Making his Wentworth Villa debut, Henry Shapard (Co-Principal Cello, London Philharmonic Orchestra, UK) and esteemed Canadian pianist Jane Coop present the two Brahms sonatas for cello and piano, and a set of variations by Mendelssohn.

 

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Recital Program

Intermission

 

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Henry Shapard is Co-Principal Cello of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he took up in July 2025. Prior to his seat in the LPO, he served from 2020 as Principal Cello of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Highlights of his tenure in British Columbia included several performances as the featured soloist with the VSO, most notably the Strauss Don Quixote under the baton of Leonard Slatkin.

As a cello section leader, Henry is in demand around the world, appearing in Guest Principal roles with the LPO and the Queensland Symphony Orchestra as well as guest Co-Principal with the Oslo Philharmonic.

As a concerto soloist, Henry’s recent engagements include the Vancouver, Yale, Prince George, and Lima symphonies, the PRISMA Festival Orchestra, and Parlando (New York City). Notable chamber music collaborations include a long-term partnership with pianist Jane Coop.

Henry was Professor of Cello at the Vancouver Academy of Music from 2023–2025, and maintains an ongoing relationship with the Academy. He has also been visiting faculty at the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM), the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America (NYO-USA), and given masterclasses at Yale and Oberlin, among others.

In May 2020, Henry graduated with distinction in History from Yale University, where he received numerous university prizes. During his time there, he also studied cello with Ole Akahoshi and conducting with William Boughton, whom he assisted at the Yale Symphony. In his last year as a Yale student, he was also Principal Cello of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra, appointed by the late Bramwell Tovey.

Raised in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was an enthusiastic student of Richard Weiss, Henry holds a deep commitment to stewardship, frequently organizing workshops for incarcerated individuals in his home state. 

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Pianist Jane Coop , one of Canada’s most prominent and distinguished artists, has toured extensively throughout North America, Asia and Europe, performing in such major concert halls as Lincoln Center (Alice Tully), Wigmore Hall, the Kennedy Center, Roy Thomson Hall, Salle Gaveau (Paris), the Singapore Cultural Center and the Bolshoi Hall of St. Petersburg, Russia. She has been soloist with the principal orchestras of Canada, as well as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London, the Seattle and Portland Symphonies, the Hong Kong and Honolulu Symphonies and the Radio Orchestras of Bavaria and Holland, in some forty concerti.

Her principal teachers were Alexandra Munn and Gladys Egbert in Calgary, Anton Kuerti in Toronto and Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore.

Ms. Coop has received international praise for her sixteen releases on the Skylark, CBC and Centaur labels in solo, chamber and concerto repertoire ranging from Bach to Barber and beyond (skylark-music.com), and her radio broadcasts have been heard in Britain, Hong Kong, Poland, Holland, Germany, the USA and Canada.

She has been an invited jury member for international piano competitions in Calgary (Honens), Maryland (Kapell), Dublin, Hilton Head, Washington DC, New York, Indianapolis, Dallas (Cliburn), Beijing, and Salt Lake City (Bachauer). A regular artist/teacher at the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival in Blue Hill, Maine, Coop performs with members of the Juilliard Quartet and other eminent musicians.

Jane Coop was Professor of Piano and Chamber Music at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver for over thirty years, and now devotes herself full time to performing. In 2012 she was appointed to the Order of Canada for her lifetime achievement and contribution to her country in the arts, and to the Order of BC in 2019.

Ms. Coop is a Steinway Artist.