Heather Kitching

Top emerging talents will compete at FREE public events in Ottawa

Stepping Stone schedule:

Finals at the National Gallery of Canada
Sunday, June 10
1:30pm
7pm
Winners announced at 9:30pm

Thirty astonishing young musicians and singers will compete in Ottawa in June to be named Canada’s most outstanding up-and-coming classical artist.

A veritable “Olympics of classical music” – for its contestants’ years-long devotion to study and hours-a-day practice schedule easily parallels the training regime of a world-cup athlete — the elite Stepping Stone competition offers a grand prize of $10,000 and a demo produced by Radio-Canada. The winner also receives an invitation to perform at the CMC’s gala concert in Toronto in July.

In addition, Stepping Stone awards a second prize of $5,000, a third prize of $2,500, and a $1,000 prize for the best performance of a Canadian composition.

Highly-regarded in the classical music world, but an as-yet-undiscovered treasure for many outside its ranks, the biennial event presented by the Canadian Music Competition attracts the cream of the crop from among our country’s finest junior music competition winners and early-career professionals. It helps vault the winner to world-wide attention. Past grand-prize recipients include Louis Lortie, Marc-André Hamelin, Barry Shiffman of the St. Lawrence String Quartet, Susan Hoeppner and Annalee Patipatanakoon of the Gryphon Trio. The Trio is serving as Artistic Ambassador for the 2012 Stepping Stone.

The event is open to musicians between 16 and 28 and vocalists between 16 and 31. More than 120 applied for this year’s competition.

Here are the chosen contenders:
Vincent Béland-Bernard – Piano (Mont-St-Hilaire, QC)
Elias Berberian – Tenor (Laval, QC)
Ariane Brisson – Flute (Montréal, QC)
Yolanda Bruno – Violin (Ottawa, ON)
Caroline Cole – Harp (New York, NY)
Alyssa Delbaere-Sawchuk – Viola (Toronto, ON)
Olivier Hébert-Bouchard – Piano (Trois-Rivières, QC)
Alex Héon-Goulet – Flute (Montréal, QC)
Yohan Jager – Piano (Montréal, QC)
Jihye Kee – Violin (Richmond Hill, ON)
Alexander Read – Violin (Montreal, QC)
Christopher Kusuhara – Piano (Montréal, QC)
Simon Larivière – Piano (Montréal, QC)
Vincent Lauzer – Recorder (Montréal, QC)
Clara Lee – Violin (New York, NY / Toronto, ON)
Nicole Linaksita – Piano (North Vancouver, BC)
Rudin Lengo – Piano (Toronto, ON)
Stéphanie Lessard – Soprano (Montréal, QC)
Natalie Lo – Piano (Richmond, BC)
Tristan Longval-Gagné – Piano (Sherbrooke, QC)
Lysandre Ménard – Piano (Boucherville, QC)
Qiao Yi Miao Mu – Piano (Montréal, QC)
Jana Miller – Soprano (Montréal, QC)
Michelle Yelin Nam – Piano (Edmonton, AB)
Magdalena von Eccher – Piano (Lethbridge, AB)
Alexander Seredenko – Piano (Toronto, ON)
Florie Valiquette – Soprano (Montréal, QC)
Sijing Ye – Piano (Thornhill, ON)
Brian Yoon – Cello (Coquitlam, BC)
Hee-Soo Yoon – Violin (Surrey, BC)

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