Nominated for its third Grammy in 2016, the ARC Ensemble has earned a place among Canada's most distinguished cultural ambassadors. It has appeared at major festivals and series: the Budapest Spring Festival, New York's Lincoln Center Festival, Canada's Stratford Festival, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, London's Wigmore and Cadogan Halls and Washington's Kennedy Center.
An international reputation
Comprised of the senior faculty of the Royal Conservatory's Glenn Gould School, with special guests drawn from the Conservatory's most accomplished students and alumni, the ensemble's performances and recordings (on Sony and Chandos) have been broadcast on networks around the world and continue to receive unanimous acclaim acclaim from the world's cultural press. The ARC Ensemble has built an international reputation for the research and recovery of a vast corpus of music lost to political suppression. Its "Music in Exile" series, dedicated to composers expelled by the Third Reich, has been presented in Tel Aviv, Warsaw, Rome, Toronto, New Yorkand London, and a growing number of 20th century masterworks are rejoining the repertoire as a result of the ARC Ensemble's performances and recordings.
Recent highlights include an invitation by the town of Dachau to perform a concert commemorating the 70th anniversary of the camp's liberation and its recording of the Polish / American composer Jerzy Fitelberg. This will be followed by the ensemble's sixth album dedicated to recording premieres by the survivor and onetime conductor of Auschwitz's men's orchestra, Szymon Laks. The CD will be released in Spring 2017. The ARC Ensemble's 2017/18 season includes concerts in Germany, Poland, and the prestigious Enescu Festival in Bucharest
Documentary film
EXIT: MUSIC, a documentary film exploring the ensemble's work, was premiered in November 2016. It was immediately picked up for US distribution by First Run Features and is has enjoyed screenings at the Hotdocs Cinema in Toronto and at festivals around the world.
The ARC Ensemble has collaborated with a range of artists: the pianist Leon Fleisher, the novelist Yann Martel, actors Saul Rubinek and R.H. Thompson, and composers R. Murray Schafer, Omar Daniel and Vincent Ho. James Conlon, Music Director of the Los Angeles Opera and a pioneer in the recovery of lost twentieth century repertoire, is the ARC Ensemble's Honorary Chairman, its Artistic Director is Simon Wynberg.
Members
Marie Berard, violin
Steven Dann, viola
Bryan Epperson, cello
David Louie, piano
Erika Raum, violin
Joaquin Valdepenas, clarinet
Dianne Werner, piano
Guest Members
Carolyn Blackwell, Benjamin Bowman, David Hetherington, Kara Huber, Sarah Jeffrey, Emily Kruspe, Frank Morelli, Se-Doo Park, Barry Shiffman, Winona Zelenka
