Violinist Jae-Won Bang received her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music in Violin Performance from the Colburn School and Yale School of Music respectively, and Master of Music in Historical Performance from the Juilliard School. In 2012, she was featured on the NEXT Young Artist series on CBC Radio Two with pianist Ryo Yanagitani, as the first artist to be heard on both baroque and modern violins.

Jae-Won has collaborated with Clive Greensmith, Gil Kalish, Ronald Leonard, Rachel Podger, Arnold Steinhardt, and has performed in Weill Hall and Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall, Kennedy Centre, Alice Tully Hall, the Greene Space at WQXR, and le poisson rouge. She has also appeared as a Young Artist with Da Camera Houston for the 2015/2016 season. Her teachers include Gerald and Toni Stanick, Robert Lipsett, Ani Kavafian, Laurie Smukler, and Cho-Liang Lin on violin and Robert Mealy, Cynthia Roberts and Monica Huggett on baroque violin. As an orchestral musician, Jae-Won has previously performed in the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. Since the 2016/2017 season, she has been a member of the first violin section in the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.

Katrina Chitty is a full time violist in the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. As a native of Langley, BC, Katrina originally began her musical education on the violin at age four. She studied violin for almost two decades, achieving a diploma from the Conservatoire Darius Milhaud in France, followed by a Bachelor’s of Music from Wilfrid Laurier University (studying with Jerzy Kapłanek). To further her musical education, Katrina then made the switch to viola, and completed her Master's degree at McGill University under the direction of André Roy.

As a chamber musician, Katrina has enjoyed a multitude of musical opportunities, including a first-place win at the Canadian Music Competition with her ensemble. She spent a year performing around the world on cruise ships with her quartet, and also has presented numerous chamber concerts with ‘Looking at the Stars’ in prisons across Ontario.

Before joining the VSO, Katrina also enjoyed many years of orchestral freelancing - performing with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, National Ballet of Canada, and Canadian Opera Company. Katrina is now happy to call Vancouver her home. When not on stage, Ms. Chitty serves as a Logistics Officer in the Canadian Armed Forces Reserves.

Pianist Jane Coop was born in Saint John, NB and grew up in Calgary, AB.  She studied with Anton Kuerti in Toronto and Leon Fleisher in Baltimore.

At nineteen she won First Prize in the CBC’s national radio competition, and this, along with prizes at competitions in New York and Washington, DC, launched her career. She made recital debuts at Wigmore Hall and Carnegie Hall, as well as performing with the Toronto, Calgary, Victoria and the CBC Vancouver Orchestras. In 1976 she toured the New England States as soloist with Mario Bernardi and the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Canada in Mozart’s Concerto in D minor.

Jane has since played in over twenty countries, in such halls as the Bolshoi Hall in St. Petersburg, the Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall, Roy Thomson Hall, the Beijing Concert Hall and the Salle Gaveau (Paris). In Canada she has given concerts from coast to coast to coast.  She is one of the few who has remained resident in Canada throughout her career. Commissions from Stephen Chatman, Ramona Luengen and others have been included in both her live performances and her recordings.

Coop’s long-time association with violinist Andrew Dawes, and her more recent partnership with cellist Antonio Lysy, have given her the opportunity to delve into the sonata literature of Beethoven. In summer festivals around the world, she has performed with the Manhattan, Miami, Audubon, Orford, Lafayette, Colorado, Seattle, Angeles and Pacifica String Quartets, as well as with the Los Angeles Chamber Winds, York Winds, and such luminaries as Barry Tuckwell, Jamie Somerville, Martin Beaver, Jeanne Baxtrasser and Michelle Zukovsky. Coop is a faculty artist at the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, the oldest chamber festival in North America. There she collaborates in performances of much of the chamber music literature for piano and strings, and coaches brilliant young musicians from across the continent.

Her sixteen recordings, three of which have been nominated for Juno awards, have garnered glowing reviews and have been heard on classical radio programs in many countries.  In December 2012, Jane Coop was appointed to the Order of Canada, our country’s highest honour for lifetime achievement.

Marcus Goddard is an award-winning composer and internationally respected trumpet player whose music has touched the hearts of audiences around the world. His catalog of over fifty works includes ten pieces for large orchestra, many frequently performed chamber works, and a large body of innovative work for solo instruments and electronics. Goddard is the Composer in Association and Associate Principal Trumpet with the Grammy and Juno Award-winning Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in British Columbia, Canada.

