Please note - The information for the music for String Camp 2025 has been posted and camp registrants are given instructions about how to download parts for the 2025 string camp repertoire upon registration. It includes the following with a proviso that some further revisions/cuts may be made in due course.

Strathcona County String Music Camp - Summer Repertoire 2025 includes the following:

"Selected Movements from Orchestral Suite No. 1 by J. S. Bach"

"Sinfonia No. 10 by Mendelssohn" Henry Purcell

"Chacony in G Minor by Purcell"

"Queen Noor Suite by Washburn"

 

Our Camp Director, Conductor and Music Coaches

 

CAMP DIRECTOR: Murray Vaasjo

Murray was born and raised in Edmonton and attended the University of Alberta where he received a Bachelor of Music degree. He has been a member of the Okanagan Symphony, the Victoria Symphony, the Alberta Baroque Ensemble, the Arden Ensemble, National Youth Orchestra of Canada and the Edmonton Youth Orchestra. Murray studied with Sally Thomas in Meadowmount, New York and with Shirley Givens and Sidney Humphries in Victoria.

In 1990 Murray returned to Edmonton to join the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.

Murray is also active as a teacher and is the co-founder of the Wye String Ensemble.

Murray conducted the Penticton Strings, an amateur adult orchestra in the Okanagan.

For two seasons, he conducted musicals with the Penticton Singers and Players with professional members of the Okanagan Symphony. He was the conductor and founder of the Sherwood Park Youth Strings and Penticton Junior Strings. Murray is happy to conduct both the Wye String Ensemble and the Edmonton Philharmonic Orchestra next season.

 

 

CONDUCTOR: Petar Dundjerski

Petar Dundjerski was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia and has lived in Canada since 1994. He received his Master's degree in Orchestral Conducting from the University of Toronto and continued his studies at the American Academy of Conducting in Aspen, Colorado and the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. His principal teachers were Mark Gibson, Raffi Armenian and Earl Davey. Mr. Dundjerski has also studied with David Zinman, Jorma Panula, Boris Brott and Gary Kulesha.

In 2002 he was the Assistant Conductor with the National Academy Orchestra of Canada and in the summer of 2004 served as a Resident Conductor at the Banff Centre for the Arts.

Mr. Dundjerski has received various awards including a 2003, 2006/08 Canada Council for the Arts Grants. He has worked with several distinguished instrumentalists including Shauna Rolston, Scott St. John and Jens Lindemann.

Petar also teaches within Edmonton Public School Board Music Enrichment Program. Mr Dundjerski was the Assistant Conductor-in-Residence of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra 2006/08, under the mentorship of Music Director William Eddins. This was a two-year appointment, funded in part by the Canada Council for the Arts.

 

 

Camp Coordinator - Miriam Ferguson

Miriam Ferguson began studying the viola at the age of eleven when she joined the Edmonton Public Schools Strings Program.

In 1997, she graduated from the University of Alberta with a Bachelor of Music Degree in performance on the viola. She decided four years later to return to the University of Alberta and graduated in 2003 with a Bachelor of Education Degree. Her viola teachers have included Miyo Inouye, Norman Nelson, Jonathan Craig, Tom Johnson and Rivka Golani.

Miriam Ferguson has been the principal violist of the Edmonton Youth Orchestra, the University of Alberta’s Academy Strings and the University Symphony Orchestra. She occasionally plays in the viola section of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.

Miriam is currently busy as a private violin and viola instructor, freelance musician and, more recently, conductor. She conducts the Music Enrichment Program’s Beginner Student Orchestra and Beginner Adult Ensemble and often subs in to lead the WyeString Ensemble.

Miriam Ferguson also performs with Quartetto con Brio, the Ursus String Quartet, and with the Cifra Hungarian Folk Music Ensemble. The Cifra Ensemble has performed with the Edmonton Symphony and has been broadcast on CBC Radio One. Miriam has twice visited Hungary and Romania with the Cifra Ensemble to study and perform authentic village folk music.

