Thornhill
November 06, 2008 10:59 PM
Kim Zaraour
When Thornhill native Sharon Wei gets together with her girlfriends this week, the first thing they’ll do is exchange laughter, a few hugs, and all the news that’s happened since they last met three months ago.
The second thing they’ll do is make music – the kind of enthralling chamber music that takes your breath away and gathers attention wherever they go.
Ms Wei, along with violinist Judy Kang, cellist Rachel Mercer and pianist Angela Park, are women to watch. Literally. They were named this year among “80 Amazing Canadian Women to Watch” by Chatelaine magazine in its 80th anniversary issue. In 2006, the leading young Canadian soloists were awarded the 2006 CBC Galaxie Rising Stars Award from the Banff Centre.
This Sunday the quartet, which goes by the name of Made in Canada, will give a rare performance at Mooredale Concerts in downtown Toronto.
For 31-year-old Sharon Wei, it will also be a welcome opportunity to come home. It’s not often she gets to visit with Thornhill family and the community she still calls “home”.
October was a whirlwind for her: 12 days in Europe, six days at her current California residence, two weeks in Asia and then off again for a tour in Canada.
The Liberal caught up with Ms Wei by phone in California, fresh from a flight from Tokyo, preparing for a Stanford concert before hopping aboard the red-eye flight to Toronto.
Ms Wei says she’s living a dream life, one that she never anticipated when she first took up violin at the age of five.
“I never really wanted a career in music,” Ms Wei remembers. “I was just doing it for fun.”
Then she picked up the slightly larger viola and knew she had found her calling.
“All of a sudden I really wanted to practise, all the time.”
The viola suits her more, she says – it’s more of a background, supportive role than the melody-holding violin. Switching instruments was “probably the only good decision I’ve ever made so quickly in all my life.”
The Thornlea Secondary School graduate is now based in the U.S. where she teaches music at Stanford University and travels the world for performances.
In 2006 she organized her long-time friends to form Made in Canada. Since then they have performed to sold-out audiences in venues such as Winnipeg’s Virtuosi series, Jeffery Chamber Music Series, Lindsay Concert Productions and Hart House Sunday Concerts.
The women make a perfect team, Ms Wei says, because they all share similar ideas about music and are open to constructive criticism. At the same time, they each have been forging award-winning individual careers, based in four different cities and criss-crossing the globe.
“It’s really been so much fun,” says Ms Wei. “None of us has kids yet, we’re still young, so right now is a good time to travel and do this while we can.”
Made In Canada will perform at Mooredale Sunday, Nov. 9 at 3 p.m. at Walter Hall, in the Edward Johnson Building, 80 Queen’s Park Crescent. Tickets are $25; $20 for seniors and students.
At 1 p.m., in Music & Truffles at Mooredale, the quartet will play excerpts from their full concert program in an interactive performance for children aged five and up. Tickets for the children’s performance are $10.
For tickets call 416-922-3714, ext. 103, or visit
www.mooredaleconcerts.com.