Described by New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini as “atmospheric” and by the CBC’s Bill Richardson as possessing a “shimmering, translucent, winning eloquence”, Goddard’s work is routinely praised by musicians, audiences, composers, and critics alike. Goddard’s unique ability to connect across these lines has led to frequent performances of his works. His quartet Allaqi, which was commissioned for the St. Lawrence String Quartet by Chamber Music Kelowna and CBC Radio, was recorded by the St Lawrence Quartet received the 2011 Western Canadian Music Award for Best Composition. Allaqihas been performed nearly one hundred times by quartets across North and South America, including performances at Carnegie Hall, the New World Center, and the Banff International String Quartet Competition. The work has been a staple of the Astera String Quartet’s repertoire in its recent first place performances at the M-Prize, Fischoff, and Saint Paul String Quartet Competitions. The Archytas Quartet recently recorded an album dedicated to Goddard’s chamber music for strings featuring Allaqi; Wind, Sand and Stars; and his newest string quartet, Three Wings.  

Goddard has been the recipient of fellowships from the Spoleto Festival and the National Orchestral Institute. While completing a Master’s degree at Indiana University he was awarded the coveted Performer’s Diploma and performed Edward Gregson’s Trumpet Concerto as the winner of the Concerto Competition. Goddard graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor of music degree from the University of Michigan. His major trumpet teachers include John Rommel, Charles Daval, Armando Ghitalla, Chris Gekker, Louis Ranger, and Jeff Stempien. He has attended seminars with John Corigliano, William Bolcom, Philip Glass, and Krzysztof Penderecki and his major composition teachers include David Dzubay, Marta Ptaszynska, Steve Rouse, and Claude Baker. 

David Harding has an extensive solo and chamber music career, having performed throughout Europe, the United States, Canada, Central America and Australia, in such renowned venues as Berlin’s Philharmonie, the Beethovenhaus in Bonn, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and New York’s 92nd Street Y and Metropolitan Museum of Art. Noted for his “eloquent viola playing”, David has performed at music festivals around the world, including the Edinburgh International Festival, Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival, Seattle Chamber Music Society, Sitka Chamber Music Festival, Australian Festival of Chamber Music, and Philip Glass’ “Days and Nights Festival” in Big Sur, California. David’s career has involved collaborations with leading instrumentalists and ensembles such as the Pacifica, Shanghai, Cypress, Dover, Fine Arts and Miro Quartets as well as the Gryphon Trio. David was formerly a member of the Toronto String Quartet and the Chester String Quartet as well as the Canadian string trio “Triskelion.” With his wife, flutist Lorna McGhee and harpist, Heidi Krutzen, David is a member of Trio Verlaine.

David’s live performances have been broadcast on CBC Radio (Canada), BBC Radio 3 (UK), NPR’s ‘Performance Today’ (USA), ABC (Australia) and Deutschland Radio. David has recorded two CDs with Trio Verlaine; “ Fin de Siècle, the music of Debussy and Ravel”   and “Six Departures” featuring works by Bax and Jolivet alongside new commissions by R. Murray Schafer and Jeffery Cotton. “Six Departures” was chosen to be CBC Radio’s ‘Classical CD of the Week.’ Other recordings include Philip Glass’ String Sextet and Schoenberg’s “Verklärte Nacht” on Orange Mountain Records, Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” with the string trio Triskelion for CBC records, the music of Aaron Jay Kernis with the Chester Quartet, and Brahms’ Viola Sonatas with pianist Phillip Bush for Skylark Music.

In addition to performing the core chamber music literature, David enjoys working closely with composers on new commissions and has helped to expand the repertoire for viola with four solo commissions, and five chamber music commissions to date. In collaboration with Philip Glass, he has worked on interdisciplinary projects with poets Jerry Quickley, Mike Garry, and kora player, Foday Musa Suso. David has worked alongside rock musicians in studio sessions, and arranged the string tracks for the Juno-winning, Grammy-nominated album “Mad Mad World” by Tom Cochrane. Prior to joining the Chester Quartet and embarking on a chamber music career, David was Assistant Principal Viola of the Canadian Opera Company, and performed and recorded with renowned early music ensemble, Tafelmusik.

David is currently Professor of Viola and Chamber Music at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. He has given masterclasses throughout North America, and was formerly Associate Professor of Viola at the University of British Columbia, and with the Chester String Quartet, “Ensemble in Residence” at Indiana University South Bend. A graduate of the Juilliard School of Music and winner of the Sir John Barbirolli Award at the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition, David’s primary teachers were Tibor Vaghy, Paul Doktor and Emmanuel Vardi. He performs on violas made by Nicolas Gilles, Montpellier, France and Pietro Antonio Della Costa, Treviso, Italy.

Originally from Nanaimo B.C. Amy earned her Bachelor of Music degree from the HARID Conservatory in Boca Raton Florida, and her Master of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Prior to the arrival of COVID, Amy was delighted to be in her first season as Principal cellist in the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. She played regularly with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, as well as with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Canadian Opera Company, the Windsor Symphony, Niagara Symphony, Thunder Bay Symphony, and also held a six-month contract with Symphony Nova Scotia in Halifax.

