On Thursday 16 November 2023, our founder and president, Joan Milkson, was honoured to be one of 15 people inducted into the Order of Ottawa this year.

Joan is a founding member and assistant concertmaster of the National Arts Centre Orchestra. During her 39 years with the orchestra, she founded the NAC Musicians in the School Quintet and, with her NACO colleagues, performed in schools in the National Capital Region, offering young people an introduction to, and broader understanding of, classical music.

In 2002, she founded the Young String Performers’ Foundation (YSPF) to “create, provide, promote and subsidize opportunities that will develop the abilities of promising young string performers of the National Capital Region up to the age of 18” (see About the Foundation). During the more than 20 years the YSPF has been in existence, it has offered performance opportunities and financial support to several hundred aspiring young string musicians in the National Capital Region, some of whom now have solo careers or are members of internationally renowned orchestras.

We are pleased that the City of Ottawa has chosen to formally recognize Joan’s contribution not only to the city, but also to the entire National Capital Region.

The YSPF is pleased to announce that it will hold an additional concert on Sunday, May 7, 2023. This concert is in addition to the usual four concerts held during a season. Detail will be posted on the Upcoming Events page as they become available.

The first Young String Performers in Concert of the 2022-2023 season will take place on Saturday 29 October at 7:30  p.m. For more details, please refer to the entry on the Upcoming Events page.

The video of our virtual concert from 29 January is now available for viewing. Click here to view it (40 minutes). The musical portion of the video is preceded by a short tribute to Eli McKhool, a member of our Board of Directors from the founding of the YSPF until his death in December 2021.

Although the video is stored on Facebook, no Facebook account is required to view it.

Click here to view the program.

If for some reason you have difficulty viewing the video, try using another video player, such as VideoLAN. VideoLAN is a free and very versatile video player that “runs on all platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Unix, iOS, Android….” It is available for download at www.videolan.org/vlc.

In June, the YSPF again recorded a video of some of its young artists in performance. Click here to view the video (61 minutes) on Google Drive or here to view it on our Facebook page.

Click here to view the program.

If for some reason you have difficulty viewing the video, try using another video player, such as VideoLAN. VideoLAN is a free and very versatile video player that “runs on all platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Unix, iOS, Android….” It is available for download at www.videolan.org/vlc.

In April, the YSPF again recorded a video of some of its young artists in performance. Click here to view the video (50 minutes) on Google Drive or here to view it on our Facebook page.

Click here to view the program.

If for some reason you have difficulty viewing the video, try using another video player, such as VideoLAN. VideoLAN is a free and very versatile video player that “runs on all platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Unix, iOS, Android….” It is available for download at www.videolan.org/vlc.

On 27 February 2021, the YSPF recorded a video of some of its young artists in performance. Click here to view the video (55 minutes) on our Facebook page.

Click here to view the program.

If for some reason you have difficulty viewing the video, try using another video player, such as VideoLAN. VideoLAN is a free and very versatile video player that “runs on all platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Unix, iOS, Android….” It is available for download at www.videolan.org/vlc.

UPDATE 2021-05-31: Unfortunately, the video had to be removed from the Google site because of space limitations. Please use the link to the copy of the video stored on our Facebook page.

On 23 January 2021, the YSPF recorded a video of some of its young artists in performance. Click here to view the video (35 minutes) on Google Drive or here to view it on our Facebook page.

Click here to view the program.

If for some reason you have difficulty viewing the video, try using another video player, such as VideoLAN. VideoLAN is a free and very versatile video player that “runs on all platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Unix, iOS, Android….” It is available for download at www.videolan.org/vlc.