Mrs. Nena LaMarre

Nena LaMarre has performed over the past fifty years as a soloist, recitalist, collaborator and teacher. Her Montreal Concerto performance, as a 1975 finalist of the Canadian Music Competition, took place in the same year as her solo recital at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto. Two years prior, she was one of the first recitalists to perform in the newly built Georgian College Theater, and was a winner of the North American Invitational Competition in the Accordion division. Her varied musical career has also included collaboration with many instrumentalists and vocalists in Ontario, a teaching career spanning fifty years, chamber music performances, singing in vocal groups such as Bravado, King Edward Choir and Reconnaissance, and leadership of the Eastview Secondary School orchestra as concert mistress. Nena won top festival awards from the Toronto, Peel, Orillia and Owen Sound Kiwanis festivals for many years as a soloist and chamber musician. She received scholarship to study with Boris Berlin in the original Young Artists Performance Academy at the Royal Conservatory of Music, where she received the ARCT diploma in both piano performance and teaching. She continued her studies with William Aide at the University of Western Ontario obtaining a Bachelor of Music with Honours in Piano Performance. Nena currently resides in Barrie, Ontario where she maintains a Suzuki piano studio active in the community. Her students have won numerous awards, including finalists in the Rose Bowl, Provincials, and winner of the first Junior Rose Bowl. Nena has been invited as a guest teacher to Concordia University, Wilfred Laurier University, Burlington, Oakville, Oshawa, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon and Regina. She is Past-Chair of the Board of the Suzuki Association of Ontario. Nena completed her certification to become a Teacher Trainer in 2015. Learn more at: www.thesuzukipianostudio.ca.