Biography

Min-Jeong Koh, violin
Sarah Nematallah, violin
Caitlin Boyle, viola
Rebecca Wenham, cello


Praised for their 'extraordinary commitment and maturity' (Montréal Gazette) and 'talent, passion and mastery' (Jacques Robert, JR Multimedia), the Cecilia String Quartet is one of Canada's most exciting young ensembles today.  2nd Prizewinners at the 2008 Osaka International Chamber Music Competition and winners of the 2007 Galaxie Rising Stars award in Canada, they are currently the Resident String Quartet at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University, pursuing Graduate Diplomas under the guidance of André Roy.  They are also Quartet in Residence of Jeunesses Musicales du Canada for their 60th Anniversary Season. 

The CSQ has performed across North America and in Europe for organizations such as Music Toronto (Toronto, Canada), The La Jolla Music Society (San Diego, USA), ProQuartet (Paris, France), and the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival (Ottawa, Canada).  They also toured Ontario, Québec and British Columbia with Jeunesses Musicales Canada on their Desjardins Concert Series.  In addition to their prize at the Osaka Chamber Music Competition, they were first prize winners and winners of the Melpomene prize at the 2008 Rutenberg Competition held at the University of South Florida.  Committed to teaching and outreach, the CSQ has taught and performed at the Austin Chamber Music Festival in Texas and at QuartetFest at Laurier University in Waterloo, and has presented educational programs for elementary and high schools across the USA, Canada, and France. 

In 2009 the CSQ embarked on the large scale projct 'BLiM' (Breathing Life into Music), a month long Odyssée residency in France, generously supported by Proquartet and the Centres Culturels de Rencontre Association in France and Europe (ACCR).  The project culminated in the performance of two quartets by Théodore Dubois that were lost for the past century, as well as a new piece written for them by American composer Liam Wade.  They will kick off 2010 with a new large-scale project at the Banff Center for the Arts, involving collaborations with Common Sense Composers Collective and the Afiara String Quartet, and culminating in the premiere of four brand new quartets written for them.  Other highlights of the 2009-2010 season include two appearances on Musique sur un Plateau for Jeunesses Musicales. 

Most recently, the CSQ was the Joseph Fisch and Joyce Axelrod Resident String Quartet at San Diego State University in association with the La Jolla Music Society.  Since their inception in 2004, the quartet has held residencies at Laurier University, the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, and the University of Toronto where the quartet was formed.  Their debut performance at the Arts and Letters Club in Toronto was met with high praise, and their first season culminated in the receipt of the Felix Galimir Award for Chamber Music Excellence after only 6 months as a quartet.  Since this time they have participated in many prestigious summer festivals, such as the Juilliard String Quartet Seminar in New York, the Stanford Chamber Music Seminar in California, the Deer Valley Music Festival in Utah, the Schleswig-Holstein Chamber Music Festival in Germay, the Great Lakes Music Festival in Michigan, and the Aspen Music Festival's Advanced String Quartet Studies program.

The Cecilia String Quartet takes its name from St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music.  They have worked with members of the Juilliard, Emerson, Tokyo, Takacs, St. Lawrence, Ying, American, Penderecki, Brentano, and Orford Quartets.  Members of the CSQ have attended the University of Toronto, the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music, the HARID Conservatory of Music, the New England Conservatory, the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, and the Hochschule fur Musik und Theatre Munchen in Munich, Germany.   CSQ Performances have been broadcast on Classical 96.3 FM (Toronto, Canada), CBC Radio 2 (Toronto, Canada), KUT 90.5 FM (Austin, Texas), and ABC Classical FM (Melbourne, Australia).  Min-Jeong Koh currently plays on the ca. 1767 Joannes Baptista Guadagnini violin on loan from the Canada Council for the Arts and would like to thank the anonymous donor and the Canada Council for the Arts for their generous support.