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In 1998, cellist Patrick Kline and violist Thérèse Durdin envisioned forming a small string orchestra for serious amateur musicians. When Gordon Johnston, musical director of St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church, Ottawa, agreed to conduct the group, the three founding members decided to follow the example of several famous orchestras and named this new group after the church where it resided, the “Strings of St. John’s”.
The mission of Strings of St. John’s is to provide a supportive learning environment for Ottawa-area string players to improve ensemble playing and share a broad repertoire of beautiful music with the community.
The orchestra is pleased to accompany the St John’s Choir, led by our founding conductor, Gordon Johnston, several times a year.
By working to improve the caliber of the orchestra, we aspire to attract additional gifted amateur players and enhance and maintain a reputation that attracts great local soloists. We are confident that artistically excellent performances will continue to attract, grow and reward Ottawa area audiences.
Mehdi Javanfar is an active conductor and educator. He is a two-time recipient of the Graduate Merit Awards in Conducting at the University of Michigan, where he studied with Maestro Kenneth Kiesler. His other conducting mentors include the late Gustav Meier, Gunther Schuller, and David Epstein. Mehdi has conducted the London, Ontario Symphony Orchestra, Windsor Symphony Orchestra, Hamilton Symphonic Band, University of Michigan various orchestras, Hart house Strings, the Composers' Orchestra consisting of the members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Kharkiv Philharmonic Orchestra in Ukraine, and the Toronto Sinfonia of Nations, which he founded. As the music director and conductor, Mehdi led the Pembroke Symphony Orchestra from 2017 to 2023.
Mehdi began his musical career as a violinist in Tehran Symphony Orchestra. Following immigration to Canada in 1994, while studying at the University of Toronto, he joined the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra where he served as the Principal Second Violin. As a conductor, his first concert in the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto, in 1997, featuring Dvorak's Serenade in D minor, and Stravinsky's Histoire du Soldat was recorded and broadcast by CJRT FM. His conducting repertoire is varied, and includes more than a hundred pieces from the standard repertoire, as well as pieces by contemporary composers of various nationalities, such as Behzad Ranjbaran, Arsalan Kamkar, Shahin Farhat, Reza Vali, Suad Bushnaq, Fikret Amirov, Vladimir Solyanikov, and Goulak Artemovsky. As an advocate for Canadian music, Mehdi has performed pieces by Gary Kulesha, Marjan Mozetich, Larysa Kuzmenko, Murray Schafer, Tawnie Olson, Maya Badian, and the late John Weinzweig to name a few.
As an educator, Mehdi is a senior member of the College of Examiners at the Royal Conservatory of Music. He has taught and prepared countless students for RCM examinations in various subjects of Theory, History, as well as Violin, and Piano, from elementary to advanced levels. As a music writer, Mehdi's activities include participation in writing a textbook of fundamentals of music for the University of Tehran, Iran; translation of "The Story of Music" by Geoffrey Brace (Ladybird Books) into Persian; biographical writings on Tchaikovsky, Bartok, Prokofiev, and Mahler; correction of the list of errata published in the journal of the Conductors' Guild, for "Rite of Spring" by Stravinsky; essays on Iranian Traditional Music, and a variety of other subjects, published in various magazines.
Mehdi is a graduate of the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Music Education, the University of Michigan with a Master's degree in Orchestral Conducting, and the University of Ottawa with an M.A. in Music Research, He is currently pursuing his PhD in Interdisciplinary Research in Music at the University of Ottawa.
Mira Negovora, Concertmaster
Rosalind Spencer
Carolyn Phillips
Sonia Dimitrov
Marg Mcpherson
Carol Deaville
Lauren Phillips
Khalid Ahmad
Margot Lange, Principal
Katherine Tinkler
Jennifer Arrigo
Serena Seymour
Gabriella Csoti
Alessandra Kempson
Marko Yanishevsky
Mary Young, Principal
Laura Mennill
Stephen Rouble
Shalva Chabukiani
Catherine Campbell, Principal
Andrew Deaville
David Van Dine
Patrick Kline, Principal
Ann Downey
Arianna Verbree
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