Marlene Ngalissamy

Born in Moscow, Marlene moved to Canada at the age of 10 and began learning the bassoon three years later. She quickly developed a deep passion for the instrument and was accepted at the Montreal Conservatory of Music in the class of Mathieu Harel.

Over the past few years, she had the chance to participate in several workshops: Pacific music festival in Japan, International Summer Academy of the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Pablo Casals Festival, Orford Academy, Chamber Music Academy of the National Arts Centre in Ottawa and Domaine Forget. She had lessons with several national and international masters such as Dag Jensen, Carlo Colombo, Laurent Lefevre, Ole Kristian Dahl, Stéphane Levesque, Gustavo Nuñez, Christopher Millard, Vincent Parizeau and Louise Pellerin. She worked with different conductors such as Kent Nagano, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Juanjo Mena, Vasily Petrenko, Allain Trudel, Julian Kuerti, Robert D. Levin and many others.

Winner of the first prize in the Canadian Music Competition (2012), she performed the W. A. Mozart bassoon concerto with the gala orchestra in Toronto. As a soloist, she performed with the Metropolitan Orchestra of Montreal, the Montreal Youth Symphony Orchestra and the orchestra of the Conservatory of Montreal. She played with different orchestras in Quebec such as The Metropolitan Orchestra of Montreal, les Violons du Roy and The Montreal Symphony Orchestra as both substitute bassoon and contrabassoon. She was also part of a chamber music recital at the Salle Bourgie in February 2015 with some of the OSM musicians.

In February 2014, Marlene gave a recital at the Red Path Hall at McGill University as part of the Montreal High Lights Festival. The performance was recorded and broadcasted on CBC radio2. She is also a finalist of the MegQuigley bassoon Competition 2015.

One of the eight laureates of the Developing Artist Grant of the Hnatyshyn Foundation (2013), Marlene completed her Bachelor degree at the Montreal Conservatory with Mathieu Harel and Stéphane Levesque. She is now attending the Curtis Institute of music in the class of Daniel Matsukawa. She recently played with the Jupiter Chamber Orchestra Players in New-York and will have the opportunity to perform the Weber bassoon concerto with the Edmonton Symphony orchestra in October 2018.