March 2, 2025
Matthew Jones, Guest Conductor
Conductor, recorder virtuoso and cellist Matthew Jones is proud that his career has spanned the length and breadth of Ontario as the current artistic director to the Etobicoke Philharmonic Orchestra, Kitchener Waterloo Chamber Orchestra and the newly minted Kitchener Waterloo Youth Orchestra, and conductor laureate with Timmins Symphony Orchestra in the North East of Ontario.
Matthew graduated from Wilfrid Laurier University where he studied Cello performance. His conducting studies include the Conductor’s Institute at The Hartt School, University of Connecticut, and the Oregon Bach Festival under the guidance of Helmuth Rilling. Among his earliest conducting experiences were those with Waterloo Chamber Players from 1999 – 2001.
Mr. Jones enthusiastically advocates for the Arts in the community and beyond. Under his leadership, the Timmins Symphony Orchestra was awarded the Prestigious Betty Webster Award for its contribution to Orchestral Music in Canada.
Matthew has enjoyed conducting the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony on several occasions, Sault Ste. Marie Symphony, and Georgian Bay Symphony as a guest conductor and working with the North Bay Symphony as part of a conductor exchange.
Matthew delights in performing as a Recorder soloist and has performed with Waterloo Chamber Players several times. He is particularly proud of his CD, Just Pipes in partnership with Organist, the late Jan Overduin.
Matthew was honoured to serve as a board member for Orchestra’s Canada, Canada’s national voice of the Canadian orchestral community. It has been Matthew’s great pleasure to serve all Canadian Orchestras by advocating for the continued support of symphonic music at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels of government.
Mark Vuorinen, Grand Philharmonic Choir Artistic Director
Mark Vuorinen is Artistic Director of the Grand Philharmonic Choir, The Elora Singers and the Elora Festival. He is also Associate Professor and Chair of Music at Conrad Grebel University College, University of Waterloo, where he is responsible for the choral music program. He holds a master’s degree in music from Yale University School of Music and Institute of Sacred Music, and earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from University of Toronto.
An advocate for new music, Mark has given premieres and Canadian premieres by many composers including Barbara Assiginaak, John Burge, Timothy Corlis, Jonathan Dove, Reena Esmail, Stephanie Marn, Robinson McClellan, Tawnie Olson, and James Whitbourn.
Concert highlights include performances of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, Arvo Pärt’s Credo and Passio, Richard Einhorn’s moving soundtrack, Voices of Light, as an accompaniment to the silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc, and the Canadian premiere of Craig Hella Johnson’s oratorio Considering Matthew Shepard.
A recipient of many awards, Mark was named the E. Stanley Sedar Scholar at Yale University and is a recipient of the Elmer Iseler National Graduate Fellowship in Choral Conducting from the University of Toronto. In 2016, Mark received the Leslie Bell Prize for Choral Conducting from the Ontario Arts Council and a National Choral Award (Outstanding Dissertation) from Choral Canada.
Mark’s research interests include the study of contemporary choral literature from the Baltic states, and in particular, the music of Arvo Pärt and Veljo Tormis. Mark was an invited lecturer at the Arvo Pärt Project’s Sounding the Sacred conference in New York City in May 2017. He is published in Circuit Musiques Contemporaines, The Research Memorandum Series of Chorus America, and Principles of Music Composing of the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre.
