The Canadian ensemble performed in the season opener of the Women's Musical Club of Winnipeg Concert Series. Michael reached Sarah over the phone.

 

 

Taking their name from St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music, the Cecilia String Quartet continue to win praise following their 2010 First Prize at the Banff International String Quartet Competition (BISQC). “The balance between expressiveness and interplay was almost dauntingly perfect,” wrote the Berliner Zeitung after a performance in the Konzerthaus Berlin. European tours have taken the four Toronto-based Canadian musicians to the Concertgebouw Kleine Zaal (Amsterdam), Beethoven-Haus (Bonn), Wigmore Hall (London), and venues in Italy and Belgium.

Sarah Nematallah has been delighting audiences with her violin playing since the age of three.  Ms. Nematallah has studied chamber music intensively with Lorand Fenyves, Terence Helmer of the Orford Quartet, and Roman Borys of the Gryphon Trio.  In 2005 she was awarded the University of Toronto Felix Galimir Chamber Music Award as a founding member of the Cecilia String Quartet.  Ms. Nematallah has been the recipient of numerous awards and scholarships to aid her in her studies at the University of Toronto, and in 2005 she was awarded the University of Toronto William and Phyllis Waters Graduating Scholarship, an award for a graduating student deemed by the university to have the greatest potential for making an important contribution to the field of music.  Ms. Nematallah has appeared as a guest soloist with the Brampton Symphony Orchestra, Mooredale Chamber Orchestra and Cathedral Bluffs Symphony Orchestra on several occasions.  She plays on the 1851 Jean Baptiste Vuillaume on loan from an anonymous donor.

The Women's Musical Club  is the oldest continuously operating musical organization in Winnipeg. It was formed in 1894 and continues to this day its tradition of providing a stage for talented young Canadian artists about to embark on an international career.