2022 MUSICIANS

Canadian flutist Sarah Pollard is an active freelance performer and teacher based in Toronto. She held the position of second flute and piccolo with the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra during their 2021/2022 season. Sarah is an alumna of the 2021 Orchestra of the Americas, the 2021 National Repertory Orchestra, Colorado (unable to attend in-person due to COVID-19 restrictions) and the 2021 National Academy Orchestra of Canada. Previous orchestral memberships include the Royal Conservatory Orchestra, the McGill Symphony Orchestra, the Pronto Musica Orchestra, the National Academy Orchestra of Canada, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestral Institute at Whistler and the University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra. As a chamber musician Sarah has performed with numerous ensembles, a highlight of which was performing Boulez’s infamous Le marteau sans maître in the 2018 Ottawa Chamberfest’s New Music Now Festival.

Sarah is a recent graduate of The Glenn Gould School’s Artist Diploma program, where she studied with full scholarship under the direction of Susan Hoeppner. Sarah previously studied with Carolyn Christie (McGill University, MMus Performance), Nora Shulman and Peg Albrecht (University of Toronto, BMus Performance).

Shaun Rogers, is a Double Bass player currently studying music performance at Michigan State University. He completed his bachelor’s degree at the University of Toronto while performing alongside several competitive orchestras like: Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra (side by side performance), National Youth Orchestra of Canada and the National Academy Orchestra.

Shaun has also shown a huge interest in Music writing. He received private lessons from Juno Awards nominated Canadian composer Larysa Kuzmenko and primarily enjoys writing in a more traditional style for orchestra and chamber music but has also shown immense creativity in electronic music. Within this past year he has completed 10 duets for two basses, one of them premiered for the Toronto Star Newspaper while another was performed at the Toronto Zoo by two bass players from the Toronto Symphony (Paul Rogers and Timothy Dawson) for a special program called “Zoophony” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y8yfKDThNk), where specific works are performed to represent the different animals.

To this day, Shaun continues to expand his compositions in the hopes of one day having a major work performed.

Canadian Korean violinist, Sienna MinKyong Cho, was born in South Korea and raised in Canada. In 2019, she was the recipient of the Salsinger Tani Gold Medal at the time of her graduation from McGill University. Sienna is the prize winner of Peter Mendell Award Competition, and 1st place in the category of strings (18-20 years old) in 2017. She had the opportunity to attend world class academy festivals such as Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Kneisel Hall, Colorado College Music Festival, New York String Orchestra Seminar, Toronto Summer Music, Zodiac Music Festival, Orford Musique, and Domaine Forget. She obtained her bachelor’s degree at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University with Andrew Wan and master’s degree at the Shepherd School of Music of Rice University under the tutelage of Cho-Liang Lin. Sienna will return to McGill University in the fall for a Graduate Diploma in Performance program.