2011 Salon Concert

Cellist Thomas Wiebe is well-known to Canadian audiences as a soloist and chamber musician.

Mr. Wiebe has performed as a soloist with the Winnipeg and Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestras, Orchestra London Canada, and the Juilliard Orchestra at Lincon Center in New York. Along with violinist Mark Fewer and pianist Peter Longworth, he is a founding member of the Duke Trio. He also performs with other leading chamber musicians. He has recorded for CBC and Centrediscs.

Thomas Wiebe studied cello in his native Winnipeg with the late Julie Banton. He went on to study with Robert Sylvester and Steven Doane at the Eastman School of Music. He also was a pupil of Aldo Parisot at Yale University and the Juilliard School, where he was awarded the Leonard Rose Memorial Scholarship. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Yale.

Japanese-born pianist Sanae Nakajima trained at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, England and has performed extensively in the UK, Europe and North America. Her teachers include Fanny Waterman, Paul Berkowitz, Joan Havill and András Schiff.

She has received critical acclaim in every field of piano accomplishment, including solo recitalist, concerto artist and chamber musician. Chamber partnerships of note include those with Stephanie Gonley, current Concert Master of the English Chamber Orchestra, Susan Monks, lead cellist of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and violinist Charles Sewart, former second violinist of the Chilingirian String Quartet.

Sanae has held a number of major teaching positions in Britain, including 14 years on staff at Guildhall School of Music & Drama and 7 years at Wells Cathedral Music School. From 2005 to 2009 she was full-time Head of Keyboard Studies at the famous Dragon School in Oxford, leading a team of 10 piano teachers responsible for 180 pupils. There she became widely known and appreciated for the inspiration, energy and passion she brought to the role.