About
Featured in CBC Music’s “30 Classical Under 30”, Canadian cellist Julien Siino was recently appointed Associate Principal Cello at Orchestre Métropolitain, where he has the privilege to work under the baton of Principal Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
He has previously been Artist in Residence at the Academy of the Paris National Opera and the Académie musicale Philippe Jaroussky, as well as Assistant Principal Cello at Orchestre national de Montpellier.
He has won First Prize at various competitions, including the Eckhardt-Gramatté National Competition (Canada), the International Agustin Aponte Competition (Spain), the Canadian Music Competition, and the Petit Mozart Audi Sainte-Foy competition (Canada). He was also finalist in the Stepping Stone and the Prix d’Europe competitions in Montreal and took part in international competitions such as the XI Lutosławski International Cello Competition in Warsaw, the George Enescu International Cello Competition in Bucharest and the Markneukirchen International Cello Competition (Germany). As a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral player, he has performed in great European and North American concert halls. He has performed with many ensembles including the Violons du Roy, Orchestre symphonique de Québec, Paris National Opera, Dutch National Opera, Orchestre philharmonique de Radio-France and Orchestre national de Montpellier. He has had the chance to work with various living composers such as Ian Cusson, George Aperghis, Yannick Plamondon, Jean Lesage and Maxime Fortin.
He started learning the cello at age four with Morag Northey, and later entered the class of Leslie Snider at the Quebec Conservatory of Music. He continued his musical studies in Europe at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag (Holland Scholarship) and the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris, where his main teachers have been Michel Strauss, Jan-Ype Nota, Guillaume Paoletti and Bruno Cocset. Throughout his musical experiences, he has worked with and learned from many great musicians such as Raphael Wallfisch, Philippe Muller, Julian Steckel, Lluis Claret, Roel Dieltiens, Daniel Müller-Schott, Hans Jurgen Jensen, Antonio Meneses, Xavier Phillips, Emmanuelle Bertrand, Blair Lofgren, David Hetherington, Benoit Loiselle, Claudio Bohorquez, Deborah Pae, Joseph Johnson, Jan Ickert, Christian-Pierre La Marca, Aurélien Sabouret and Cyrille Lacrouts.
He plays on a cello made in Paris by Auguste Sébastien Bernardel in 1838 with a bow by Victor François Fétique generously loaned to him by Canimex Inc. He has also been awarded various scholarships by organisations and festivals such as the Orford Academy, the Liechtenstein Musikakademie, the Conseil des arts et lettres du Québec, the Jeunesses musicales du Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Fondation Meyer and Canimex Inc.
