Robert Uchida, violin; Allene Hackleman, horn
& Sarah Ho, piano
Sunday, February 9, 2025 - 3:00 pm
St. Albert United Church
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Photo Credit: Erik Visser
Canadian violinist Robert Uchida, Concertmaster of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra,
enjoys a varied career as a soloist, orchestral and chamber musician, and educator. His debut
recording of Andrew Violette’s Sonata for Unaccompanied Violin won international acclaim,
with Strings Magazine praising his “ravishing sound, eloquence and hypnotic intensity.”
Robert has been a soloist with orchestras including the Alberta Baroque Ensemble,
Edmonton Symphony, Ottawa Symphony, Red Deer Symphony, Symphony New Brunswick,
Symphony Nova Scotia, Orchestre de la Francophonie, and the National Arts Centre
Orchestra of Canada. Robert has taught and performed at festivals throughout North America
including the Arizona MusicFest, Banff International String Quartet Festival, Jackson Hole
Chamber Music, Music by the Sea, National Academy Orchestra, National Arts Centre Young Artists Program, New Brunswick Summer Music Festival, Rosebud Chamber Music Festival, Scotia Festival, Sewanee Music Festival, Summer Solstice Music Festival, and was Artistic Director of the Acadia Summer Strings Festival from 2010-2013.
Before joining the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Robert was Concertmaster of Symphony Nova Scotia in Halifax. He performed on a Juno-nominated recording with Sarah Slean, and recorded Requiem 21.5: Violin Concerto by Tim Brady, which won Classical Recording of the Year at the East Coast Music Awards. As a guest concertmaster, he has worked with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic, Ottawa Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Royal Flemish Philharmonic, and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.
A passionate teacher, Robert is a violin instructor at the University of Alberta, and has held teaching positions at Acadia University and the Manhattan School of Music Precollege. His students have continued their studies at the Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music and Guildhall School in London, have won major international competitions, and perform in ensembles in North America and Europe.
Robert holds a Master’s Degree in Violin Performance from the Manhattan School of Music in New York and a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Ottawa. His teachers and mentors include Andrew Dawes, Morry Kernerman, Patinka Kopec, Heratch Manoukian, David Stewart, and Pinchas Zukerman.
Robert loves volunteering and is honoured to have been inducted into the Ronald McDonald House’s Character Club in Edmonton. He performs on a 1770 Guadagnini violin with Vision Solo Titanium strings by Thomastik-Infeld Vienna.
Allene Hackleman has been principal horn of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra since 2004. A native of Vancouver, B.C., Allene studied horn with her father, Martin Hackleman, and continued her studies at the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, and at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music as a student of Randy Gardner. Ms Hackleman has performed with the National, Montréal, and Winnipeg Symphony Orchestras, the Calgary Philharmonic, the National Arts Centre Orchestra and the Colorado Music Festival. Allene has performed concerti with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Alberta Baroque Ensemble, Red Deer Symphony and the Victoria Symphony.
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Since 2007, Allene has been a member of the Summit Brass ensemble, and as such has recorded, taught and performed each summer as a faculty member at the Rafael Mendez Brass Institute in Denver, Colorado. Allene enjoys chamber music and has been a guest artist at le Domaine Forget Academy, the Festival of the Sound in Parry Sound, ON, the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, the Edmonton Recital Society, and the Pender Harbour Chamber Music Festival, and was a featured artist at the International Women's Brass conference in 2010. Allene is a proud member of the Canadian National Brass Project and has performed with this group at the Festival de Lanaudière and Toronto Summer Music Festival. In 2015, Allene was invited to teach masterclasses at the Musikacademy in Belgrade, Serbia. Allene was a featured artist at the 2023 Southeast Horn Workshop and the 2023 International Horn Symposium. She teaches at the University of Alberta.
Sarah Ho is an accomplished Canadian pianist who grew up in Edmonton, Alberta and has performed internationally as a soloist and ensemble player.
Sarah has performed in notable venues and summer festivals around the world, including the Shubert Theatre on Broadway in New York, the Kennedy Center, the Banff Festival for the Arts, the National Arts Centre Young Artists Programme, the Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, Weekend of Chamber Music in New York, and Rudersdal Sommerkoncerter in Denmark. Sarah also travelled to China with Edmonton’s WindRose Trio, where they became the first Canadians to perform at the Harbin Summer Music Festival in Harbin, China.
She has performed as a guest artist with orchestras in Canada including the Edmonton Symphony, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, and the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Orchestra, and also enjoys playing orchestral piano with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.
A two time winner of the Sir James Lougheed Award of Distinction from the Government of Alberta, Sarah holds degrees from Indiana University and Yale University, where she studied under renowned pianists Menahem Pressler and Claude Frank. In Edmonton, Sarah’s teachers included Wolfram Linnebach and Stéphane Lemelin, and Marek Jablonski.
She is a founding member and the Artistic Director of the Edmonton Recital Society, an organization she is passionately committed to. A dedicated teacher, Sarah is on the faculty of the MacEwan University Conservatory of Music, where her students have won prizes at the local and national level.
Sarah currently resides in Edmonton, Canada with her husband Colin and their two sons, Markus and Sebastian. An avid runner, Sarah has completed 13 marathons, including the 2022 and 2023 Boston Marathons.
Concert Sponsors: Heather & John Dolman