Recipient of the 2014 Orford String Quartet Award Announced

Toronto – November 12, 2014 – Violinist, Ilana Waniuk is the 2014 recipient of the Orford String Quartet Award.  The $3,000 award is given biennially to an emerging Canadian professional string chamber music player. 

Ilana Waniuk has held artistic residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts, and Le Pantographe in Moutier, Switzerland, and has been a guest artist in residence at the SoundSCAPE contemporary music festival in Italy. She has performed at numerous other contemporary music festivals including Bang on a Can at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, Open Ears in Kitchener, and  the Royal Conservatory’s 21C Music Festival in Toronto.

Ilana has performed with the Madawaska String Quartet, Essential Opera, the Pendulum Ensemble, the Chamber Music Society of Mississauga, the Chicago-based Ensemble Dal Niente and most recently as part of the Music Gallery’s Emergents Series in Toronto.  Ilana is a founding member and co-artistic director of the Thin Edge New Music Collective, which through its Toronto-based concert series commissions and premieres chamber works by emerging composers from Canada and abroad. 

Ilana received a Graduate Performers Certificate from Northern Illinois University and was a recipient of the Dutton String Fellowship. She completed her master’s degree in performance at the University of Ottawa, and received her undergraduate degree in performance and a diploma in chamber music from Wilfrid Laurier University.

Ilana was unanimously selected from a field of nominees by a jury consisting of violinist Suhashini Arulanandam, violinist Drew Jurecka, and cellist Paul Pulford.  The jury remarked that “there is a visceral quality to the performance that Ilana brings to the ensemble. She has that rare ability to translate her intellectual insights into performance energy. Ilana’s commitment to new music and Canadian composers is very impressive.”

The Orford String Quartet Fund was established in 1993 by the members of the acclaimed Orford String Quartet – Andrew Dawes, Desmond Hoebig, Kenneth Perkins and Sophie Renshaw.  During 25 years of performances, the Orford was one of the best-known string quartets in the world. The fund supports the Orford String Quartet’s influence on the development of chamber music in Canada and its encouragement of emerging Canadian string players.

The Ontario Arts Foundation manages the endowment that funds the award.  The Ontario Arts Council administers the nomination and selection process. 

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