Sinfonia 3: Step by Step
CONCERT DETAILS
Come and experience a magical afternoon of string music as the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Vernon Regehr welcomes the Suzuki Talent Education Program. A building block for string musicians in St. John’s, the NSO has had a long relationship with STEP and this concert will feature STEP students and NSO musicians playing together. The concert features a new composition “The Stepping Stone Variations” by Duane Andrews; Handel’s Concerto Grosso Op. 6 No. 11; Vivaldi’s Concerto for two Cellos in G minor RV 531; and Vaughn Williams Concerto Grosso for String Orchestra.
This concert will be held at 2:00pm on Sunday March 12, 2023 at St. Mary the Virgin Church.
About the Suzuki Talent Education Program
The Suzuki Talent Education Program offers a complete string music education for children in violin, viola, and cello. Based in St. John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador, STEP has been the foundation of string playing in our community for close four decades and is the province’s only Suzuki music education program. String playing starts with STEP!
About Vernon Regehr
A native of Winnipeg, cellist Vernon Regehr is an active recitalist, chamber and orchestral musician, conductor and teacher, and developer of eMusic Bach, an interactive iOS app.
An avid chamber musician and teacher, he serves as a member of the faculty at the Tuckamore chamber music festival in St. John’s Newfoundland he has performed numerous commissioned works for national radio broadcast. He is a founding member of the Spectrolite Ensemble, a clarinet trio with Sean Rice and Patrick Cashin whose premiere recording includes works by Beethoven, Zemlinksy and Roberto Sierra. Regehr served on the performance and teaching faculty of the Kinhaven Music Festival in Vermont for many years, and has taught at numerous other festivals. He has collaborated with Ensemble Made in Canada, the Shanghai, Penderecki, Fitzwilliam and Lafayette string quartets, Andrew Burashko, Mark Fewer, Suzie Leblanc, and Leon Fleisher. His performance of Carter’s cello sonata at the Groundswell New Music Festival commemorating Elliott Carter’s 100th birthday, “…showed a clear understanding of the work, while handling its hefty technical demands with finesse.” (Winnipeg Free Press)
He has made festival appearances with the First Avenue Chamber Players of New York City, at the Indian River Festival, the International Festival of Ensembles in St. Petersburg, Russia, Trinidad Arts Festival, University of Victoria, Artspring, SoundaXis New Music Festival, Hilton Beach, Toronto Summer Music Festival, Music in the Barns and the Chamber Music Societies of Quebec and Kitchener-Waterloo. Regehr has also performed as soloist with the Winnipeg Symphony, Newfoundland Sinfonia, Memorial University Chamber Orchestra and the Cantata Singers of Ottawa.
His first solo album, Full Spectrum, features previously unrecorded Canadian works for unaccompanied cello, includes Lamentations (Clark Ross), which was awarded the 2014 East Coast Music Award for Composition of the Year. John Terauds (Wholenote) writes, “…Regehr executes [Versprechen] with elegant ease, as he does every other one of the very difficult pieces on this album.” This past season he premiered Andrew Staniland’s Calamus song cycle with soprano Jane Leibel, and is currently collaborating with author and filmmaker Kenneth J. Harvey to reimagine the cycle as a collection of short films. The first of four, Aliment Roots, has been screened at film festivals nationally and internationally, with the next two slated for screenings this year.
Recently, Regehr designed eMusic Bach, an iOS App that enables the user to learn and play from J.S Bach’s first suite for solo cello using a visually enhanced and interactive score. By selecting menu items, coloured noteheads and multiple staves highlight various elements of musical analysis including harmonic progressions, compositional structure and a composed accompanying bass line.
Regehr completed his undergraduate training at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, where he studied with Thomas Wiebe, Shauna Rolston and Kim Scholes. He earned both his Masters and Doctoral degrees at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, studying with Timothy Eddy. He was the recipient of the Ina Gordon Fellowship for two seasons at the Tanglewood Music Centre, and also performed at the Taos School of Music, Banff Centre for the Arts, Colorado College Conservatory, and the Oberlin Conservatory Summer Festival in Casalmaggiore, Italy.
While living in New York, Regehr taught cello in East Harlem with the renowned music school Opus 118, featured in the major motion picture Music of the Heart, starring Meryl Streep. He also appeared in Atom Egoyan’s film Sarabande, the fourth of six films from the Inspired by Bach series featuring Yo-Yo Ma.
His partner, Amy Henderson, is Artistic Director of Projēkt Chamber Voices and Executive Director of Business and Arts NL, and they have two sons.