Ottawa Suzuki Strings – Nurturing personal excellence, musicality, and human spirit!

All of our faculty have post-secondary music degrees and have had extensive training in Suzuki pedagogy.

Rosemarie Klimasko

Rosemarie started playing the violin at the age of five. She became the concertmaster of the Hamilton Youth Orchestra and the Royal Conservatory Youth Orchestra and spent six years with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada. While studying towards her violin performance degree at the University of Toronto, her distinguished teachers included Albert Pratz and Lorand Fenyves.
For many years, she was a professional freelance violinist in Toronto. She played for eleven years with the Pro Arte String Orchestra, and was a member of the Palm Court violin/flute/piano trio for several years.
In 1986, she moved to Ottawa, and co-founded SuzukiMusic. Her active schedule includes teaching a large class of private stuents, teaching group classes, and conducting a youth orchestra for the National Capital Music Academy. Her career has seen many of her students achieve distinguished music awards at local, provincial and national levels, several moving on to prestigious music schools, both in Canada and the United States.
She has been a clinician at several Suzuki and CAMMAC camps and has adjudicated at Kiwanis Music Festivals in Ontario.
Rosemarie is based in the Nepean/Barrhaven area of Ottawa and is very fond of her feline companions, Stella Luna and Chocolate Chip.
 

Christopher (Kit) Barham

Christopher, better known as “Kit”, is a graduate of the Guelph Suzuki String School. While there, he studied under well-known Suzuki luminaries such as Daphne Hughes, Linda Drennan, and Thomas Wermuth. Kit subsequently pursued an undergraduate degree in music education at the University of Western Ontario. While there, he also undertook specific training in Kodally and Orff music pedagogy, choral conducting, and Baroque period chamber music as both a violinist and a violist. Kit has undertaken specific Suzuki pedagogy studies with Ed Kreitman, Nancy Jackson, and Ed Sprunger.
Kit is a graduate of the Barbara Brennan School of Healing, and brings his interest in the physical, emotional, and energy bodies to better support teaching the whole child. Other areas of interest include bio-feedback and mental training Kit has worked as a music-oriented long-term care community activator with First Nations communities in northern British Columbia, and he has traveled extensively around Asia.
Kit is based in the Nepean area.

Jennifer Duke

Ottawa native Jennifer Duke began her violin studies at age four in the Suzuki Method. In 2001 and 2002, Jennifer was a member of the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, as well as the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, participating in tours across Canada, Japan and Hong Kong.
In 2006 Jennifer received a Bachelor of Music in performance from the University of Toronto where she studied with Mark Fewer and Annalee Patipatanakoon. While studying in Toronto she had the opportunity to play in the Windsor Symphony Orchestra, Canada’s National Academy Orchestra, and teach violin to students of all ages at the Classical Music Conservatory. In 2008 Jennifer received a Masters degree in performance from Mannes College, where she studied with Orion String Quartet violinist Todd Phillips. While living in New York, Jennifer taught violin both privately and in public schools. She loves to work with children, and has recently completed a Suzuki teacher training course with Karen Kimmett. When not playing the violin, Jennifer enjoys board games, and dabbles in painting and cooking.
Jennifer's studio is in Kanata.

Serhii Vyhovskyi

Serhii is a graduate of the Russian Academy of Music in Moscow, Russia, was awarded a Master Degree of Music with a specialisation in violin as well as qualifications for Orchestra soloist, Violin Teacher, and Chamber Ensemble Violinist. He has worked as a Concertmaster with the Krasnoyarsk Symphony Orchestra and as a violinist in the String Quartet of the Krasnoyarsk Regional State Philharmonic Society, Russia.
Serhii has taught at Kherson State Music College, Ukraine, at the Baghdad School of Music and Ballet, and the Damascus Higher Institute of Music. He is the author of numerous articles and manuals on violin pedagogy.
Serhii’s students have achieved great distinctions, and have been accepted as students or participated in masterclasses with such luminaries as Maestro Pinchas Zukerman (Manhattan School of Music, NewYork), Maestro Daniel Barenboim (Weimar in Chicago Workshop), Eric Gruenberg (Royal Academy of Music, London, UK), Eric Stumacher (Apple Hill Centre for Chamber Music, New Hampshire), Mathis Fisher (West Eastern Workshop for Orchestral and Chamber Music, Weimar, Germany), Eduard Melkus (Vienna University of Music, Austria) and have been accepted as members of the Orchestre des Jeunes de la Mediterranne (under the direction of Maestro Henri Gallois, Aix-en-Provence, France).
Since moving to Canada in September 2003, Serhii’s students have won many prizes and scholarships in music competitions such as Kiwanis Music Festival and the Canadian Music Competition, as well as first prize in the Junior division of the prestigious Menuhin International Violin Competition.
Serhii teachers in Kanata and in the Beacon Hill area.