In 2011/12 Amy served as acting principal cello in the Victoria Symphony and taught at the Victoria Conservatory of Music, and again joined the orchestra playing principal cello for the second part of their 2016 season. Amy is an active chamber musician, and was a member of the Madawaska String Quartet, specializing in the performance and cultivation of contemporary works. Amy has also been the solo cellist in numerous major musical theatre productions, most recently “Hamilton”.

Beyond the strictly classical music genre Amy has worked with Toronto’s Art of Time Ensemble, SoulPepper Theatre Company, Toronto Dance Theatre, the Stratford Festival and Music in the Barns. She has performed or recorded with leading artists including Stevie Wonder, Blue Rodeo, Jesse Cook, The Barenaked Ladies, Jim Cuddy, Steven Page, Sarah Slean, Molly Johnson, Royal Wood, Amelia Curran, Donovan Woods, and played a Canadian tour with Blue Rodeo including a performance in the JUNO’s.

Amy has played in music festivals around the world including the Spoleto Festivals in Italy and in Charleston, The National Orchestral Institute, the Banff Arts Festival, Musica Nel Chiostro in Tuscany, Cork Opera Festival Ireland, COSI festival in Italy, the Northern Lights Festival in Ajijic Mexico, Festival of Sound in Parry Sound, the Phil Dywer Music Festival in Qualicum BC, Salt Spring Chamber Music Festival, Tafelmusik’s Winter Institute, and also toured China with her cello quartet.

On the positive side of the reconfiguration this pandemic has caused in her life, Amy is now happy to call Vancouver Island home once again and is thrilled to be joining Victoria Baroque this season. Amy plays on a Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume cello.

Molly MacKinnon is a violinist and collaborative artist based on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish people. Fortunate to grow up in the thriving arts community of Nelson, BC, Molly studied with former Vancouver Opera Orchestra and CBC Radio Orchestra violinist Wendy Herbison before moving to the coast to continue her studies at the University of British Columbia.

Molly has developed a strong passion for theatre and interdisciplinary work. She has been featured in a number of productions including The Idiot (Neworld Theatre/VMT), STATIONARY: A Recession-Era Musical (Delinquent Theatre), The Tempest (Bard on the Beach), The Night’s Mare (Caravan Farm Theatre), Les Filles Du Roi (Urban Ink), Double Happiness (Music on Main), and most recently, a digital run of Good Things To Do (Rumble Theatre). Along with playwright Christine Quintana, Molly is the creator of Never The Last, a genre-bending theatre/concert piece based around the life and work of 20th century Canadian composer and violinist Sophie-Carmen Eckhardt-Gramatté, which received five Jessie Richardson Theatre award nominations, and won in the Special Achievement Award category for outstanding interdisciplinary collaboration.

Rebecca is a freelance violinist and violist based in Vancouver. Originally from Kelowna, she completed bachelor’s degrees in Violin Performance and Biochemistry at McGill University. She has performed in workshops at the Banff Centre for the Arts, Tafelmusik Summer and Winter Baroque Institutes, Tuckamore Chamber Music Festival and Madeline Island Chamber Music. A three-time alumnus of the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, she was the youngest Canadian musician in the Canada India Youth Orchestra project in Bangalore and is a recipient of the Stephen Sitarski Leadership Award. She performs with chamber and orchestral ensembles in and outside Vancouver, including the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra, and studies baroque violin as part of Early Music Vancouver’s Scholarship Programme and UBC’s Baroque Orchestra Mentorship Program.

Henry Shapard was appointed Principal Cello of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in March of 2020, when he was 21 years old. Before joining the VSO, he briefly held the position of Principal Cello of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra, where he was appointed by the RIPO’s Artistic Adviser—and Music Director Emeritus of the VSO—Bramwell Tovey.

In May 2020, Henry graduated with distinction from Yale University with a degree in History, where he was named Phi Beta Kappa and was awarded the Bach Society Prize, the Sharp Prize, the Selden Memorial Award, and the Berkeley College Arts Prize. At Yale, he was a student of Ole Akahoshi and served as Principal Cello of the Yale Symphony Orchestra, where William Boughton became another important mentor. Henry served as the assistant conductor of the Yale Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of the Berkeley College Orchestra and the Saybrook College Orchestra. He led Low Strung, an all-cello rock group at Yale, on tours to China, Singapore, and across the USA.

Henry is a two-time fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, where he received the Karl Zeise Memorial Cello Award and was selected for a third fellowship as a member of the New Fromm Players, with whom he recorded real-time remote performances during the summer of 2020. He has also performed across Germany and Denmark as a member of the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra.

