Christine Newland, a Canada Council supported artist, has performed solo for CBC and BBC radio and televison,and the West Deutches Rundfunk. She spent two years in Germany, in the Master Class of Antonio Janigro, and toured Europe, and Canada, in the Dusseldorf String Quartet, as well as a six week solo tour in Japan sponsored by the Hellas Cultural Organization. In 2000, Christine performed, organized and promoted a special fund-raising concert for Orchestra London, held at Centennial Hall. She was loaned the six million dollar "Bonjour" Stradivari cello to perform an all solo cello tribute to her friend Jacqueline Du Pre. The sold out concert raised over $100,000 for Orchestra London. Christine shared her letters from Ms. Du Pre with the public, (quotes from Jacqueline Du Pre's letters to Christine can be found in Carol Easton's book "Jacqueline Du Pre".) and performed the Elgar Concerto amongst other solo works. Christine recalls the thrill of being allowed to try Jacqueline's famous "Davidov" Stradivari cello, when she was just 17.
Christine also organized a fund-raising concert for 911, in which Orchestra London donated their services, raising $18,000 for The Red Cross in the United States, as well as a Fashion Show Fund-Raiser which was a fun evening, where the musicians of Orchestra London performed, and emerged throughout the performance, to walk the "catwalk" modeling clothing from local Richmond Row vendors.
Still in her teens, Christine was privileged to meet Pablo Casals, and Pierre Fournier, who extended to her an invitation to study with him in Switzerland and was later invited to participate in Masterclasses of Rostropovich, and Sandor Vegh. Janos Starker invited her to study with him at Indiana University and David Soyer invited her to study with him at The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
Her chamber studies were with the Guarneri, Hungarian, Yale, and Lenox String Quartets.
A few years ago she had the honor of playing for Christopher Plummer at a special fund-raiser.
She is currently principal cellist for Orchestra London, with whom she has performed solo works by Haydn, Schumann, Boccherini, Saint-Saens, Elgar, Giron, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi, Dvorak, Faure, and Hindemith and premiered works written for her by Giron, Shoushounian and Whitehead.
Christine is also a portrait artist and has donated paintings as fundraisers, most recently for Orchestra London's Halloween Disco.
Her work can be viewed on her MySpace page at : http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid;=99514036
and on Kijiji at : Portraits From Pics Please contact her to have her paint a portrait of your special person or pet at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or call 519 679-8047
Christine is now accepting cello students young or old, absolute beginners to advanced players.
She plays on a Giovanni Francesco Celoniato cello made in 1730.
