Sarah Cupit, cello

Sarah is currently pursuing a master's degree in music performance and literature at Western University, where she has been awarded a Graduate Research Scholarship, London Music Scholarship Foundation Endowment Award, and the Gordon Jeffery Strings and Chamber Music Graduate Award. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Ottawa, graduating Magna Cum Laude and earning both an Admission Scholarship and a Merit Scholarship.

A dedicated cellist since the age of three, Sarah has developed a passion for chamber music and orchestral performance. Her orchestral experience includes positions such as Assistant Principal Cello at the Scotia Festival of Music, Casalmaggiore International Music Festival, and PRISMA Festival, as well as Section Cello with the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra. Additionally, she has served as Principal Cello for the University of Ottawa, Whispering River Orchestra, London Youth Symphony, Montreal Suzuki String Orchestra, and Forest City Talent Education.

Having recently returned to London, Ontario, Sarah is involved in teaching at the Boys and Girls Club and will be assisting with the Young Artist Pre-College Academy. She is passionate about continuing her education in teaching philosophy and pedagogy, with aspirations to contribute to symphony and chamber music ensembles.

Hannah Cole, mezzo-sopran

Mezzo-soprano Hannah Cole attends Western University as the 2022 Clifford Von Kuster Faculty of Music National Scholarship recipient. She studies voice under the tutelage of Patricia Green, and studies piano as a secondary instrument with Marianna Chibotar-Rutkevich. In 2022, Hannah obtained her ARCT Diploma in both Performance Voice and Performance Piano through the Royal Conservatory of Music. She is the 3-time winner of NATS, the 2-time National Gold Medalist through the Royal Conservatory of Music and the Canadian Conservatory of Music, and has been a top prize-winner through ORMTA and OMFA for voice, piano, and musical theatre numerous times. Most recently, she was the winner of the NATS Great Lakes Region competition, receiving the Jon Vickers scholarship for most promising in her division. Hannah was a Young Artist at La Musica Lirica in Novafeltria Italy, where she studied and performed the role of Meg Page in Verdi's Falstaff, and was a Featured Soloist in the opera gala and academy concerts. Additional recent engagements include Cenerentola u.s. in La Cenerentola (UWOpera), Young Soloist with London Community Orchestra, Featured Soloist in UWOpera Gala, Hannah After in As One (Nuova) and Contralto in Four Note Opera (L’Institut Canadien D’Art Vocal). This past summer, Hannah was one of 19 vocalists from around the world accepted into Tafelmusk Baroque Summer Institute where she did extensive study of early music performance practices.

Shoshana Telner, paino

Canadian pianist Shoshana Telner has performed as soloist and chamber musician across Canada and abroad.  She made her solo orchestral debut with the National Arts Centre Orchestra at the age of 16, and has since performed with orchestras including the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, The National Academy Orchestra, the Boston Classical Orchestra, the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra, and the York Chamber Ensemble.   Shoshana has performed recitals at numerous summer festivals including the Elora Festival, the Kincardine Summer Music Festival, the Waterside Summer Series, the Brott Music Festival, and the Blueridge Chamber Music Festival.  She is a founding member of the Toronto based TakeFive Ensemble, a piano quintet with members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. 
 
Shoshana received a Bachelor's degree on full scholarship from Boston University, a Master's degree from The Juilliard School, and a Doctorate in performance from McGill University.  She has taught piano and coached ensembles at Wilfrid Laurier, McGill, and York Universities, and currently teaches at McMaster University.  Shoshana frequently gives masterclasses and adjudicates competitions. 
Shoshana's recordings include the six Bach Keyboard Partitas (Centaur Records), the Grieg violin/piano sonatas with Jeremy Bell (Chestnut Hall Music), selected Mozart Sonatas and Sonatinas (The Mozart Effect), and selected solo works of Canadian composer Colin Mack (Cansona Arts Media). Her latest CD, the early works of Robert Schumann, will be available on Centaur Records in 2025.

Cordula Hacke, piano (Photo credit: Monika Werneke, Wiesbaden)

Following her orchestral career, the studied pianist and flutist Cordula Hacke is a successful and sought-after chamber music piano partner with an extremely extensive knowledge of the repertoire. She is also professor of Chamber Music and Collaborative Piano at the University of Agder (Norway), lecturer, jury member of international competitions and musical director of various musical, operetta and theater productions.

Her chamber music partners include principal wind and string players from some of the world’s greatest orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the German Radio Symphony Orchestras (Berlin, Frankfurt, Freiburg, Cologne and Stuttgart), the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Royal Danish Opera Orchestra, and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and in 2016 she founded the Trio Art Nouveau, a piano trio dedicated to the music of the Fin de Siècle.

Her extensive discography ranges from the works of contemporary Japanese and women composers to those of artists such as Pavel Haas, Leo Smit, and Paul Hindemith. Having worked closely with American composer George Crumb for many years, Cordula Hacke has been invited to perform his works in prestigious festivals in Germany, Austria, Denmark, Canada, and the USA. Her recording of Crumb's Vox Balaenae was released by Arte Nova-BMG Classics. As an editor she has published works by Claude Debussy and Raoul Laparra with Musikverlag Zimmermann (Schott Music Company) and Edition Kossack.

She has collaborated with Jeanne Baxtresser, former principal flutist of the New York Philharmonic, in presenting acclaimed masterclasses in centres such as Frankfurt, Oxford, Toronto, New York, Pittsburgh and Amsterdam. She taught annually at the Salzburg Summer Academy and has served as official piano partner for the ARD International Music Competition (Munich), the Deutsche Musikrat Competition (Berlin), the Aeolus Competition, the Nicolet Competition, and the International Guangzhou Competition (China).

In 2018 she was invited to Korea to give a series of masterclasses on collaborative piano and chamber music at Seoul National University, Sung Shin University and Yonsei University. Masterclasses in Moscow (Gnessin School).

Prof. Hacke was a member of the teaching faculty at the Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf (2000-2013) and serves on several juries of international competitions. Until 2023 she was chairwoman of the jury at the Internationaler Flötenwettbewerb Friedrich Kuhlau, Uelzen.
In 2022 she established the International Ferdinand Neess Competition in Wiesbaden, Germany. This new competition seeks to build a bridge between Art Nouveau and the music of this era and is therefore dedicated to the Music around 1900.

Acclaimed for her work as musical director in theatre, her productions include My Fair Lady, Acht Frauen, Irma la Douce, Kleiner Mann, was nun?, La Cage aux Folles (own new arrangement),Fisch zu viert, Singin’ in the rain, Evita, Sunset Boulevard, Die Fledermaus – leicht gekürzt (a pocket version of the famous operetta), Heisse Zeiten and the highly successful Frankfurt production of Spatz und Engel (The Angel and the Sparrow).