Yehonatan Berick 1968 – 2020

uOttawa’s Yehonatan Berick was a brilliant musician, dedicated teacher

Excerpts from the Ottawa Citizen, Lynn Saxberg, November 11, 2020

The esteemed Israeli-born violinist Yehonatan Berick, a music professor at the University of Ottawa, died after a short battle with cancer. He was 52.

Born in Holon, Israel, Berick demonstrated an early aptitude for music. According to his sister, Omna Berick-Aharony, he taught himself to play a tiny accordion at the age of three. He took after their father, who was also a talented violinist and guitar player, although the elder Berick opted to pursue civil engineering instead of music.

By the age of six, young Berick was studying violin with the legendary Ilona Fehér, who also counted the likes of Pinchas Zukerman and Shlomo Mintz among her students. Following his army service and studies at the Tel Aviv Academy, Berick came to North America to study at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

At 25, he became artist-in-residence at McGill and then a violin professor at the Montreal university. He also taught at the universities of Michigan and Toronto before accepting the violin-professor position in Ottawa.

At uOttawa, he was a champion of the university’s Summer String Academy, and a key figure in expanding the string program. He built an all-star team of contributing teachers, including NACO’s Yosuke Kawasaki and Jessica Linnebach, and was an important link to the global community of world-class performers.

Link

• uOttawa’s Yehonatan Berick was a brilliant musician, dedicated teacher, Ottawa Citizen, November 11, 2020

Source: eNews Harp, December 2020