Outdoor Summer Concert
Sunday, July, 24 2022, 1-2 pm
St. Albert Botanic Park Gazebo
265 Sturgeon Road
Please bring a lawn chair with you!
In celebration of Garden Day a free, outdoor, summer concert featuring
Neda Yamach, violin; and Ronda Metzies, cello.
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Neda Yamach grew up in St. Albert, Alberta, and began studying violin at the age 5. She studied at the Meadowmount School of Music in Westport, NY, and at McGill University, where she was a recipient of the Lloyd Carr-Harris Scholarship.
After receiving her Bachelor of Music Degree with Outstanding Achievement in Violin Performance, she returned to Alberta to study at the Banff Centre for the Arts and then moved to New York to continue her studies at the Manhattan School of Music.
Neda was a member of the Violin I Section of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and Alberta Baroque Ensemble for ten years. As a soloist and chamber musician, Neda has performed on various concert stages around the world, including in Israel, Greece, Poland, Turkey and the Czech Republic.
In addition to performing, Neda teaches privately and coaches youth and community orchestras, including the Edmonton Youth Orchestra and Wye String Ensemble.
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Ronda Metszies was born and raised in Edmonton, where she studied cello with Sheila Laughton. After receiving her Bachelor of Music Degree from the University of Victoria, she continued her studies in Edmonton with Tanya Prochazka and then in Germany and Austria, where she worked with Julius Berger, Friedrich Sellheim and Heinrich Schiff.
Upon returning to Canada, Ronda released two CDs of music for cello and piano on the Arktos label, as well as a music video for Bravo! Television. In 2003 Ronda joined the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, with whom she has appeared as a featured soloist and has spent 5 seasons serving as interim Assistant Principal Cello.
Ronda has a special interest in early music, and is principal cellist of the Alberta Baroque Ensemble. She makes frequent appearances as a guest soloist with the ensemble and in 2015 she premiered Alan Gilliland’s Concerto for Cello, Strings and Harpsichord, which was commissioned by the ensemble for her.
Ronda is also a member of Kent Sangster’s Obsessions Octet, whose debut jazz CDwas nominated for a Juno Award in 2007. Since then, the octet has released two additional CDs, toured Europe twice, and performed at Carnegie Hall in 2012 and at the Rochester Jazz Festival in 2016, where their concert was recorded for national broadcast by PBS.