TUESDAY, APRIL 28 | 2:00 PM
North Hill welcomes back Justin Ouellet and Nicky Kaynor for the next installment of Dueling Strings, as they dive deeper into the classical, romantic and 20th century diaspora of violin and Viola repertoire. This concert will include the deeply satisfying Mozart string duet in B flat Major and Bartok’s famous string duets. Come on out to hear the rest of this exciting program and experience their dynamic performance.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
JUSTIN OUELLET
Justin Ouellet has performed on three continents as a soloist, chamber, and orchestral musician. His training as a classical musician has awarded him opportunities to perform with members of prestigious groups ranging from the Boston Ballet, Philadelphia Orchestra, to the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. Justin has been blessed to share the stage with renowned musicians such as Andrea Boccelli, Anna Laura Quinn, IL VOLO, Jón Þór Jónsi, Kev Choice, Midori, Nadja Salerno Sonnenberg and the Transiberian Orchestra, and has appeared as a soloist | featured artist with the Manchester Choral Society, Nashua Chamber Orchestra, New Bedford Symphony, Nightingale Vocal Ensemble, Pacific Boys Choir, and San Francisco Symphony. He has been a guest concert master or a principal player with the Atlantic & Eastern Music Festival, Berkeley Recording Sessions, Cape Symphony, Manchester Choral Society, New Bedford Symphony, New Hampshire Masterworks Chorale, Pro Arte Chorus, and Pacific Boys Choir. He has received recognition for his talents as an artist and educator, receiving the San Jose Jazz Live Aid Grant, Academy of Gospel Music Educator of the Year and voted Best Jazz Instrumentalist by San Francisco Classical Voice.
Justin also performs regularly with Boston Festival Orchestra, Boston Opera Collaborative, Cape Symphony, Cape Cod Chamber Orchestra, New Bedford Symphony, Victory Players, and Whitesnake Projects. He can be heard on dozens of recordings and has worked on a variety of production projects around the country, bringing him to renowned studios such as the late Fantasy Studios and Skywalker Ranch, fantasy studios and WGBH. He and his wife, Ann Moss, reside in Watertown, Massachusetts and maintain faculty positions at Groton Hill and Boston Latin School. They are members of the Recording Academy.
Find out more @ justinouellet.com.
NICKOLAS KAYNOR
Nickolas Kaynor is a versatile artist who currently serves as principal violist of the Battle Creek Symphony Orchestra and as section violist of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, and the Binghamton Philharmonic Orchestra. He also performs regularly with ensembles such as the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra, the Cape Symphony Orchestra, the Portland Symphony Orchestra, and the Plymouth Philharmonic Orchestra, among others. As a featured soloist with the Battle Creek Symphony Orchestra, he has performed symphonic arrangements of Freddie Mercury’s Bohemian Rhapsody and Pete Townshend’s Who Are You? Other solo performances have included Béla Bartók’s Viola Concerto with the Chapman Orchestra and Gerald Cohen’s Uvtovo M’chadesh with the Florilegium Chamber Choir. Nickolas regularly performs as a violist of the NYC-based Starling Quartet in collaboration with singer and composer Lacy Rose; the group recently recorded an album entitled Lispector, which is set to be released in May 2025. He was the violist of the Chapman Duo, an ensemble that won both the Wildflower International Recording Competition and the Frances Walton Competition, and was a semi-finalist or the American Prize in Chamber Music Performance. Additionally, he won first place in the Chapman Concerto Competition and second place in the Ruth Widder String Quartet Competition. In 2022, Nickolas completed a dissertation about the Bartók Viola Concerto to conclude his doctoral studies at the Manhattan School of Music under the tutelage of Professor Daniel Avshalomov. In his spare time, Nickolas enjoys transcribing and arranging music by inspiring artists such as Mister Rogers, J.S. Bach, and Cher, among others. He also has a passion for repairing inexpensive, broken instruments and transforming them into unique decorative scordatura pieces.
