The Arts and Letters Club Scholarship is a partnership with The Royal Conservatory of Music/Glenn Gould School (GGS). The $10,000 scholarship, used to offset tuition, goes to an exceptional Canadian music student who is under 30 years of age and from the Greater Toronto Area. The recipient also received a year-long complimentary membership to The Arts and Letters Club of Toronto. The recipient is selected by faculty members at the Conservatory.
Below are some shots of past award ceremonies. Click on an image below to see a larger version.
Click on one of the tabs below to learn more about each winner.
Winners
Toronto-based soprano Madeleine Worndl studied with Stephanie Bogle and Peter Tiefenbach. She received numerous scholarships and awards including First Prize and the overall title of Most Promising Singer at the National Association Teachers of Singing Competition (2016). Among her operatic performances are Poussette in Massenet’s Manon and Frasquita in Bizet’s Carmen with Summer Opera Lyric Theatre. In 2017, Madeleine also performed as Cleopatra (excerpts) in G.F. Handel’s Giulio Cesare with period orchestra led by Daniel Taylor and Jeanne Lamon (2017).
At age 19, she was the youngest ever student accepted to Stratford Summer Music Festival’s Vocal Academy where she worked with distinguished faculty including Daniel Taylor, Howard Dyck, and Nathalie Paulin. Other performance appearances include the Saarburg International Chamber Music Festival (2016) and Songfest at the Colburn School (2015). She has performed in master classes for distinguished artists including Jake Heggie, Russell Braun, Jane Archibald, Liz Upchurch, Marshall Pynkoski, Susanne Mentzer, Wendy Nielsen and Michael McMahon.
Diane Dahyeon Kim is a Korean-Canadian violinist. She has performed in many venues including Koerner Hall, Roy Thompson Hall, Toronto Centre for the Arts, Elbphilharmonie, and Seoul Arts Center. She was awarded first prize at the Young Artists’ Competition and was scheduled to perform with Burling Symphony Orchestra but the performance was cancelled due to the pandemic. In 2019, she participated in the master class program at the Orford Musique academy and was a member of the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival where she served as an Associate Concertmaster. Diane made her debut with Cathedral Bluffs Symphony Orchestra and was also invited to perform a recital for Guelph Connections Concert Series with pianist Stephen Xie.
Diane was a member of the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra for four years where she served Assistant Concertmaster and Co-Concertmaster. She has performed in multiple master classes with Baiba Skride, Mauricio Fuks, Jinjoo Cho, Almita Vamos and Miriam Fried and was also nominated to perform with her Quartet in a master class for Kronos Quartet.
Violinist Artur Chakhmakhchyan was born in Yerevan, Armenia and moved to Canada at the age of seven. He made his orchestral solo debut with the Greater Toronto Philharmonic Orchestra in 2015. He has performed as a concert soloist with orchestras in Toronto, including the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra and the Greater Toronto Philharmonic. He has also performed several solo program recitals at venues around the city, and played in master classes for renowned violinists such as Dmitri Berlinsky, Ilya Kaler, and Simon Blendis. Artur is also a former member of the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra, where he served principle positions, including concertmaster, under the direction of Maestro Shalom Bard and Maestro Earl Lee.
Violinist Tiffany Tsai attended the Bowdoin International Music Festival in 2018, and the Curtis Summerfest in 2019. Additionally, Tiffany won second and third place in the Canadian Music Competition, in 2015 and 2019, respectively. Having completed her Grade 10 and ARCT Performer’s RCM exams at a young age, Tiffany’s goal is to pursue a career in music. She has been fortunate enough to have had lessons and master classes with Jonathan Crow, Timothy Ying, and Almita Vamos, along with her current teachers in the studio of Barry Shiffman and Paul Kantor.
