General Meeting November 17, 2021

Pianist Jane Coop is one of Canada’s most prominent and distinguished artists. At the age of nineteen she won First Prize in the CBC Radio’s national competition and this, along with First Prize at the Washington International Competition, launched her career.

Her principal teachers for advanced studies were Anton Kuerti and Leon Fleisher. She has played in over twenty countries, in such eminent halls as the Bolshoi Hall in St. Petersburg, the Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall, Roy Thomson Hall, the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, the Beijing Concert Hall and the Salle Gaveau (Paris).

Coop is a cherished faculty artist at the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival (Blue Hill, Maine) where for a quarter of a century she has been collaborating with members of the Juilliard Quartet among other noted string players.

Her commitment to teaching is centred around her long-time position at the University of British Columbia’s School of Music, where she was Professor and Distinguished University Scholar. A Killam Research Prize and Teaching Award were presented to her in honour of her work within UBC and in the international music community.

Coop has been an invited jury member for international piano competitions in Canada, the USA (New York, Washington, Salt Lake City), China and Great Britain. Her sixteen CD recordings have garnered glowing reviews and have been heard on classical radio programs in many countries. In 2012, Jane Coop was appointed to the Order of Canada, Canada’s highest honour for lifetime achievement, and in 2017, she was successfully nominated to the Order of British Columbia.

David Gillham has an extensive solo and chamber music career, having performed throughout Asia, Europe, the Americas and South Africa. He has performed in major venues such as Tokyo’s Opera City and Bunka Kaiken Recital Halls, Baxter Concert Hall in Cape Town SA and the Chicago Cultural Centre, as part of the prestigious Dame Myra Hess memorial concerts.

An internationally respected pedagogue, David is regularly invited to teach, give masterclasses and serve on competition juries in North America, Europe and Asia.

In 2011, he joined the Faculty at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver Canada.

As an enthusiastic interpreter of chamber music, Mr. Gillham is currently a member of the Vetta chamber players, the Archytas Ensemble and the Ridge Piano Trio. He enjoyed extensive concertizing with the Arianna String Quartet as its second violinist from 2005-2012. In addition, he enjoys collaborating with musical personalities such as Regis Pasquier, Violaine Melançon, Johannes Moser, Noah Bendix-Balgley, James Dunham, Atar Arad, Anton Nel, Jose Franch Ballester, Jane Coop and Robert Silverman to name just a few. He is regularly invited to festivals such as the Hammelburg, (Germany), Zodiac ( France ), FEMUSC (Brazil), Kuandu (Taiwan), Sonoran (USA), Pender Harbour and the Domaine Forget International Music Festival in Charlevoix, Quebec.

Inspired by Franco Gulli and Enrico Cavallo to continue performing the standard violin and piano duo repertoire with the same stylistic precision and unity as a string quartet, Mr. Gillham has performed the violin and piano duo repertoire with pianist Chiharu Iinuma for 20 years. Concerts have taken the duo to China, Taiwan, Japan, and across both the United States and Canada.

For Centaur Records, the duo has recorded sonatas by Grieg, Mendelssohn, Respighi and Beethoven. 

As a soloist with orchestra, David has given performances with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, the Gateway Festival Orchestra of St. Louis, the Korea Jade Philharmonic, the West Coast Symphony , the Grand Forks Symphony and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. With the UBC symphony Orchestra, Mr. Gillham has toured Western Canada, performing the Tchaikovsky violin concerto and performed John Corigliano’s Chaconne from the Red Violin, with the composer in attendance as part of UBC’s Corigliano Festival.

Beyond the standard repertoire of solo and chamber music, Mr. Gillham has dedicated himself to the performance and recording of todays composers. His recording of Marcus Goddard’s two string quartets and string trio with the Archytas ensemble on the Palladino label, was released in 2020. He has also recently recorded Stephen Chatman’s Pender Harbour Suite for piano trio with pianist Corey Hamm and cellist Eric Wilson.

In 2018, Mr. Gillham had the honour of performing Juno nominated composer Alice Ping Yee Ho’s, Coeur а Coeur for violin and piano with Corey Hamm, live on CBC at the Juno Awards Classical Showcase Concert. 

Mr. Gillham’s students have appeared as soloist with the Vancouver Symphony orchestra, The Vancouver Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra and the Philharmonia Northwest of Seattle. Many of his former students hold positions in major symphony orchestras, and have continued their studies at institutions such as the Colburn Conservatory in Los Angeles and the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.  Mr. Gillham is regularly invited to teach at universities such as Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, the Wuhan Conservatory, the Kaohsiung Normal University, the University of Music and Theatre in Hamburg, McGill University and the University of Toronto.

Mr. Gillham is co-ordinator of the violin-sessions at the Domaine Forget International Music Festival and Academy in Charlevoix, Quebec. The intensive four week program for gifted and advanced students from around the world, regularly features masterclasses by renowned violinists such as Vadim Gluzman, Rachel Barton Pine, Vadim Repin, Christian Tetzlaff and Midori. 

A graduate of Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, the Peabody Conservatory and the University of Manitoba, in 2002, David was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Golden Jubilee Medal for his contribution to the arts in Canada.

He plays on a violin made by Carlo Tononi, Venice Italy, 1725.