Christine enjoys an eclectic musical career. Her first love was the piano, starting lessons at the age of five and achieving her performance ARCT in her early teens. Elementary school group violin lessons began a love affair with all things strings that endures today. After violin studies with Leo Wigdorchik in Toronto, she spent two seasons with the Regina Symphony. Moving back to Ontario, she began a freelance career that runs the gamut from symphonic, opera, and chamber music to theatre and popular music performance.

 

Orchestral work could see her playing with organizations  such as the Hamilton Philharmonic and Kitchener Waterloo Symphony, or sitting as professional Concertmaster or Principal Second violin in several community orchestras. Much of her performing experience has been playing in the pit for performances ranging from Opera Hamilton and the Canadian Opera
Company, to the Bolshoi Ballet’s “Swan Lake” performances in Toronto, to theatre shows like “Phantom of the Opera”, “Showboat” and more. She has shared the stage with such popular artists as Anne Murray, Diana Krall and Justin Bieber and plays regularly with the Casino Rama orchestra. Christine’s most cherished chamber orchestra experiences are from a western Canada tour with the Amadeus Ensemble and her time spent as a member of Lyra Borealis under the direction of a very young Paavo Järvi. String quartet
playing is a particular passion, which led her to spend a year in New Brunswick as second violin of the Saint John String Quartet. She later established the now highly acclaimed "Basically Quartets" quartet courses held annually in Wales. Although Christine is an ensemble player at heart, some of her most rewarding performances have been solo violin concerts that she has designed specifically for people living with dementia.

 

Performing has always gone hand in hand with Christine’s love of teaching. She has decades of experience as a teacher and maintains an active private studio. She is much in demand as a clinician, coach and adjudicator and also examines for the Royal Conservatory.

She is co-author of "The Athletic Musician - a guide to playing without Pain” and lectures internationally on the subject of musicians' injuries. Other publications include co-authoring the 2013 RCM Violin syllabus and co-editing the 2013 Violin Series. Christine is currently working on completing a comprehensive violin sight reading method and composing a volume of pedagogical violin études, three of which are published in the 2021 RCM Violin Series.