Cynthia Blanchon

Alongside her position as guest professor of viola, chamber music, and co-director of the strings department at the Université de Montréal, Cynthia takes part in a wide range of chamber music projects. In 2025, she joins the Molinari Quartet and plays regularly with the Voxpopuli Quartet and the Montreal-based ensemble collectif9. A sought-after chamber musician, she has been invited to numerous festivals such as the Colorado Music Festival, Orford Music, the Festival de Lanaudière, Music & Beyond, the Festival Classica, the ProMusica series, Concerts aux Îles du Bic, Rencontres musicales de Laterrière, Rencontres musicales de Haute-Provence, and Festival Entre Vents et Marais. She has performed alongside renowned artists such as the Talich Quartet, Scott St. John, Martin Chalifour, and Rainer Küchl. A frequent collaborator with the ATMA Classique label, her concerts are regularly broadcast on ICI Musique / Radio-Canada. As an orchestral musician, Cynthia has been invited as principal viola by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Welsh National Opera, and the Thirteen Strings chamber orchestra. While performing with the London Symphony Orchestra, she played under the baton of renowned conductors including Sir Simon Rattle, Valery Gergiev, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and Vassily Petrenko, and appeared in some of the world’s most prestigious concert halls: Suntory Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Musikverein, the Elbphilharmonie, the Sydney Opera House, and the Philharmonie de Paris. She also served as principal viola of the Orchestre de l’Agora for five years. A graduate of the CNSMD in Lyon, she continued her studies at the Colburn School in Los Angeles, and later with Jutta Puchhammer and Juan-Miguel Hernandez at the Université de Montréal, where she earned her doctorate. Masterclasses with Hartmut Rohde, Gilad Karni, Harald Schlichtig, and Maxim Rysanov further enriched her development. Selected to participate in the prestigious Prussia Cove and MISQA festivals, she also took part in the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition as a member of the Myriade Quartet. In addition to her teaching at the Université de Montréal, she has given masterclasses at the University of Ottawa, the Pôle Supérieur de Paris (PSPBB), the PESMD Bordeaux Aquitaine, and the conservatories (CRR) of Toulouse and Montpellier. She has also taught at Orford Music, Music at Port Milford, and the CAMMAC Music Festival. She made her solo debut at the age of seven with the Telemann Concerto. Since then, she has performed Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 with the Orchestre de l’Agora. A prizewinner at several national competitions, including those in Lempdes, Toulouse, and Mouans-Sartoux, she won the Mécénat Musical Société Générale competition in 2015, which allowed her to play for three years on a viola by Stephan von Baehr. She currently plays a viola made for her by Fabienne Gauchet and a bow by Arnaud Suard.