Take Me to the Dance?

Yolanda Bruno is an Ottawa-born violinist. She’s won Grand Prizes at the Montreal Symphony Orchestra Competition, the Isabel Overton Bader Violin Competition and the Canada Council for theArts’ Virginia Parker Prize — the nation’s highest honour for young musicians. As a soloist, she’s performed with the Montreal Symphony, the Toronto Symphony, Orchestra of the Americas and London Mozart Players.

In 2021, Bruno founded Music for Your Blues, a performance project offering free online concerts combining music and poetry. Her violin is an exquisite Venetian-made instrument made by Domenico Montagnana in 1737, on loan from Groupe Canimex. She lives in Toronto with her partner, accordionist Michael Bridge. 

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Michael Bridge is a musical maverick and “a wizard of the accordion.” (CBC) He’s a virtuoso performer on the acoustic accordion and its 21st Century cousin, the digital accordion. Bridge’s concerts and improvisations capture the energy and panache of stadium rock with the elegance and discipline of chamber music. He has performed throughout Europe, 25 states in the U.S. and every Canadian province. Bridge likes to embrace a musical aesthetic that is alternatively irreverent, deadly serious, meticulously prepared and completely in-the-moment. Ultimately, he aims to make your world more bearable, beautiful and human — even if only for the length of a concert.

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