Alex began his professional career in Moscow in 1996, performing with the Russian Radio Orchestra, with which he toured as a soloist throughout Russia, Ukraine, Germany, Italy, and Japan. Alex also was a very active recitalist and chamber musician. Highlights of his career include appearances in the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, Glinka Capella Hall (St.Petersburg), Suntory Hall (Tokyo), Minato Mirai Hall (Yokohama), Roy Thomson Hall (Toronto), Jack Singer Hall (Calgary) and Metropolitan Museum (New York). Recent solo engagements include recitals in Mexico, Italy, Portugal, Serbia, U.S.A. and Canada as well as appearances with several symphony orchestras.

Alex made his debut with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under a baton of Peter Oundjian in April 2008, playing Malcolm Forsyth Accordion Concerto at the New Creations Festival. One of the highlights of 2008-09 season was Alex’s Debut Atlantic tour in Eastern Canada in February 2009.

Alexander Sevastian joined Quartetto Gelato in 2002. Alex (accordion, piano, bandoneon) has won four International Accordion Competitions, including the Oslofjord in Norway (1998), The Cup of the North in Russia (2000), the Anthony Galla-Rini Accordion Competition in the U.S.A. (2001) and The Coupe Mondiale in the U.S.A. (2007).

Alex lives in Toronto with his wife Anna and son Vladimir. In the fall of 2005, he became a Canadian citizen.

Carina Reeves, cello

Carina Reeves received both her Bachelor and Master’s Degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, studying with Colin Carr, Carter Brey, and Benjamin Zander. Originally from Vancouver, she has played at music festivals all over Canada, the US, and Europe, and her love of contemporary music has seen her perform in the Prague Summer Festival and premiere string quartets at the Enchanted Circle Series in Boston. She has worked with the Juilliard String Quartet and Peter Serkin in Tanglewood, where she was the recipient of Tanglewood’s 1998 Karl Zeise Memorial Cello Prize. As a member of the Bomari Quartet, she was in residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts International Summer Festival, where she performed with Laurence Lesser and Grammy-nominee, Gilbert Kalish.

In addition to her work with Quartetto Gelato, Carina is leading a busy freelance life. She has performed with contemporary ensembles Soundstreams, Continuum, Numus, and Esprit, and theatre productions with the Art of Time Ensemble, Patria Music Theatre Projects and the Shurum Burum Jazz Circus. She has worked with such orchestras as the Toronto Symphony, the Boston Philharmonic, the Canadian Opera Company and Seiler Strings. Carina can frequently be heard on the CBC for such programs as Music Around Us, and also with jazz musicians such as Phil Dwyer, Kenny Wheeler and Juno Award-winning Guido Basso.

Bitten by the early music bug many years ago, Carina has trained at the Tafelmusik Summer Institute and with Christina Mahler. Relishing the use of her baroque bow and gut strings has rewarded her with concerts with Furiosi Baroque Ensemble, Toronto’s Bach Consort and countertenor Daniel Taylor. She has also had the privilege of performing in a period style for romantic music with the Orfeo Duo of New York at the Frederick Collection of Historic Pianos in Massachusetts. In addition to being the cellist of the popular Kirby String Quartet, Carina is part of a revolutionary string trio called “Coyote.” Working in a self-titled style, affectionately called “improvised Zen classical,” the group was recently chosen to be a part of ARCfest, Toronto’s Social Justice Arts Festival, and has also performed in the Toronto Jazz Festival and venues around Toronto.

 
Kornel Wolak, clarinet

Highly praised on two continents for his glorious tone, precise technical control and musical imagination, Kornel Wolak is well on his way to a major career as a clarinetist in chamber, solo concerto and “cross-over” repertoire. In recent performances, critics thought that Wolak’s playing showed “Control and [a] smooth, elegant expressivity are what make Wolak shine” (John Terauds, Toronto Star).

In addition to his work with Quartetto Gelato, Wolak has performed with the Québec Symphony, Charleston (S.C.) Symphony, Toronto Sinfonietta (at the Royal Ontario Museum), and Toronto Symphony Orchestra.  Other engagements include a “Rising Stars” solo recital at the Canadian National Exhibition’s Markham Theatre for the Performing Arts in May, 2009, and solo performances with the Poznan Philharmonic in Poland in 2010.

Born in Bialystok, Poland in 1979 into a musical family (his father was a trumpeter and his mother a violist), Wolak began piano lessons when he was six and took up the clarinet six years later. Beginning in 2001, he was a scholarship student at Indiana University (U.S.), where he earned his performance certificate and, two years later, his Master of Music degree while studying with Eli Eban. Wolak won the Royal Conservatory Concerto Competition in 2006, the Glenn Gould School’s 2005 Concerto Competition, the Presser Music Award from the Presser Foundation and was a semi-finalist in the Concert Artists Guild Competition (2002).

Ever interested in increasing the repertoire for his instrument, Wolak has premiered in Canada John Adams’ Gnarly Buttons Clarinet Concerto on CBC radio, and Marc Neikrug’s Though Roses at the CBC’s Glenn Gould Studio. His recording of the Kurpinski Clarinet Concerto was released by Polish Radio’s Channel 2 (and nominated for Poland’s equivalent of a Juno).

Besides reed-making, his interests include poetry (he is a published poet in Poland), art history, religion and philosophy.