Valdine Mishkin

Canadian Cellist Valdine Ritchie Mishkin is a diverse musician, recognized as a gifted cello teacher and an avid solo, chamber, and orchestral musician. Valdine champions contemporary music with Third Angle, Fear No Music, and March Modern, as featured live on All-Classical FM Portland’s Club Mod and Thursdays at Three. A chamber music enthusiast, she performs Latin-American music as Duo Apaixionado with Peruvian guitarist Alfredo Muro, performs “the classics” with the passionate Crescendo Project, and collaborates in faculty recitals at Willamette University and with pianists Maria Garcia and Steve Lewis. She recently launched the Valley View Chamber Concerts series that hosts soloists and chamber ensembles in intimate salon-style house recitals paired with themed food and wine.  Valdine is a regular extra cellist with the Oregon Symphony, sectional coach with the Portland Youth Philharmonic, and formerly performed with the Houston Grand Opera and Mercury Baroque Ensemble. Debuting at age 10 as a soloist with the Winnipeg Symphony, Valdine has since performed concerti with the Mercury Ensemble, Chehalem Symphony, Chamber Camp of Portland, McGill Symphony, the Winnipeg Youth Symphony, and upcoming in October 2019 with Sunnyside Symphony.

Equally dedicated to teaching the youngest students in early education as well as training advanced cellists, Valdine serves on the faculty at Willamette University, teaches a bustling studio of cellists in West Linn, and as faculty at the Walla Walla Suzuki Institute. Her students are frequent solo competition winners and scholarship recipients, earn distinction awards in ABRSM exams, sit principal in area youth orchestras, and attend nationally-recognized summer programs such as BUTI at Tanglewood and Center Stage. Committed to reaching the next generation of musicians, she presents at conferences, adjudicates regional and national festivals, and serves on the boards of Oregon Cello Society and Oregon ASTA.

Valdine holds a Doctorate and Masters in Music from Rice University as a student of Lynn Harrell and Norman Fischer, a Bachelor of Music from McGill University (Montreal, Canada) as a student of Antonio Lysy, and holds both performance diplomas (A.R.C.T.) and teaching certificates in cello and piano from the Royal Conservatory of Toronto as a student of Julie Banton and Ann Lugsdin (Winnipeg). Performing across Canada, U.S.A. and Europe, Valdine’s development was shaped by such festivals as Tanglewood, Orford, Banff Centre for the Arts, Canada’s National Music Competition Festival (3rd prize winner), and Schleswig-Holstein Orchestra Academy, by masterclasses with Janos Starker, Aldo Parisot, Zara Nelsova, David Finckel, the Juilliard Quartet, and Arnold Steinhardt, and under the baton of Seiji Ozawa, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Larry Rachleff and Timothy Vernon.

(Winter 2023)