Performance Details
L O V E
Date: July 20th, 2021 7PM
FREE ADMISSION
We explore the many facets of love, with Elgar’s youthful and charming Serenade for Strings, and Candian Kevin Lau’s Joy for violin and orchestra. Pandora Topp appears as Edith Piaf with our ‘Petit Salon Band,’ our pandemic response to our usual Grand Salon Orchestra. Songs include Non, Je ne Regrette Rien, Sous le Ciel de Paris, and instrumental adaptations of Autumn Leaves, and Someone to Watch Over Me.
Performers
Marcus Scholtes, conductor
Sharon Lee, violin
Pandora Topp, voice
Toronto Concert Orchestra
Marcus Scholtes
Patrick Goodwin
Bijan Sepanji
Jeremy Potts
Suhashini Arulanandam
Laurence Schaufele
Samuel Bisson
Michael Cox
Petit Salon Band
Danny McErlain
Sharon Lee
Paul Otway
Shannon Wojewoda
Richard Moore
Soloists
Sharon Lee
Aptly pegged “a compact fireball” (La Scena Musicale), Sharon Lee gave her violin concerto debut at the age of ten.
Sharon has served as Concertmaster and Contractor of the Toronto Concert Orchestra under Maestro Kerry Stratton since 2014. Sharon is Artistic Director of the Toronto Chamber Players, and serves as Music Director of the Korean Canadian Symphony Orchestra, as well as curator for the Korean Canadian Chamber Concerts.
Sharon’s first parlay into orchestral music was the various excellent youth orchestras available in Toronto, and an experience with the New York String Orchestra confirmed that orchestral music could be a life passion. At age 26, Sharon was appointed Principal Second Violin of the Thunder Bay Symphony. Prior to her work as an orchestral musician, Sharon was a fully devoted chamber musician, which has seen her perform across the globe, enjoying fellowships at Schleswig-Holstein Meisterkurse, the Aspen Music Festival, and an official selection to the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition. She was a founding member of the Cecilia String Quartet, with whom she spent her tender and tumultuous early twenties.
Invited to join the studio of the late Professor Lorand Fenyves at age 16, Sharon performed at the Lorand Fenyves Memorial Concert as his final pupil. Sharon is a recipient of the Lorand Fenyves String Scholarship, and the Ontario Arts Council's Orford String Quartet Award.
Sharon, along with her husband Marcus Scholtes, are thrilled and humbled to take on the role of Interim Co-Artistic Director of the Toronto Concert Orchestra, and for the opportunity to continue Maestro Kerry Stratton’s legacy of bringing great music into the hearts of everyone around him.
Pandora Topp
Pandora is a bilingual, multidisciplinary artist-educator and entrepreneur from Sudbury, Ontario and Mont St-Hilaire Quebec. She has performed in the theatre, (working with the likes of Margaret Atwood, Tomson Highway, George F. Walker and Debajehmujig Storytellers), film & television, (CTV’s Cardinal the Netflix series V-Wars with Ian Somerhalder and the highly acclaimed Eaux turbulentes on Radio-Canada), and music industries, notably sharing the stage with Michael Bublé, composer Richard Mascall and the Juno-nominated Silver Birch String Quartet.
She was a Mentor Artist with the Royal Conservatory's Learning Through the Arts program, offering professional development to teachers and artists across Canada and in Germany in both official languages. Since 2011 Pandora has been Artist in Residence at the Conseil scolaire public du Grand-Nord de l’Ontario working directly with elementary teachers to build capacity in the arts. During COVID, she has been asked to adapt her programme, Ambassad’arts, to deliver 20 art-making videos on-line through the website: https://cspgno.ca/programmes/apprends/ambassadarts/
She has created and toured extensively with more than ten music ensembles, the most celebrated being her homage to Édith Piaf, touring since 1998. Her heartfelt interpretation of Édith Piaf’s repertoire has been featured on CBC’s This Morning and Heartland, France’s TV5, at the NAC, and the Francophone World Summit. She also tours the daycares with cellist Alexandra Lee, adapting childrens’ literature through music and drama, with Les Contes d’un violoncelle – Cello Tales, since 2013. Aside from creating, teaching and performing, Pandora is pursuing her certification in Perceptive Education through l’Institut de formation SPP et fasciathérapie du Québec.
In 2015 Pandora was honoured with the Northern Lights Festival Boreal Jackie Washington Award for her distinguished contribution to Northern Ontario's cultural life and she was a nominee for the 2018 Ontario Arts Foundation Artist-Educator Award. This year she is a finalist for Sudbury’s Celebration of the Arts Award for Exceptional Achievement in the Arts, to take place October 29th, 2020.
Behind the Scenes