Michael Fry

A former Suzuki student himself, Michael Fry started violin at the age of seven. Michael currently leads a varied career as a performer and teacher. Michael has performed with such orchestras as the Ottawa Symphony, Thunder Bay Symphony, Regina Symphony, Red Deer Symphony, Gatineau Symphony, and the Ottawa Chamber Orchestra as guest Concertmaster. Michael continues to perform recitals, as well as jazz with his trio, Stringsville. Aside from performance, Michael has taught piano and violin for many years, extensively to all ages and levels of playing. As music director of St. John Lutheran Church, Michael performs on the organ and conducts the choir. Michael also conducts the Beechwood Children's Choir, which is made up of children between the ages of seven and eleven. Michael currently teaches in Westboro and New Edinburgh.
Michael holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Regina, a Master of Music as well as a Certificate in Orchestral Studies from the University of Ottawa, and an ARCT in piano and in violin. His principal teachers were Ed Minevich, David Stewart, and Rennie Regehr. Michael completed his Suzuki training at SOSI with Kathleen Spring. Michael has also been an Artist in Residence at the Banff Arts Centre.
 

Karoly Sziladi

Ottawa native Karoly Sziladi started playing violin at the age of five with his father, Karoly Sziladi Sr. He was a student in the music program at Canterbury High School as well as a member of the Ottawa Youth Orchestra. Karoly continued his studies at McGill University with Richard Roberts, graduating in 1996, at which time he came back and began playing as an extra violin with the NAC Orchestra. At that time he also performed with the Ottawa Symphony as well as the Thirteen Strings chamber orchestra. In the years that followed, he had the great opportunity to tour Israel and Europe with Pinchas Zuckerman and the NACO, as well as tours throughout Canada. From 2000 to 2005, while still maintaining his performance work here in Ottawa, Karoly was also Concertmaster of the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra. 

Today, Karoly teaches privately, coaches the strings of the Ottawa Junior Youth Orchstra, and very much looks forward to being a coach with Stella Boreales and an OSS member in the near future

Additional group class teachers

Judith Ginsburg

(Ottawa Suzuki Strings and Stellae Boreales Accompanist)

Pianist Judith Ginsburg is a graduate of the Music Faculty at University of Ottawa where she studied with the internationally acclaimed pianist and pedagogue Jean-Paul Sevilla. She pursued further advanced studies in London, England with the renowned former Glyndebourne Opera Music staff member and BBC staff accompanist Paul Hamburger. Upon her return to Canada Judith Ginsburg completed the Repetiteur Training Program at the University of Toronto Opera Division. While at the Opera Division Judith participated in extensive accompanying classes and Masterclasses with Martin Isepp and Menahem Pressler. Since 1987 Judith Ginsburg has been Principal Repetiteur of Opera Lyra Ottawa and Principal Pianist with the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra. Judith has extensive experience as a free-lance musician performing in numerous musicals at Place Des Arts in Montreal along with acting as principal repetiteur for various National Arts Centre productions. She is often heard on CBC radio and is a frequent performer in Ottawa's hugely successful International Chamber Music Festival, the National Arts Centre's Music for a Sunday Afternoon and the Almonte in Concert Series. As an accompanist Judith has collaborated with many of Canada's leading artists among them Alan Monk, Theodore Baerg, Tracy Dahl, Eilana Lapalainen, Gerald Danovitch plus many others. Judith is presently Opera Studio Manager and Principal Repetiteur for Opera Lyra Ottawa.