Blake Pouliot, violin, is the winner of the Canada Council for the Arts’s 2015 Musical Instrument Bank Competition. Mr. Pouliot has garnered many accolades as a concert violinist, starred in two award-winning films, made numerous television appearances, and performed as keyboardist in an award-winning pop band. Since his solo orchestral debut with the Toronto Trinity Chamber Orchestra at the age of eleven, Mr. Pouliot has performed as soloist with orchestras such as the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic, North York Symphony, Hamilton Philharmonic, the Jefferson City Symphony, and the Colburn Orchestra at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles with conductors including Sir Neville Marriner, Nicolas McGegan, Tito Muñoz, and Alain Trudel. Mr. Pouliot has also performed recitals in Chicago, Los Angeles, and was featured in Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata on Rob Kapilow’s “What Makes it Great?” series at the Cerritos Center for Performing Arts in February 2016. Upcoming performances include debuts at the Aspen Music Festival and with the Pacific and Ottawa Symphonies. He is currently a performance diploma candidate at the Colburn School Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles, California, where he studies with Robert Lipsett, the Jascha Heifetz Distinguished Violin Chair. Mr. Pouliot performs on the 1729 Guarneri del Gesù, on generous loan from the Canada Council for the Arts Musical Instrument Bank.