Bio

Ember began her musical journey on the violin at the age of 4 where she demonstrated a natural aptitude enabling her as a youth to succeed as finalist at the Canadian music Competition, the Crescendo International Competition NY, perform with I Musici de Montreal, and participate in the YSPF– Ottawa Vienna Tour.  Through these years she studied with Lucine Balikian, Joan Milkson, Alexandre Da Costa, and Denise Lupien and participated in masterclasses with George Hamann, Zakhar Bron, Jonathan Crow and more recently with Masao Kawasaki, Mimi Zweig, Christian Tetzlaff and Guillaume Sautre. 

Ember has just completed her BMus in Violin Performance from the University of Ottawa graduating Magna Cum Laude where she studied mainly with the late Yehonatan Berick, and Timothy Chooi.  While in Ottawa she performed at the Cathedral Arts Series, the YSPF Alumni series, at the 2022 Eagles Hotel California concert with their orchestra, the 2023 Music and Beyond Festival series, and her own series “An afternoon/evening of music” with pianist Olivier Hébert-Bouchard.  She was also a student teacher with Orkidstra, a 2021 finalist in the NACO Bursary Competition, a finalist in the 2023 Agustin Aponte International Music Competition in Spain and is currently a finalist for the prestigious Orford Music Award to be held August 2024, a creative project which focusses on violin and vocal works of female composers delivered in a multimedia format. 

Ember is also a singer and composer who combines her violin, vocal and compositional skills to deliver recitals and creative projects with clever arrangements as visualized on her Youtube channel.  Through her composition classes, she has composed several works in in varying formats.  In 2020, she composed an accompaniment to the poem “Monster”, a narrated work by indigenous poet Dennis Saddleman which highlights the injustices of the residential school experience in Canada.  The work fuses a vocal narration of Mr. Saddleman’s poem with a violin arrangement composed and performed by Ember to enhance the raw truth within the words.  In 2022 she composed a vocal and string work for 5 instruments entitled “Ave Maria”, a stunning yet simple violin and vocal work supported by a small string ensemble and embellished with unique vocalizations.  Finally in 2023, Ember composed “Frost” an instrumental work for a larger mixed ensemble of 14 instrumentalists and a conductor.  A hauntingly beautiful thematic where each player contributes to the emergence of frost in all its beauty and diversity.  The work intentionally includes improvised parts to elucidate the diverse and random nature of frost as personified by the players of multiethnic backgrounds who come together and develop on platform of music.

Ember is currently pursuing a joint Masters in Violin Performance with a Graduate Microprogram in Composing for the Media at the University of Ottawa.  She has more recently been focusing her performance repertoire on female composers and on November 28th at the NAC 4th Stage where she presented a concert of violin and vocal works of female composers of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, with one of her own to represent the 21st century.