New Orford String Quartet, January 26, 2024, 7:30 pm, St. John’s Cathedral

Gustin House proudly welcomed the return of an elite Canadian quartet to the Lyell Gustin Recitals! “These four string virtuosos animate every note with uncommon power and passion as well as elegance. Listen and weep,” wrote the Toronto Star. Adored by audiences, critically acclaimed for gloriously beautiful tone and phenomenal technique, New Orford String Quartet has received Opus Awards and the 2017 Juno for Best Chamber Music Album. Quartet members are violinists Andrew Wan and Jonathan Crow, violist Sharon Wei, and cellist Brian Manker. On the program: works of Beethoven, Ravel, and contemporary composers Ana Sokolović (Canada) and Caroline Shaw (USA).

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The Piano Music of Chopin, with pianist Jerry Hu, March 10, 2024

Jerry Hu, recipient of the Garth Beckett/Gustin House Senior Piano Scholarship at the Provincial Music Festival in 2023, performed a delightful program of Chopin’s music at Gustin House on March 10. Jerry has been a rising star in the Saskatoon music scene and is currently a student at the Glenn Gould School of Music, Toronto. He is a recent prize winner in the Corcoran Concerto Competition at the Royal Conservatory of Music.

Winner of the prestigious Banff International String Competition, the dynamic New York-based Isidore String Quartet has as its goal to revisit, rediscover, and reinvigorate the repertoire––“approaching the established as if it were new, the new as if it were firmly established.” Their Banff triumph has brought the Quartet collaborations with eminent performers and extensive tours of the United States, Canada, and Europe. Praised for joyful vitality and for exquisite poise and balance as an ensemble, members are violinists Adrian Steele and Phoenix Avalon, violist Devin Moore, and cellist Joshua McClendon. Their recital includes compositions by Mozart, Dutilleux, and Mendelssohn. 

The Isidore String Quartet’s appearance is supported, in part, by the Career Development Program of the Banff International String Quartet Competition. Visit https://www.banffcentre.ca/banff-international-string-quartet-festival/ for more information.

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Isidore String Quartet, April 16, 2024, 7:30 pm, St. John’s Cathedral

Young Musicians at Gustin House,

May 19, 2024

Left to right: Esther Zhu, Isabelle Adams, Markus Bitner, Elliot Simonson, Christina Cayabyab, Avery Guo, Chen Ni Liang

Lyell Gustin encouraged his students to perform as frequently and in as many different venues as they could. Former students remember with fondness many afternoons and evenings at Gustin House listening to each other perform, and discussing the music afterwards. Sometimes the house was so full that young people had to sit on the stairs! In honour of this tradition, Gustin House collaborated with the Saskatoon Registered Music Teachers to present a recital of young musicians at Gustin House. The afternoon was filled with music and camaraderie as students performed and applauded each other, much as they did in Lyell Gustin’s time. The performances included piano solos, vocal solos, and an original composition by a talented young pianist. Gustin House is proud to present these young artists.

Music of the Bessie Trounce era, June 16, 2024

Soprano Helen Pridmore and pianist Sofia Mycyk presented a charming afternoon of music from the 1880s, interspersed with readings from the letters of Bessie Trounce, an accomplished musician who was an early settler in the Temperance Colony that became Saskatoon. (see our Trounce House page for more details). The music was chosen to reflect repertoire that Bessie herself might have known and played.

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Cameron Crozman, Cello, and Meagan Milatz, Piano, August 20, 2024,

7:30 pm, St. John’s Cathedral

Prairie-born artists of the new generation, multiple prize-winners, Crozman and Milatz appear on international stages and are highly praised as an ideal ensemble. Magnificent music for a summer evening, a concert not to be missed!

Rising stars on international stages, cellist Cameron Crozman and pianist Meagan Milatz dazzled and delighted the Lyell Gustin Recital audience in an earlier season. Crozman, named the 2019-20 Classical Revelation Artist of CBC/Radio-Canada, is one of the country’s leading cellists; Milatz is a sought-after collaborative pianist, about whom Montréal’s Le Devoir recently wrote: “a remarkable pianist . . .  [whose] expressive palette seems limitless. The partnership she forms with Cameron Crozman is simply ideal.” In this recital, the duo’s musical exploration of light-in-the-darkness themes included great cello sonatas, including that of Rachmaninoff. 

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