 

 

 

 

COACHES

Violin I Instructor/Chamber Coach: Anna Kozak

Anna Kozak is a core member of the first violin section with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, an Assistant Concertmaster of the Alberta Baroque Ensemble and a Principal Second Violin of the Chamber Orchestra of Edmonton. She has earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Toronto and a Master of Music degree from the University of Calgary.

Anna loves being an orchestral musician. It’s a profession that has taken her to concert halls all over Europe as well as Carnegie Hall in New York.

Being a violinist, Anna finds life just wouldn’t be complete without chamber music. She’s been very fortunate to have been a part of many wonderful chamber groups and have performed in most exciting venues. She’s been a founding member of the Onyx String Quartet and Tersona Piano Trio. She’s performed at Winspear countless times at ESO events, at the Rozsa Centre with University of Calgary professor Edmond Agopian, at the Yardbird Suite with the Obsessions Octet to name a few.

She’s had the pleasure of performing solos with the Alberta Baroque Ensemble, the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and the Alberta College Percussion Ensemble.

Besides performing Anna finds it fulfilling to share her passion and knowledge with her students. She holds a small private studio, teaches at the annual Wye Strings Camp and on occasion leads coaching sessions for local amateur groups.

Anna is playing on a violin made in 1770 by Giovanni Battista Gabrielli of Florence.

Once she is done all her practicing, performing or teaching, Anna enjoys spending time with her husband on their acreage. Gardening (especially cutting grass with her new tractor Deer Johny), reading, taking long walks, listening to the birds...

 

Violin II Instructor/Chamber Coach- Ewald Cheung

 

Edmonton native Ewald Cheung joined the ESO's first violin section in 2018 after earning performance degrees at the Juilliard School and McGill University.

A prize-winner in multiple violin competitions and an avid chamber musician, Ewald was a founding member of the Roddick String Quartet and Geistrio, and has performed extensively around Canada in recitals, chamber music collaborations, and as soloist with orchestras.

Ewald can be heard on his 2015 recording with pianist Philip Chiu, "A Tribute to Fritz Kreisler."

 

 

Viola Instructor/Chamber Coach - Ethan Filner

 

American-born violist of the San Francisco-based, internationally acclaimed Cypress String Quartet from 2001-2016, Ethan Filner studied at Indiana University-Bloomington, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, and New England Conservatory.

Ethan has been the ESO's Assistant Principal Violist since 2019, having previously held the same position with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony from 2017-19 and taught viola at the University of Toronto from 2016-19. With the CSQ until they disbanded.

Ethan has recorded nearly 20 albums, performed concerts in major and minor venues all across North America and Europe, commissioned and premiered dozens of new works for string quartet (and a few for solo viola), presented educational outreach programs for tens of thousands of students of all ages, and collaborated with many of the most inspiring musical artists of our time.

 

Cello Instructor/Chamber Coach: Julie Hereish

 

Born in Montreal, Julie Hereish joined the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra as Assistant Principal Cello in 2019. Previously, she held the same position in the Québec Symphony Orchestra. Julie is a member of the High Level Trio and the Garneau String Quartet, both based in Edmonton. The GSQ is the quartet in residence at Grant MacEwan University’s Conservatory of Music, where it holds the Chamber Music Academy program for young music students. The High Level Trio recently released the first world recording of John Estacio’s Navigations for String Trio, a commission from the group.

Julie has performed extensively with the chamber orchestra Violons du Roy in Québec City and throughout Europe and North America. Together with actor Pierre Mayer, she created Charlot et Mlle Cello, a theatrical concert experience for children based on Charlie Chaplin’s famous character. During the pandemic, being in isolation with husband and violist Keith Hamm led to the start of The New Cohort. The duet went on tour in the Maritimes with Debut Atlantic in the Fall of 2022.