Jacob van der Sloot started playing violin under the instruction of his mother and father, Daphne and Michael van der Sloot, when he was five. He then switched to viola with his father when he was 13 and was accepted to the Juilliard school to study with Steven Tenebom, where he would earn his Bachelors degree in 2019. Shortly after his undergraduate studies, Jacob became the youngest member of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra at age 22.

Growing up in Victoria BC, Jacob had the opportunity to solo with the Sidney Classical, Sooke Philharmonic and the VCM Senior string orchestras, being praised for his “..deep, rich sound with flying colours.” (Times Colonist, Canada) Jacob has gone on to perform in halls around the world such as Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall and Alice Tully hall in New York City, Museo Del Violino in Cremona, Bing Concert Hall in Stanford and the Bejing Conservatory Concert Hall, among others. He has enjoyed dedicating his summers to the study of music, participating in programs such as the Perlman Music Program, Morningside Music Bridge, the NAC’s Young Artist Program, Banff International Masterclass Program, PRISMA Music Festival, Casalmaggiore Festival in Italy and a fellowship at the Bowdoin Music Festival. It was at these festivals where Jacob had the opportunity to study with and play alongside renowned faculty such as Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Dimitri Murrath, Roberto Diaz, Atar Arad, Máté Szücs and Michael Gieler. Jacob also made his solo Carnegie debut in 2019 playing the Brahms E-flat Major viola sonata as part of Julie Jordan’s “International Rising Stars” concert series.

An avid chamber musician, Jacob was part of the Noctis Quartet, which won second place at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition and the WDAV Young Artists Competition. His chamber groups have also performed numerous times in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium. Jacob’s passion for chamber music also carries into music outreach, playing chamber music all over New York City in hospitals, prisons, retirement homes, schools and psychiatric facilities as part of Juilliard’s “Gluck” Fellowship program and through GroupMuse concerts. He also enjoys private teaching, and has served on faculty of the Victoria Summer Strings Academy.

Jacob's orchestral journey began with the Greater Victoria Youth Orchestra. He has since played with the Juilliard Orchestra, the Juilliard Lab Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Principal Violist of both the Sidney Classical Orchestra and the New York Concerti Sinfonietta. Jacob joined the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in 2020 and is incredibly happy to call Vancouver his home.

Raised in St. John’s Newfoundland, Meaghan completed her undergraduate degree in performance at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto with virtuoso bassist Joel Quarrington. During that time, she also had the privilege of studying with bass legend Gary Karr. Meaghan earned her Konzertexamen with Michael Wolf at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. She also attended the Carl-Flesch Akademie in Baden-Baden, Germany where she studied with Finnish double bass phenomenon Janne Saksala, Principal Bass of Berlin Philharmonic.

Following her studies, Meaghan performed with the Neue Lausitzer Philharmonie in Germany and she was founding member of the Hyogo Performing Arts Center Symphony Orchestra in Japan. Since returning to Canada, Meaghan has performed with ensembles from coast to coast including the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Victoria Symphony and the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra. Meaghan is the Principal Bass of the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra and a member of the Vancouver Opera Orchestra.

A believer in diversity and innovation, Meaghan enjoys working with living composers and expanding the repertoire for double bass. She premiered the Concerto for Cello, Bass, Suona & Dizi by Dr. Ning Wang (Beijing) with the Nu:BC Collective and premiered Placentia Bay: Summer of 1941 for double bass and orchestra by Mark Haney with the Okanagan Symphony in November 2019. Meaghan is a passionate advocate of Canadian design and craftsmanship and performs on a double bass made by Peter Mach (Gatineau, QC) and bows made by Reid Hudson (Duncan, BC) and Max Kasper (Halifax, NS).

Meaghan is grateful to have been supported throughout her career with grants from the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council, the BC Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts. She teaches at Capilano University, privately both in person and online, and at the West Coast Amateur Musicians Society course in Squamish, BC, each summer.

Born in Incheon, South Korea, Min Jee completed her Bachelor of Music degree from the Kyung-won University in Korea and an Artist Diploma from the Vancouver Academy of Music. She participated in masterclasses by distinguished cellists such as Aldo Parisot, Daniel Muller Schott and Desmond Hoebig.

After moving to Canada, she enjoyed two months participating in the NAC’s Institute of Orchestra Studies in the autumn of 2011, which allowed her the opportunity to perform with the National Art Centre Orchestra under the baton of Pinchas Zukerman in Ottawa. She was previously a Section Cellist of the Kitchener Waterloo Symphony Orchestra. Min Jee has also performed regularly as a substitute player with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra since 2016. She currently holds the position of Principal Cellist with the Vancouver Island Symphony.  She has received awards in numerous competitions, including First Prize in  the Friends of Chamber Music Competition in 2011 in both the Senior Category and the Audience Prize for cello ensemble. She was also awarded Chamber Open Winner in the 6th Hong Kong International Music Festival Chamber competition in 2019 for Piano Trio.