About Us

Canadian violinist Maria van der Sloot enjoys a diverse career as a performer and educator. She has been a grand prizewinner in chamber music at the Canadian Music Competition and a finalist in the National Music Festival, and she has appeared as soloist with the Calgary Philharmonic and National Arts Centre Orchestra. She has performed extensively throughout North America, including for Music for Food, NPR’s From the Top, the Boston Symphony Prelude series, the Virginia Arts Festival, the Berkeley Piano Club, and the Calgary Philharmonic Emerging Artists series, and she has participated in the Banff, Orford, Tanglewood, and Morningside Music Bridge summer festivals. She has worked closely with members of the Cleveland, Borromeo, Concord, Kronos, St. Lawrence, Juilliard, and Telegraph Quartets and performed alongside artists including Dimitri Murrath, Pierre Amoyal, Eugene Izotov, James Ehnes, and Gil Kalish.

Ms. van der Sloot received her B.M. (Honours) from the New England Conservatory of Music, as recipient of the Vernon Scholarship, and her M.M. (Distinction) at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, as recipient of the Osher, Schorr, and Hoefer Scholarships. Her primary mentors include Donald Weilerstein, Ian Swensen, and Cordula Merks, and she is grateful for graduate support from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. In 2019, she joined the first violins of the Calgary Philharmonic and in 2020 was appointed concertmaster of the Calgary Civic Symphony. Equally passionate about chamber music and new music, Ms. van der Sloot joined the acclaimed Land’s End Ensemble in 2022.

A dedicated pedagogue, Ms. van der Sloot is on faculty at the Mount Royal University Conservatory, Calgary Music Academy, and the Valhalla Summer School of Music, and she has worked extensively with El Sistema programs across North America to provide equitable access to music education. In her spare time, she can be found in a kitchen, garden, or along the nearest body of water.

Vincent Ho is widely recognized as one of the most exciting composers of his generation. His works have been hailed for their profound expressiveness and textural beauty, leaving audiences talking about them with great enthusiasm. His many awards have included Harvard University’s Fromm Music Commission, The Canada Council for the Arts’ “Robert Fleming Prize,” ASCAP’s “Morton Gould Young Composer Award,” four SOCAN Young Composers Awards, and CBC Radio’s Audience Choice Award (2009 Young Composers’ Competition).

Born in Ottawa, Ontario in 1975, Vincent Ho began his musical training through the Royal Conservatory of Music. He received his Associate Diploma in Piano Performance from the Royal Conservatory of Music (Toronto) in 1993, his Bachelor of Music from the University of Calgary in 1998, his Master of Music degree from the University of Toronto in 2000, and his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Southern California in 2005. His mentors have included Allan Bell, David Eagle, Christos Hatzis, Walter Buczynski, and Stephen Hartke. In 1997, he was awarded a scholarship to attend the Schola Cantorum Summer Composition Program in Paris, where he received further training in analysis, composition, counterpoint, and harmony, supervised by David Diamond, Philip Lasser, and Narcis Bonet.

During his period with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra as composer-in-residence (2007-2014), Ho has presented a number of large-scale works that have generated much excitement and critical praise. His Arctic Symphony has been described as “a beautiful work that evokes the Far North in a very special way” (John Corigliano), and “a mature and atmospheric work that firmly establishes Ho among North American composers of note” (Winnipeg Free Press). His percussion concerto, titled The Shaman, composed for Dame Evelyn Glennie was hailed as a triumph, receiving unanimous acclaim, and was featured at Carnegie Hall’s “Spring for Music Festival” in May of 2014. The success of this work led to a second collaboration with Dame Glennie, a tone poem for percussion and orchestra titled From Darkness to Light. His cello concerto, City Suite, composed for Canadian cellist Shauna Rolston, received similar praise.

In his free time, he enjoys running, reading, traveling, dancing, hiking, playing chess, and learning the keyboard works of Bach, Beethoven, Ravel, and Ligeti (among many others). He is also an enthusiast of old-time radio shows, photography, crime noir, Zen art, jazz, Jimi Hendrix, graphic novels, and Stanley Kubrick films.

Cellist Beth Root Sandvoss has a notably varied career as a recitalist, chamber musician and pedagogue. Beth’s early professional activities took her to Hong Kong, where she became a member of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra as well as the Victoria String Quartet, performing throughout Asia.

After completing graduate studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music as well as further studies in San Francisco, Beth settled in Calgary, Alberta where she enjoys an active performance career in Canada and abroad. Beth regularly collaborates with artists such as Ian Swenson, Barry Shiffman, James Campbell, François Houle and Linda Wang. She has recorded for WERN Madison public radio, RTHK Radio Hong Kong, and CBC Radio. Recent appearances include concert tours in China and Portugal.

Beth has an intense interest in new music and is a founding member of the acclaimed Land’s End Ensemble, winners of both the 2005 and 2006 Western Canadian Music Award for Outstanding Classical Recording. In addition to her Land’s End Ensemble activities, Beth is a member of the UCalgary String Quartet in residence at the University of Calgary. Nominated as Instrumental Group of the Year, the UCalgary String Quartet has completed live recordings of all the Beethoven String Quartets as well as the CD Far Behind I left My Country which features Klezmer and East European Folk Music.

Along with her performance career, Beth is a very dedicated pedagogue. As a sought after clinician she has worked with both teachers and students on her methods. Her pupils have won numerous competitions in Canada and are regularly invited to summer festivals around the world. Beth’s students have continued on as scholarship students to major universities and conservatories such as New England Conservatory, Mannes College of Music and the Juilliard School. She is a faculty member at Mount Royal University and spends her summers teaching and performing at music festivals throughout Canada and the United States. Beth has the great pleasure and privilege to perform on an award – winning cello made by her husband, Luthier, Christopher Sandvoss.

“The performance brought out its depth of passion….Beth Root Sandvoss has a beautiful sound, coupled with an excellent sense of harmony—“ Gordon Rumson, Music and Vision