The Viennese-born violist Jutta Puchhammer-Sédillot is in great demand on the Canadian and international music scene. A Canadian citizen since 1987, she frequently returns to Austria to give recitals and chamber music performances, and has toured Japan, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and her native country as a member of the Wiener Nonett.
Ms. Puchhammer-Sédillot studied under Siegfried Führlingandat at the Wiener Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst, from which she graduated with honors, and under Heidi Castleman at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. She has performed with renowned artists such as Janos Starker and Lorand Fenyves, and has been invited to be a guest artist with Orchestre Métropolitain, the Fine Arts Quartet, the Colorado Quartet, Musica Camerata and the Alcan String Quartet, among others. Co-founder of the Trio Kegelstatt, the Quatuor Claudel and the Trio à Cordes de Montréal, she is now principal viola with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens Orchestra and the Orchestre Symphonique de Laval. Her recital programs underscore her interest for unknown post-romantic works and often feature premieres of new works.
Her first CD, entitled “Alto Romantic Fantasies” (Eclectra ECCD-2060) charms with wonderful pieces such as the Sonata-Fantasia by Philipp Scharwenka and the Phantasiestücke by Robert Fuchs. The recording was acclaimed in Fanfare magazine: “Here the viola shines with as much fire as a passionate violin, cries with as much desperation as a cello, entices, seduces, and convinces the listener that no string instrument could be more versatile or beautiful.” Her love for this repertoire has led to the discovery of the works of Ernst Naumann and Robert Fuchs, recorded on her second CD “German Romantic Works” (Fidelio FIDC 018), acclaimed for her lyricism and expressive interpretation.
Jutta Puchhammer-Sédillot is head of the string department and professor of viola and chamber music at the University of Montréal. She teaches at Summer academies such as the Orford Arts Center in Canada , the Interlochen Viola Institute (now called North American Viola Institute, directed by Heidi Castleman) and at the Académie International d’été de Nice in France. She regularly gives masterclasses at the Juilliard School of music, Mannes College, the Peabody Institute, The Conservatoire Superieure de Lyon, France and the Vienna Hochschule fur Musik und darstellende Kunst in Austria. This summer, she will be teaching at The Perlman Music Program, Schloß Raabs in Austria, and the North American Viola Institute, and will be giving a masterclass at the Orford Arts center in Quebec, Canada.
She served as the director and host of the 34th International Viola Congress in 2006, held with enormous success in Montréal, where she received the Maurice Riley Award for international achievement. In October 2009, she hosted the first Canadian Viola Festival at the Université de Montréal.
Viola congresses bring her around the world, where she shares her discoveries and gives conferences on movement and visualization.
She currently serves as the president of the Canadian Viola Society, and plays on a Geoffrey Ovington viola, circa 1989.
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