Sinfonia Toronto w/ Hyuk-Joo Kwun, violin and Sangwook Park, piano March 12, 2010

Sinfonia Toronto’s 2009/2010 Masterpiece Series continues March 12th at 8:00pm, with two young phenoms from Korea, both winners of international competitions. This concert’s guest soloists are Hyuk-Joo Kwun, violin and Sangwook Park, piano.

The winner of several prestigious violin competitions, 24-year-old violinist Hyuk-Joo Kwun was born in Seoul, Korea, and moved to Russia at the age of 10 to study at the Tchaikovsky Central Music School in Moscow. He made his debut with the Moscow National Orchestra at the age of 11, and continued to study in Russia until recently relocating to Germany to continue his quest as a violinist. Having spent the majority of his life in Russia, he’s actually now more comfortable speaking in Russian than Korean, and that extends to his musicality, which has drawn comparisons to the long lineage of Russian violin virtuosos.

19-year-old pianist Sangwook Park, also from Korea, has already won numerous solo and chamber music competitions, and garnered critical acclaim while touring extensively throughout Europe. Last year, he made his North American debut with the Plymouth Philharmonic Orchestra.

This concert also features a piece by Canadian composer John Burge, Director of the School of Music at Queen’s University. He has written a large body of vocal, chamber, and orchestral compositions. A number of his works for large ensemble draw their influence from a distinctively Canadian perspective.

Sinfonia Toronto is comprised of thirteen virtuoso string players. “A world-class ensemble,” according to Germany’s Russelsheimer Echo, they perform standing, in the tradition of great chamber orchestras, under the direction of Music Director and conductor Nurhan Arman. A roster of Toronto’s finest woodwinds, brass and percussion joins the strings for select programs, drawn from the full range of chamber orchestra repertoire. The Toronto Star writes of "a remarkable range of colour," "ample eloquence" and "gripping authority," while La Scena Musicale declared: "Nurhan Arman and his orchestra literally conquered us." Their most recent CD, Flanders Fields Reflections features the 2009 Juno Award winner for Classical Composition of the Year, a Sinfonia Toronto commission composed by John Burge.

The programme for the evening consists of John Burge’s A Light Fantastic Round, Mendelssohn’s Double Concerto and Dvorak’s Chamber Symphony op. 105.

Tickets for this concert are $12 - $40 and are available through the Roy Thomson Hall box office at www.roythomson.com, 416-872-4255. Visit www.sinfoniatoronto.com for more information.

Official Website: http://www.sinfoniatoronto.com