Marina Hasselberg (Vancouver, Canada)
Recommended for audiences 16+
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Boundless inquisitiveness sits at the very heart of award-winning cellist Marina Hasselberg’s rich artistic practice. Over the past decade, she has traveled a distinctive route that has variously led her through early music, free improvisation, the fringes of pop songcraft, electronics, contemporary chamber music, and an array of interdisciplinary collaborations that resist classification.
She’s a powerful player, nourished by her immersion in classical training, but by no means limited to it. Her relationship with the cello was ignited at age 11 during her studies at the musical academy of Évora, in her native Portugal. She later completed a Bachelor’s degree in Lisbon, and in 2008, she came to Canada to pursue a Masters degree in Literature and Performance from the University of Western Ontario.
Since making Vancouver her home, Hasselberg has become a fixture within an assortment of the city’s musical communities—both strictly as a cellist and as a vital creative instigator. In 2016, she was the recipient of the City of Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award for Emerging Artist in Music. She was also the feature artist for Pro Musica’s 2017 Sonic Boom Music Festival — an event that culminated in a sold-out concert where she premiered 11 new works for cello and electronics.
Hasselberg served as the principal cellist of the Vancouver Island Symphony, while also enjoying collaborations with Vancouver New Music, Early Music Vancouver, Sound of Dragon Ensemble, Redshift Music Society, Turning Point Ensemble, Okkyung Lee, Kee Avil, Lan Tung, Sarah Davachi, Uri Caine, Ingrid Laubrock, and Endlings, the duo of John Dieterich of Deerhoof and Pulitzer Prize winning composer Raven Chacon. She has even found herself accompanying highly regarded pop stars from Father John Misty to Mariah Carey.