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bethany bergman

Teacher, violin
M.Mus Performance (U of T), Artist Diploma (Glenn Gould School)

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Violinist Bethany Bergman is a member of the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra and is Principal 2nd violin of the Hamilton Philharmonic. She is active in and around Toronto with the Esprit Orchestra as Principal 2nd, Elora Festival, Toronto Symphony, and the National Ballet among others.

She loves to play a variety of styles from Baroque to popular and alternative music. On Baroque violin she has performed and recorded as a member of the Aradia Ensemble, and played as a guest with Tafelmusik. She has recorded and performed in Canada and abroad for film, television, and radio, with popular musicians including Kanye West, Barbara Streisand, Earth, Wind, and Fire, The Canadian Tenors, Andy Stochansky, Patrick Watson, Belle and Sebastian, and Sarah Slean, as well as making the Polaris Prize winning "He Poos Clouds" CD with Indie artist Owen Pallett/Final Fantasy.

She has worked with theatre companies including Theatre Rusticle in "Peter and the Wolf", Summerworks in "L'Histoire du Soldat", and at the Tarragon Theatre playing the violin as part of Judith Thompson's "Body and Soul".

She has been a participant in many festivals including the National Repertory Orchestra, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Schleswig Holstein Music Festival, Prussia Cove and the Tafelmusik Baroque Seminar. She was a member of the Colorado Music Festival orchestra in Boulder for seven years, played for many years with the Iris Chamber Orchestra (Memphis) and played in the Charlottetown Festival on PEI in the summer of 2006 and 2007.

After earning a Bachelor’s degree in both Violin Performance and English Literature from Indiana University, Bloomington, under the tutelage of Franco Gulli and Nelli Shkolnikova she went on to study and work in Munich and Berlin. In Germany, she was the recipent of stipends to study from both the Munich Orchestra Akadamie and the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester (formerly Radio Symphony of the West).

While living in Germany, she peformed with the Bavarian Radio Symphony, Munich Chamber Orchestra, and Deutsches Symphonie Orchester, Berlin. She also toured with numerous chamber orchestras and as a chamber musician while living there. She played under the baton of Sir Georg Solti, Roger Norrington, Vladimir Ashkenzay and Valery Gergiev among others. In her last year living in Germany she was engaged with the Gewandhaus Orchester in Leipzig.

She moved to Toronto to study with Lorand Fenyves at the Royal Conservatory of Music and the University of Toronto, from which she received an Artist Diploma and Masters Degree in Violin Performance. She decided that Toronto felt like home from her first weeks as a student here.