photo by Scott Wishart
Violinist Mark Fewer leads a multi-disciplined life in music. Violin soloist, chamber musician, orchestral leader, artistic director, conductor, arranger, teacher, jazz violinist, recording artist and occasional radio host, he has performed worldwide to great critical acclaim. Described as “intrepid” (The Globe and Mail), “genre-bending” (National Post), “profound” (The WholeNote), and “freaky good”(The Gazette), he has performed around the world in halls such as Carnegie, Wigmore and Salle Pleyel, and is equally at home in recital venues such as Bartok House (Budapest) to Le Poisson Rouge (NYC) to The Forum (Taipei).
As a soloist, he has performed with the symphonies of Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Quebec, San Francisco and Melbourne, as well as groups such as the Fodens-Richardson Brass Band (UK), the Zapp Quartet (Amsterdam), and the McGill Percussion Ensemble.
As a conductor he has directed I Musici de Montreal, l’Orchestre Symphonique de Laval, the Newfoundland Sinfonia, the McGill Baroque Orchestra and the choir Capella Antica.
As a collaborator, Mr. Fewer has been violinist with the Duke Piano Trio for more than twenty years, a member of the Smithsonian Chamber Players for 13 and was, until recently, violinist with the St. Lawrence String Quartet. He has shared the classical stage with performers such as Edgar Meyer, Marc-Andre Hamelin, Leon Fleisher, Elizabeth Wallfisch, James Campbell, Anssi Kartuunen and others, and the jazz stage with Dave Young, Phil Dwyer, Jim Vivian, Jodi Proznick, Brad Turner, Gene DiNovi and Pekka Kuusisto. In 2016 he was a featured soloist with Stevie Wonder and his band during the Songs in the Key of Life tour. Mr. Fewer has been a dedicated teacher for 20 years, having been on the faculties of the Glenn Gould School, the University of Toronto, McGill University, and recently as Artist-in-Residence at Stanford University. He has taught during the summers at the Domaine Forget for more than 18 years, as well as having taught at the Banff Centre, the Colorado College Summer Music Festival, NYO Canada, the Vancouver Academy of Music, the Dresden Hochschule, the Australian Youth Orchestra, the University of British Columbia, the University of California Santa Barbara, Arizona State University and others. His students have distinguished themselves by winning positions in major ensembles and orchestras in North America and Europe, including the Handel & Haydn Society (concertmaster), the Montreal Symphony, the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra, the Danish Philharmonic and others. He began a new appointment as William Dawson Scholar at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in 2015 where he taught violin, baroque violin, chamber music and string improvisation. He is the founding Artistic Director of the SweetWater Music Festival, which celebrated its 16th season in September of 2019. He became the Artistic Director of Stratford Summer Music in October of 2018.
