Veranika Cherniak is a member of Orchestre Nouvelle Generation and La Pieta. She also plays with Orchestre Symphonique de Sherbrooke, Sinfonia, Nova Scotia Symphony as well as L'orchestre Symphonique de Quebec.
She was born 28 years ago in Minsk, Belarus where she learned to play violin at the age of 6 at the Minsk Music Conservatory with Marina Pelymskaya. She immigrated to Canada at the age of nine with her mother and settled in Cornwall, Ontario at age of 9.
She continued her music studies in Montreal with Pavel Feldman at his private school. At age 13 she moved to the class of Johanne Arel in Montreal Music Conservatory and studied there for 9 next years untill 2014 and later at the McGill Schulich School of Music in the class of Andrew Wan.
Veronika is the 1st prize winner of the Concours de musique d'Helene-Roberge in 2013, 1st prize winner of the Concours de L'Orchestre Symphonique de Trois-Rivieres in 2007, and 1st prize winner of the Canadian Music Conpetition in 2006 and 2004.
Veronika has participated in many masterclasses: 2014 - Jonathan Crow, 2013 – Nicola Benedetti, 2013 – Endellion Quartet, 2012 – Regis Pasquier, 2010 – Maxim Vengerov, 2010 – Vadim Repin, 2009 – Leonidas Kavakos, 2009,2008 – Alexandre da Costa, 2002 – Vladimir Landsman.
She has performed as a soloist with the Orchestre Symphonique de Conservatoire de Musique de Montreal, Ensemble Amati, as well as the Classiq'Arts ensemble of Cornwall. She was also the concertmaster of the Orchestre Symphnique de Conservatoire de Musique de Montreal as well as the McGill Symphony Orchestra.
Chung-Han Hsiao, is a Taiwanese classical musician based in Montréal, QC. Ms. Hsiao received her M.M. in viola performance from Boston Conservatory in the class of professor Lila Brown. In the school year, she was awarded the Boston Conservatory Honors String Quartet and performed in many faculty/student concert events, as well as at a variety of different venues, including The Museum of Fine Arts and Sanders Theater. Ms. Hsiao also performed in several other ensembles, such as New England Philharmonic, MIT Summer Philharmonic Orchestra, Boston Opera Collaborative, and Opera in the Ozarks.
In 2016, Chung-Han was the principal violist of the orchestra at Kent/Blossom Music Festival and performed in the side by side concert at the Blossom Music Center with the Cleveland Orchestra members. In 2017 she moved to Montréal Canada. In the following year 2018, she finished her Artist Graduate Diploma at Schulich School of Music of McGill University under the guidance of Prof. André Roy.
As a chamber player Ms. Hsiao was a founding member of the Heimat String Quartet and the Iceberg String Quartet. In 2017, The Iceberg String Quartet won the first prize of the McGill Chamber Music Competition and was invited to perform in the Chamber music festival at Royal Conservatory in the Netherlands. The following year, the Iceberg String Quartet participated in the EQ: Evolution of the String Quartet program at the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity. In 2019 the Iceberg String Quartet participated both in Juilliard String Quartet Seminar and Toronto Summer Festival where she had an amazing time and experience working with Juilliard string quartet and many great musicians and faculties. Now Ms. Hsiao is a member of Nu Trio Music, Orchestre Nouvelle Generation and La Pieta, and continues to perform for a variety venues and album recordings.
Graduate of the University of Toronto with a degree in Double Bass Performance, the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music with an Artist Diploma in Double Bass Performance and Nipissing University with a degree in Music Education, Matthew is an alumni of the National Youth Orchestra of Canada and the National Academy Orchestra of Canada.
He studied the double bass with Joel Quarrington, who is a rare proponent of tuning the double bass in fifths; this subsequently paved the way for Matthew to learn the cello. A life-changing encounter with the innovative violin teacher Dr. Metro Kozak made possible this transition and progressed into a lifelong mentorship. Matthew subsequently studied the cello with Anna Burden and Ellie Boisinot.
He has performed at many notable master classes including for Pinchas Zuchermann at the Young Artist’s Program in Ottawa, and has freelanced regularly in orchestras across Ontario. Matthew’s musical performance experience is quite diverse, he has performed extensively with salsa, jazz and rock groups. To further his mastery in teaching cello Matthew has recently become a registered Suzuki cello teacher.