Conversations baroques

Canadian violinist Katya Poplyansky is a prizewinner at numerous competitions including the Isabel Bader, Tunbridge Wells and Eckhardt-Gramatté competitions, where she was awarded the prize for the best performance of the commissioned work, Carmen Braden’s Foxy Fox’s Musical Games. An accomplished chamber musician, she has been invited to participate in North American and European festivals, including the Toronto Summer Music Festival, IMS Prussia Cove (UK), Festival Jong Talent Schiermonnikoog (Netherlands), Hvide Sande Masterclass (Denmark), and the Smithsonian Haydn Quartet Academy (USA). She has also collaborated with Amici Chamber Ensemble and the ARC Ensemble. She is currently serving as first violin of the Isabel Quartet at Queen’s University as well as concertmaster of the Kingston Symphony Orchestra. In July 2024, she was named co-concertmaster of Les Violons du Roy in Québec City. Since September 2025, she has worked as an Academic Assistant at Queen’s University’s DAN School of Music and Drama.

Katya is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, the Guildhall School and the Royal Conservatory’s Glenn Gould School, where she was also a Rebanks Fellow. Her teachers include Paul Kantor, Barry Shiffman, David Takeno, Ida Kavafian, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Oleg Pokhanovski, Atis Bankas, Victor Danchenko, Inga Granovskaya and Joseph Silverstein. She recently completed her Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of Toronto, studying with Jonathan Crow and Ellen Lockhart. Her thesis was entitled A Violinist’s Application of Konstantin Stanislavsky’s Acting Methods.

Katya Poplyansky plays a violin Giuseppe Guarneri "de/ Gesù", Cremona, ca. 1726-29, and uses a Eugène Nicolas Sartory violin bow, silver mounted, Paris, ca. 1910, and a Andrew Dipper baroque violin bow, generously provided by CANIMEX INC. of Drummondville (Quebec) Canada.

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.

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.

At the age of eleven, Jean-Louis Blouin began to concentrate on the viola. From 1989 to 1993 he studied at the Montréal Conservatory, where he obtained a higher education diploma. He then studied with Jutta Puchhammer at the University of Montréal, where he completed a Master’s degree in interpretation.

Since 1996, Jean-Louis Blouin has been a permanent member of Les Violons du Roy and appears in several of the group’s recordings, including J.S. Bach’s Art of Fugue and Psalm 51. His interest in Baroque music and experience with early instruments has also led to performances with other specialized groups, primarily as a violist but also on the Baroque violin.

Audiences have heard him perform with the Tafelmusik and Aradia ensembles from Toronto, at the Lamèque International Baroque Music Festival, and in Quebec with the Montreal Baroque Orchestra; Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal; the Arion, Les Boréades, and La Chamaille ensembles; as well as Masques, with which he produced a recording of Bach concertos for harpsichord on the Analekta label.

Jean-Louis Blouin plays a Giuseppe Pedrazzini viola, Milan ca 1930, and uses a Louis Gillet viola bow, ca 1965, generously provided by CANIMEX INC. of Drummondville (Quebec) Canada.

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.

Born in Montreal, Suren Barry is a versatile musician, equally at home on the piano, fortepiano, and harpsichord. Having performed with some of the world's most renowned early music ensembles, he has established himself as a sought-after specialist, winning second prize at the Jurow Competition in 2024 and a scholarship from the English Concert of America.

Suren Barry teaches continuo at the University of Montreal and regularly collaborates with ensembles in Canada and the United States, such as Les Violons du Roy, the Twelfth Night ensemble, Ensemble Caprice, and I Musici de Montréal. He also pursues a career as a pianist, performing regularly alongside Carson Becke of the Octavian Duo, an ensemble dedicated to commissioning contemporary music and arranging orchestral works.