John Marcus & Sharon Wei Perform Mozart

November 18, 2023 | 7:30 PM

Principal Conductor: William Rowson

Guest Artists: John Marcus, violin & Sharon Wei, viola

A day without Mozart is like a day without sunshine. The Stratford Symphony Orchestra is joined by John Marcus and Sharon Wei to perform Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, a brilliant double concert for violin and viola. With Bologne’s bite size Symphony in D and Dvorak’s comforting Serenade for Strings on either side, this concert promises to leave your heart filled with joy.

Ticket Information

Tickets for SSO Masterworks series concerts are as follows:

Location:

Avondale United Church

194 Avondale Ave, Stratford ON N5A 6N4

Program

John Marcus:

John Marcus is a native New Yorker, and a graduate of The Juilliard School, where he received his pre-college division diploma, and his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees. He also holds a postgraduate certificate from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. His teachers include Dorothy DeLay and David Takeno. As a member of the Grammy-nominated Enso String Quartet, John has performed extensively as a chamber musician throughout the United States, Latin America, and Europe.

He gave his first public performance at the age of nine at the Mozarteum in Salzburg; and at fifteen, he performed at Lincoln Center as the winner of the Julliard Violin Competition. For the 1993 gala opening of the Harris Concert Hall in Aspen, Colorado, John appeared as a soloist alongside Pinchas Zukerman and the Aspen Chamber Symphony. For this occasion, the Stradivarius Society of Chicago lent John the 1742 “Burmeister” Guarnerius del Gesu violin.

John has frequently toured Germany as a recitalist, and recently premiered the John Corigliano Sonata for Violin for Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Germany’s leading public radio network. In his hometown of New York City, John has performed for numerous concert series, including LPR, Barbes, BargeMusic and in collaboration with members of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project. John has also performed with the Mark Morris Dance Group, and the New Juilliard Ensemble. As a member of the New York-based chamber music group “The Knights” he has toured throughout the United States and Europe.

John has performed at many festivals, including Ravinia, Aspen, Tanglewood, Interlochen, San Miguel de Allende, Campos do Jordao International Winter Festival, Verbier, and Spoletto. Musicians with whom John Marcus has worked include James Dunham, Vera Beths, Ursula Oppens, Sam Rhodes, Peter Oundjian, and Cho-Liang Lin. John loves to cook for his family, and plays on a Samuel Zygmuntowycz violin made in 2003 in Brooklyn, New York.

Sharon Wei:

Canadian violist Sharon Wei is a dynamic and multi-faceted musician, establishing herself as one of the most respected violists on the scene today. She has appeared as concerto soloist with orchestras such as Symphony of the Redwoods, Kingston Symphony, Sinfonia Toronto, Orchestra of Southern Utah, San Francisco Chamber Orchestra and Connecticut Valley Chamber Orchestra and recently Richard Mascall’s “Ziigwan” viola concerto with the London Symphonia. This season she will perform with orchestras including Sinfonia Toronto, Thunder Bay Symphony and Stratford Symphony. She has performed recital tours with pianist Angela Park under the auspices of Debut Atlantic and Prairie Debut.

As a chamber musician, she regularly takes part at international festivals such as Verbier, Marlboro, Prussia Cove, Banff, Seattle and Ravinia. She is the violist of the award-winning New Orford String Quartet and has performed with renowned musicians including James Ehnes, Lynn Harrell, Peter Wiley, Gary Hoffman, Claude Frank, Joseph Silverstein, James Campbell, the Amernet, and St. Lawrence String Quartets. Sharon co-founded Ensemble Made in Canada in 2006. Their Mosaïque Project won a 2021 JUNO for Classical Album of the Year and toured to every province and territory in Canada in both traditional venues and eclectic ones such as the seabed of Hopewell Rocks at low tide.

Sharon has been guest principal violist of the Cincinnati Symphony, Canadian Opera Company, and Ensemble Matheus in Paris. Recently she was a guest violist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic on their 2021 Grammy recording of Ives Symphonies. She’s been nominated for the 2023 Ontario Arts Council’s Oskar Morawetz Award for Excellence in Music Performance.

Sharon was on faculty at Yale and Stanford University and is currently Associate Professor of viola and acting Assistant Dean of Research at Western University. She has given masterclasses at the American Viola Society Festival, Beijing Conservatory and universities across Canada. In summers she is a regular faculty violist at Curtis Summerfest, Scotia Festival, Tuckamore Festival, and Orford Academy. At Western Sharon has created a course for performance majors in which students learn off-stage initiatives such as networking, grant writing, website design, and managing finances. Sharon won the viola prize at Yale University and has been the recipient of grants through the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, FACTOR and Western University.