Drawn to story just as much as sound, Canadian violinist Veda Hingert-McDonald (she/her) aims to balance personal connection with tradition in her performance of both new and standard repertoire. She recently completed her masters of music at University of Colorado (CU) Boulder where she studied with Takács Quartet violinists Harumi Rhodes and Ed Dusinberre. There she was generously supported by the Dorothy Richard Starling Foundation, and received honorable mentions in the Bruce Ekstrand Graduate Student Performance Competition and the Honors Concerto Competition. She also holds a bachelor of music degree from Wilfrid Laurier University, where she made her soloist debut with Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 as a winner of the Laurier concerto competition. Veda has additional training from Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Icicle Creek Chamber Music, Music at Port Milford, and Summer Music Vancouver.
She has taught at Sistema Toronto, Anchorage Chamber Music Festival, University of Colorado, and privately for seven years. A passionate improviser, Veda is a founding member of Plein Air Sound Collective: a contemporary ensemble dedicated to exploring relationships between sound and physical environment, and they are anticipating the release of their first album in 2024. She has also been a member of Impact Playback: a theatre troupe dedicated to centring empathy in the improvised telling of audience’s stories. She was a 2021-2022 Performer Fellow with the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, leading to the premiere of a new work in collaboration with composer Che Buford.
As a composer herself, Veda’s work often draw on narrative and programmatic elements to explore themes of nature and questions she has about the world around her. She has received professional commissions and premieres of her compositions from Waterloo Chamber Players, CU Boulder Soundworks, NUMUS Concerts, members of International Contemporary Ensemble, and Peridot Duo. She has studied with Annika ocolofsky, Glenn Buhr and Linda Catlin Smith, as well as through Young Women Composers program at Temple University.
Outside of her musical life Veda is active in environmental and food justice work including training in permaculture design, founding a zero-waste concert series, and creating a food justice garden. She sees both chamber music and permaculture as opportunities to build and model the kind of interconnectedness and empathy she wishes to see in the world. She loves cooking and riding her bike, and spending time in nature.
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