Claude Kenneson

He began cello studies at six with Leon Woska and continued at the University of Texas with Horace Britt, at the Berkshire Music Centre in 1957, and with Pablo Casals in California in 1960. He moved to Canada in 1959. He was a member of the Vancouver, Winnipeg, Montreal and Chautauqua (NY) Symphony Orchestras. He was co-founder of the Corydon String Trio in 1960 (with Lea Foli, violin, and Gerald Stanick, viola) and music director 1962-4 of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. Kenneson taught 1965-90 at the University of Alberta and then was made a professor emeritus. He was a founding member of the University of Alberta String Quartet in 1969. He also taught extensively at the Kato Havas Summer School, Dorset, England, and the Banff SFA where for 20 years he developed various cello programs, including studies for gifted youth. Often performing on a cello by Vincenzo Ruggieri once owned by David Popper, Kenneson appeared in North America and Europe as a recitalist and chamber musician and broadcast on the radio and television networks of the BBC, the CBC, and PBS. He composed for ballet, voice and instrumental ensemble, wrote A Cellist's Guide to the New Approach (New York 1974) and Bibliography of Cello Ensemble Music (Detroit 1974), and contributed numerous articles to journals including American String Teacher, Canadian Music Educator, Canadian String Teacher Notes, Chamber Music Quarterly, The Instrumentalist, and The Strad. In 1991, he was preparing a biography on the violinist Zoltán Székely. While in residence at the Banff Centre's Leighton Artist Colony he edited the 32 Sonatas for Cello and Keyboard by Luigi Boccherini and the Essay by Jean Louis Duport. He was an adjudicator and lecturer in North America and Great Britain and cello coach for the Canadian Festival of Youth Orchestras. Among his pupils are Mark Eeles, Shauna Rolston and Eric Wilson.