About the Musicians
Cadenza Strings was founded in 2004 by violinist Brenna Hardy-Kavanagh and cellist Sonya Matoussova.
Though originally a quartet, the group soon expanded to offer duos, trios, and soloists. The musicians of Cadenza Strings are known throughout the Ottawa area for their talent, dedication, and high standard of playing, and have been finalists in the Canadian Music Competition and the Kiwanis Music Festival. They have studied at many highly acclaimed summer institutions, including Le Domaine Forget Summer Music Academy (St. Irenée, Québec), the Orford Arts Centre (Magog, Québec), Morningside Music Bridge (Calgary, Alberta), the Banff Centre for the Arts (Banff, Alberta), Pinchas Zukerman’s Young Artists’ Program (Ottawa, Ontario), the Encore School for Strings (Cleveland, Ohio), the Schlern International Music Festival (Voels, Italy), ScotiaFest (Halifax, Nova Scotia), Tiberius International Chamber Music Festival (Targu Mures, Romania), l'Orchestre de la Francophonie Canadienne, and the National Youth Orchestra of Canada.
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Brenna Hardy-Kavanagh, violin
 Brenna began playing the violin at the age of ten, under the instruction of Yvrose Philippe-Auguste. She has been a member of the Ottawa Junior Youth Orchestra, the Canterbury High School String ensemble, the Junior Thirteen Strings Chamber Orchestra, and the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, concertmaster of the Greely Players Orchestra, and principal second violinist of both the Ottawa Youth Orchestra and l'Orchestre de la Francophonie Canadienne. Brenna currently plays in l'Orchestre de l'Université de Montréal and Ensemble Euterpe. She attended Le Domaine Forget Summer Music Academy in 2004 and 2006, where she worked under the tutelage of violinists Andrew Dawes and David Stewart (concertmaster of the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra), participated in masterclasses led by Andrew Dawes, David Stewart and Regis Pasquier (Paris Conservatory), and was coached in chamber music by violist Karine Rousseau and violinist Brett Molzan (Quatuor Arthur LeBlanc). Brenna has since been coached in chamber music by Paule Prefontaine, John Gomez, Paul Marleyn, Rennie Regehr, Stefan Metz, Sandor Devich, Jean-Eudes Vaillancourt, Johanne Perron, and Jutta Puchhammer. Brenna was a student of David Stewart at the Orford Arts Centre in 2005 and 2006, and studied with Paule Prefontaine and David Stewart at the University of Ottawa from 2005 to 2007. She is currently a student of Vladimir Landsman at l'Université de Montréal. Brenna plays on a 2002 violin by luthier Guy Harrison.
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Sonya Matoussova, violin/cello
 Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, Sonya began playing the cello at the age of seven, under the instruction of Irina Pavlovna Fedotova. After moving to Canada in 1997, she continued her studies with Anne Contant and was accepted into le Conservatoire de musique et d'art dramatique de Gatineau the following year. Sonya began studying the violin at the age of fourteen under the instruction of Ioan Harea (freelance soloist, and faculty at the Crane School of Music in New York), while keeping up her cello playing. She later left the Conservatory to study with former NACO principal cellist Donald Whitton, and also studied with NACO cellist Margaret Munro Tobolowska. Sonya has held leading positions in the Canterbury High School String ensemble, the Greely Players Orchestra, the Junior Thirteen Strings Chamber Orchestra and the Ottawa Youth Orchestra. Sonya attended Le Domaine Forget Summer Music Academy from 2004-2006, where she worked under the tutelage of cellists Yegor Dyachkov and Brian Lofgren, violinists Oleg Pokhanovski, David Stewart and Philippe Djokic, and chamber music coaches Karine Rousseau, Andrée Azar, and the Quatuor Arthur-LeBlanc. Sonya studied with violinist Vladimir Landsman at the Schlern International Music Festival in Voels, Italy last summer, and is currently completing a double major degree in violin and cello performance at l'Université de Montréal, studying with violinist Vladimir Landsman and cellist Yuli Turovsky.
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