Stellae Boreales – An Ottawa Suzuki Strings Violin Ensemble

 Kit and Rosemarie now teach with Ottawa Suzuki Strings.

Rosemarie Klimasko

Rosemarie started playing the violin at the age of five. She became the concertmaster of the Hamilton Youth Orchestra and the Royal Conservatory Youth Orchestra and spent six years with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada. While studying towards her violin performance degree at the University of Toronto, her distinguished teachers included Albert Pratz and Lorand Fenyves.

For many years, she was a professional freelance violinist in Toronto. She played for eleven years with the Pro Arte String Orchestra, and was a member of the Palm Court violin/flute/piano trio for several years.

In 1986, she moved to Ottawa, and co-founded SuzukiMusic. Her active schedule includes teaching a large class of Ottawa Suzuki Strings private students, teaching group classes, and conducting a youth orchestra for the National Capital Music Academy. Her career has seen many of her students achieve distinguished music awards at local, provincial and national levels, several moving on to prestigious music schools, both in Canada and the United States.

She has been a clinician at several Suzuki and CAMMAC camps and has adjudicated at Kiwanis Music Festivals in Ontario.

Rosemarie is based in the Nepean/Barrhaven area of Ottawa and is very fond of her feline companions, Stella Luna and Chocolate Chip.

Christopher (Kit) Barham

Christopher, better known as “Kit”, is a graduate of the Guelph Suzuki String School. While there, Kit studied under well-known Suzuki luminaries such as Daphne Hughes, Linda Drennan, and Thomas Wermuth. Kit subsequently pursued an undergraduate degree in music education at the University of Western Ontario. While there, he also undertook specific training in Kodally and Orff music pedagogy, choral conducting, and Baroque period chamber music as both a violinist and a violist.

Kit has worked as a music-oriented long-term care community activator with First Nations communities in northern British Columbia. He has also been a guest coach for a Quintet in Belgium, and has undertaken other activities in China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand. Kit brings a deep understanding of Asian philosophy and culture to his work as a Suzuki teacher, and he has undertaken Suzuki teacher training with both Ed Kreitman and Nancy Jackson.

Kit teaches in beautiful Island Park.

Karoly Sziladi

Ottawa native Karoly Sziladi started playing violin at the age of five with his father, Karoly Sziladi Sr.  He was a student in the music program at Canterbury High School as well as a member of the Ottawa Youth Orchestra.  Karoly continued his studies at McGill University with Richard Roberts, graduating in 1996, at which time he came back and began playing as an extra violin with the NAC Orchestra.  At that time he also performed with the Ottawa Symphony as well as the Thirteen Strings chamber orchestra.  In the years that followed, he had the great opportunity to tour Israel and Europe with Pinchas Zuckerman and the NACO, as well as tours throughout Canada.  From 2000 to 2005, while still maintaining his performance work here in Ottawa, Karoly was also Concertmaster of the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra. 

Today, Karoly teaches privately, coaches the strings of the Ottawa Junior Youth Orchstra, and very much looks forward to being a coach with Stella Boreales and an OSS member in the near future.