Thursday 22nd May 12:00 PM
Canadian cellist Valerie Welbanks currently studies at the Royal Academy of Music with Philip Sheppard. This year is her final year of the master’s program at the Academy after which she will be putting her ten years of institutionalized music making into practice.
Valerie started learning the cello at the age of eleven in Ottawa with Julian Armour, after realizing she’d rather leave all those piano chords and very difficult Rachmaninoff études to her colleagues. She then moved to Québec where she studied with Leslie Snider at the Conservatoire de musique de Québec, where she obtained a collegiate music diploma in 2003 and an undergraduate diploma in music interpretation in 2006.
Valerie has given many chamber and solo recitals in various venues in London and in Canada. As a soloist, she has given several performances with the Orchestre symphonique de Québec and the Sinfonia de Québec. Orchestral work is of course equally part of a cellist’s life – her most noteworthy experiences include the yearly collaborations between the Conservatory orchestra and the Orchestre symphoniqe de Québec under the direction of Yoav Talmi, as well as the National Youth Orchestra’s eastern-Canadian tour in 2001 under the direction of Simon Streatfield. Her most recent orchestral performance was in Saint-John’s Smith Square in London with the Young Musicians Symphony Orchestra as principal cellist.
Last summer Valerie attended the Toronto Summer Music Academy under full scholarship for the second summer in a row to study with master Janos Starker. In past summers, a full scholarship allowed her to attend a chamber music course at the Banff Centre with her quartet, and she received a partial scholarship for the Orford Arts Centre, where she first worked with Mr. Starker. Valerie has also been working occasionally with Colin Carr since 2004, privately, in master-class and at the Académie internationale de musique de Montpellier in France.
Valerie plays on a beautiful 1801 William Forster cello, generously on loan from the Royal Academy of Music.
Tickets: £7.00
Doors Open: 11.45am
