ARTISTIC DIRECTION

Maestra Lori Antounian’s musical journey began at a very young age, watching her father conduct choirs. Raised in a family of musicians, she naturally found her calling along the same artistic path. Deeply passionate about music as a universal language, she believes that there are no boundaries when it comes to its performance, style, or genre.

 

Throughout her education, Maestra Antounian studied classical piano, voice, composition, choir conducting, and orchestral conducting. A recipient of four university scholarships, she was mentored by renowned musicians, including Dr. Gregory Chaverdian (piano), Maestro Christopher Jackson (choir conducting), and Maestros Jean-François Rivest, Paolo Bellomia, and Raffi Armenian (orchestral conducting). She earned her Doctoral Conducting degree at the University of Montreal, studying under the guidance of Maestro Paolo Bellomia.

 

In 2009, Maestra Antounian founded the Imperial Orchestra, which has since become a vital part of Montreal’s cultural landscape. The orchestra has performed numerous concerts, including invitations to prestigious festivals such as EuroFest and the Stella Musica Festival. Through the Imperial Orchestra, she has had the privilege of promoting and premiering works by emerging composers and continues to support local talent. Alongside her orchestral work, she has conducted several choirs, often inviting select ensembles to perform with the orchestra.

 

A dedicated music professor, Maestra Antounian also shares her passion for music with students of all ages. Through her teaching, she inspires the next generation of musicians, instilling in them a deep appreciation for the transformative power of music.

 

Maestra Antounian’s international conducting career includes performances with prominent orchestras such as the Argentina National Symphonic Orchestra (Buenos Aires, Argentina), the Córdoba Metropolitan Orchestra (Córdoba, Argentina), the Accademia Vivaldiana (Venice, Italy), the Montreal Conservatory Symphonic Orchestra (Montreal, Canada), the University of Montreal Symphonic Orchestra (Montreal, Canada), Sinfonia Toronto (Toronto, Canada), and the Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra (Yerevan, Armenia). She has toured South America, performing before audiences of over 15,000 spectators, and was invited as an assistant conductor of the Montreal Symphonic Orchestra in rehearsal.

 

In addition to her conducting achievements, Maestra Antounian has been featured in numerous interviews across the globe, including television, radio, newspaper and on social media platforms in Canada, USA, Italy, Armenia, Argentina and Lebanon. In 2024, Maestra Lori Antounian was honored to be invited as a conference speaker for the prestigious Armenian Global Summit 2024, further solidifying her role as a distinguished figure in the international music community.

 

Her repertoire spans classical, contemporary, experimental, jazz, and folkloric music, with a focus on both symphonic and chamber orchestras, as well as choirs. Known for her expressive performances and professional artistry, Maestra Antounian inspires and moves audiences, believing deeply in the transformative power of music. She is passionate about music's potential to change lives and provide hope for future generations.

 

“Through my veins, to the orchestra, the power of music flows.” – Maestra Lori Antounian

 

www.loriantounian.com

Imagine an orchestra in which half the members can recite the Hippocratic oath as easily as they can play a scale. Enter I Medici di McGill, the Montreal ensemble that boasts a wealth of doctors and medical students amidst a splattering of lawyers, dentists, engineers, biochemists, physicists and oceanographers. “Even those musicians who aren’t doctors have surely visited one over the past two years. That way we maintain the medical link,” jokes Ante Padjen, founder and principal violist of I Medici.

Padjen, a neuropharmacologist at McGill University, comes to life when he discusses his orchestra. In his office on the 13th floor of the McGill medical building, he shuffles through scrapbooks that date back to I Medici’s conception in 1989. Meanwhile, in the reception area, the secretary and her computer fight for space with a harpsichord and a double bass leaning against the filing cabinets.

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Padjen’s musical life began in Croatia at an early age. His father, an amateur violinist, enrolled him in music school, which provided three hours a day of immensely formative education. Graced with a forward-thinking theory teacher, Prof. Elly Basic, who shed the traditionally rigid practices of music pedagogy, Padjen acquired a great appreciation for music and discovered his own natural talent.“We were taught to believe that music is something every child has the ability to do,” he says. “It is an innate capability.” Later, Padjen studied viola with Prof. Miroslav Miletic who was also a composer.

At the age of fourteen, a twist of fate led Padjen from a musical path to a medical one. Stricken with tuberculosis, he was confined to a sanatorium for 600 days. Chance handed him a roommate who happened to be a physician, sparking in Padjen a voracious enthusiasm for medicine. After two years, he left the hospital inspired to pursue a medical career. Impressively, he never fully “dropped out of music.”While in medical school, at the age of 18, he formed the Jeunesses Musicales Orchestra in Zagreb. But when offered a placement at the prestigious Orford summer academy, Padjen went instead to Geneva, where he delivered babies for his medical training.

Straying from Zagreb to Edinburgh to Washington to Texas, Padjen finally fell in love with Montreal, recognizing that here he could raise a family and enjoy the kind of life he had envisioned for himself.“And then of course there was McGill,” he adds. Quickly forming string quartets with talented colleagues at the Faculty of Medicine, Padjen eventually decided to merge these quartets into what would soon become I Medici di McGill in 1989 under the baton of Wanda Kaluzny.

Over the past 34 years, Padjen has had the pleasure of seeing over 500 musicians of every age and medical specialty pass through the orchestra.  “Recently I received a letter from one student, a really smart guy who had several options to study medicine. He chose McGill so that he would able to play in I Medici,” he tells us.

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