Seto was born in Shawinigan to Chinese and Filipino parents. She grew up in Vancouver.

Véronique Vychytil began to take violin lessons at the age of 4 with her father, Vaclav Vychytil. After graduating from the University of Montréal where she was a student of Jean-François Rivest, she went on to study with Kathleen Winkler at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara.

With the support of a scholarship from Le Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, Véronique Vychytil worked with various teachers in Germany, the Czech Republic and Switzerland. She was also a member of the Jeunesses Musicales world orchestra, performing in several European countries.

Véronique Vychytil won First Prize and the Janácek Prize at the Czech and Slovakian music competition in Montréal, and was invited to attend the Brno academy of music in the fall of 1998. She has won prizes in several national competitions, including the Canadian music competition.

Since July 2000, Véronique Vychytil has been a member of the chamber orchestra Les Violons du Roy. She has also performed as a chamber musician in festivals around Québec.

Maud Langlois was born in Montréal and began to learn the violin at the age of 7 with Marcel Saucier. Then, at the Montréal conservatory, she studied with outstanding teachers such as Eva Lopas, Robert Verebes and Dennis Brott. During this period, she also received guidance from Hamad Fujiwara in New York. After graduating from the conservatory in 1995, she went on to study with Claude Richard.

Maud Langlois has a special interest in chamber music, and has performed throughout Québec and in radio broadcasts in various instrumental formations, playing a wide range of music. In 1994, she gave a series of concerts in France as a member of a string quartet, thanks to support from L’Office franco-québécois pour la jeunesse. Maud Langlois has been a member of Les Violons du Roy since September 1997.

Pascale Giguère has been a member of Les Violons du Roy since 1995. She was co-concertmaster from 2000 to 2013, and has been concertmaster since 2014. She has performed with the ensemble in some of the world’s leading venues, including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and Carnegie Hall in New York, and at leading festivals in Canada, the United States and Europe. Pascale Giguère has also taken part in recordings with Les Violons for the labels Dorian, Atma and Virgin Classics.

In recent years, Pascale Giguère has appeared as a soloist with Les Violons du Roy, in particular in Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 and Astor Piazzolla’s Four Seasons; the latter work was recorded by Atma and received a Juno award. She has also performed with the Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal, Orchestre symphonique de Laval and Orchestre des Grands Ballets Canadiens, with which she played Stravinsky’s Concerto in D, an experience she repeated in December 2006 with the Orchestre symphonique de Québec conducted by Yoav Talmi. In recent seasons she has appeared as a guest soloist at the Domaine Forget international festival and the Parry Sound Festival.  

Pascale Giguère studied at the Montréal Conservatory with Raymond Dessaints, obtaining Premier Prix diplomas in violin and chamber music. She has also won several important prizes, including Grand Prize at the CIBC National Music Festival, First Prize at the Orchestre symphonique de Québec competition, and the prestigious Prix d’Europe award in 1993, which allowed her to continue her studies at Boston University with Roman Totenberg, Peter Zazovski and the Muir Quartet.

Pascale was awarded the Canada Council Instrument Bank’s 1700 Bell Giovanni Tononi violin to play from 2006 to 2008.

Pascale Giguère plays a Carlo Ferdinando Landolfi violin (Milan, 1745), purchased and generously loaned by Marthe Bourgeois.

Violist Isaac Chalk received a rich and diverse musical education. In addition to training as an instrumentalist, he studied singing at the Maîtrise des Petits Chanteurs du Mont-Royal and worked extensively as a choral singer. He is also a graduate of Mozarteum University in Salzburg and of McGill University in Montréal, where he received the prestigious Lloyd Carr-Harris String Scholarship and the Golden Violin Award, Canada’s largest privately-funded music scholarship.

In February 2011, Isaac Chalk made his debut at Toronto’s Koerner Hall performing Béla Bartók’s Viola Concerto with the Royal Conservatory Orchestra, conducted by Julian Kuerti. In June 2013, he was named principal viola of Les Violons du Roy and has since performed with the orchestra in its regular series in Quebec City and Montréal, at the Lanaudière Festival, at the Domaine Forget International Festival, and on tour in Canada and internationally. He has also appeared as a soloist with the orchestra on many occasions, most notably in Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with Anthony Marwood. Isaac Chalk has been generously supported by the Sylva Gelber Music Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Annie Morrier entered Conservatoire de musique de Chicoutimi at age 5. In 1996, she moved to Quebec City to study under François Paradis. During her studies, she played with Orchestre Réseau des Conservatoires, the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, and the Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra, performing in Europe, the U.S., and across Canada. She honed her craft at the Domaine Forget summer academy, studying under renowned teachers such as Gérard Caussé and Bruno Giuranna. In 2001, she performed as a soloist with Orchestre des jeunes du Conservatoire and Orchestre symphonique de Québec. That same year, she graduated from the Conservatory with high distinction.

Annie Morrier has been a member of Orchestre symphonique de Québec, Orchestre symphonique du Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, Quatuor Cartier, and contemporary music ensemble Erreur de Type 27. In addition to classical and contemporary music, Annie also performs traditional and Latin American music. Since 2005, she has been a permanent member of the Les Violons du Roy chamber orchestra. In 2015, she joined three other Quebec City area musicians and channeled her lifelong passion for chamber music into the group Quatuor Crema.

Principal cello of Les Violons du Roy, Benoît Loiselle also performs as a soloist and chamber musician. He appears regularly at various music festivals and events in Canada, and has played as a guest soloist with many orchestras, including the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Les Violons du Roy, the Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal and most recently, the Orchestre de la Francophonie canadienne.

In great demand as a collaborator for both concerts and recordings, he has played alongside musicians such as James Ehnes, Anton Kuerti, Olivier Thouin, Stéphane Lemelin, Anne Robert and Luc Beauséjour. In 2002-2003, he took part in the Tournées Desjardins series of Jeunesses Musicales of Canada, performing concerts throughout Eastern Canada with pianist François Zeitouni. Alongside his concert schedule, he teaches cello at the Académie du Domaine Forget.

As a founding member of Trio Hochelaga, Benoît Loiselle performed with the group from 2000 to 2006 in all major canadian venues and on an Asian tour in the fall of 2004. The Trio Hochelaga was the dedicatee of the Triple Concerto by Canadian composer Jacques Hétu, and gave its first performance in 2003.

Benoît Loiselle graduated from the Montréal conservatory as a student of Denis Brott, and went on to study with Antonio Lysy at McGill University. In 1999, he won the Prix d’Europe award offered by L’Académie de Musique du Québec and used it to study in Switzerland with Radu Aldulescu and Alberto Lysy, at the International Menuhin Music Academy and with Camerata Lysy Gstaad.

From 2003 to 2006, Benoît Loiselle played on the McConnell-Gagliano cello loaned by the Instrument Bank of the Canada Arts Council. He uses a 1900 Joseph Alfred Lamy bow, engraved A. Lamy à Paris, generously provided by CANIMEX INC. of Drummondville (Quebec) Canada.