Louella Alatiit is a Canadian violinist with a diverse performing career. Her musical inspiration extends from the expressiveness and improvisatory elements of baroque music, as well as the unique sonority and expression obtainable with period instruments. This has led her to focus on performing baroque, classical, and romantic music in a style specific to the era and on instruments from these periods, which she does with some of the world’s leading period instrument ensembles, as well as other up-and-coming groups. In this capacity, Ms. Alatiit works with many renowned conductors and directors touring throughout Europe, Asia, and North America performing in some of the world’s most famous concert halls (such as, Carnegie Hall). With respect to her qualifications, she is a graduate of three prestigious schools—holding a Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance from McGill University, a Diploma in Baroque Violin from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, as well as a Master’s and Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Stony Brook University.
Ms. Alatiit has performed with groups such as, The English Concert, The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, The King’s Consort, Opera Fuoco (France), Le Cercle de l’Harmonie (France), Nieuwe Philharmonie Utrecht (Netherlands), Concerto d’Amsterdam, New Collegium (Netherlands), B’rock (Belgium), Les Passions de l’Ame (Switzerland), Trondheim Barokk (Norway), and the chamber music group Giardino Musicale in Den Haag. Additionally, she has worked under notable conductors and directors such as, Sir Simon Rattle, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Iván Fischer, Vladimir Jurowski, Ton Koopman, Harry Bicket, Laurence Cummings, René Jacobs, Rachel Podger, Enrico Onofri and Bernard Labadie. Currently she works on occasion with Tafelmusik in Toronto.
She was selected as a young apprentice for The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in 2007-2008 and for the English Baroque Soloists in 2009-2010. Ms. Alatiit was loaned a ‘Pieter Rombouts’ violin c. 1710 Amsterdam from 2016-2021 by the Dutch National Foundation for Musical Instruments (NMF –Nationaal Muziekinstrumenten Fonds). Currently, she plays on an instrument formally owned and played by the well-known Dutch violinist, Jaap Schröder, with an apocryphal label ‘Hendrik Jacobs’, c. 1725.
Her experience and training are something she aspires to impart to the next generation of musicians, and as a passionate educator she has done this for more than 25 years. Equally at home teaching children, intermediate to upper level students, and adult learners, she has taught at the Virtuoso Suzuki Academy, a prestigious Suzuki-based music school in New York as well as maintained her own private teaching studio. She has given coachings to undergraduate and graduate performance students in Stony Brook University’s baroque ensemble and most recently at Grinell College, where she also gave a masterclass. In the Fall and Winter semesters of 2022, she taught a chamber music class as a sessional lecturer at the University of Toronto, Scarborough.
After living in the Netherlands for 15 years, she has recently relocated back to Canada.