Scholarship Winners

Catching up with a Scholarship Winner

A long-forgotten violin, a 300-year-old cello: The strange tales behind 5 rare musical instruments on Toronto stages.” by Joshua Chong, Toronto Star

Tiffany Yeung, 2024 WMCT Scholarship Winner, performing on a violin made by the French luthier Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume in 1869.

“From a family knick-knack that turned out to be a valuable French violin, to a rare, five-string baroque cello, these instruments have stories to share. 

Every musical instrument has a unique story, each with a distinct personality. Some, centuries old, have been passed down numerous times, from one generation of musicians to the next. Here are the weird and absurd stories behind five instruments that can be heard on stages across Toronto. 

For years, this violin sat on Greg Cook’s bookshelf. He had inherited it after his maternal grandfather died. But no one in his family thought it was anything more than a knick-knack. 

It wasn’t until the instrument’s neck broke, and Cook brought it in for repairs that he and his family discovered that the family heirloom wasn’t just any old violin; it was one crafted by the prolific French luthier Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume at the peak of his career in 1869. 

In 2009, following this discovery, Cook and his wife donated the instrument to the Canada Council for the Arts. It’s currently on a three-year loan to Tiffany Yeung, a student at the Royal Conservatory of Music who won the violin through the council’s Musical Instrument Bank competition.  The violin’s two-piece back is made of maple, while its front is crafted of spruce, finished with a reddish-brown varnish. “It’s a very warm, rich and very sweet sound,” described Yeung. “And paired with this (Vuillaume model) bow, the violin is just incredibly smooth.”’

From the article by Joshua Chong, May 12, 2025

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2024 Annual Meeting – more fun than most AMs

Members gathered in the Arts and Letters Club Great Hall on September 26. After quickly approving the financial statements, appointing auditors for next year, listening to the reports of last year’s activities, accepting the ONCA documents (the result of extreme amounts of time and energy) we enjoyed music made by three of our scholarship winners, and a delectable lunch.

Photo credits: Jim Kippen

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Another WMCT Scholarship Winner joins COC Ensemble Studio

For the 2024/25 season soprano Gabrielle Turgeon will become part of the company’s professional development program. As an undergraduate at the U of T Faculty of Music, Gabrielle was the 2021-2022 winner of the WMCT Centennial Scholarship. She is currently a student at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

As a new member of the Ensemble Studio she will be well on the way to a professional career, like mezzo-soprano Alex Hetherington, a previous winner of the same scholarship and current Ensemble Studio member.

MORE from Ludwigvan Toronto

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Alex Hetherington Wins the UTSO Concerto Competition


Mezzo-soprano Alex Hetherington, WMCT 2018-19 Scholarship Winner, will perform as a soloist next season with the University of Toronto Student Orchestra. Watch the Concerto Competition on the UTFM YouTube channel.
Her performance of the Neruda Songs by Peter Lieberson begins at the 48:56 mark in the video.

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