Yolanda Bruno is an Ottawa-born violinist, praised for her “total control of her instrument with infinite variety in the sound palette” (La Presse). She’s won Grand Prizes at the Montreal Symphony Orchestra Competition and the inaugural Isabel Overton Bader Violin Competition. She received the Canada Council for the Arts’ Virginia Parker Prize—the nation’s highest honour for young musicians. As a soloist, she’s performed with the Montreal Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Orchestra of the Americas, and London Mozart Players. 

Yolanda has performed for the Queen at Buckingham Palace and recorded for the Australian heavy metal band Parkway Drive. Yet, her most memorable and rewarding musical experiences have happened in unexpected places—playing for children in a parking lot in South-East London, giving a concert in a high-security penitentiary, playing in parks, subways, hospitals. She believes deeply in the power of music to break down barriers of all kinds—personal, cultural, even political.

In 2021, Yolanda founded Music for Your Blues—a performance project offering free-of-charge, personalized, online concerts combining music and poetry. With the goal of improving wellness and connection during the period known as January Blues, Yolanda has offered more than 70 free performances for children, retirees, school classrooms, and community organizations. It’s all about helping people feel connected during an exceptionally isolating time of year. 

The Wild Swans—Yolanda’s first CD, with pianist Isabelle David—was released in 2019. It features music by 11 women composers, spanning ten centuries, including several world premieres. Yolanda releases her second album in 2025—dedicated to the late Jeanne Lamon. On the record, Yolanda performs on Lamon’s 1759 Santo Serafin baroque violin and includes the premiere of Lamon’s original trio transcription of Bach’s iconic Ciaconna.

As a chamber musician, soloist, recording artist, orchestral player and teacher, Yolanda leads a varied musical life. She was Concertmaster at the Kingston Symphony Orchestra and Associate Concertmaster at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. She teaches chamber music at The Glenn Gould School and has served on faculty at the Eastern Music Festival and Le Domaine Forget.

Yolanda’s violin is an exquisite Venetian-made instrument made by Domenico Montagnana in 1737, on private loan from Groupe Canimex. She also performs Baroque violin on an 18th century French instrument made by Nicolas Lupot, on anonymous loan. She lives in Toronto with her partner, accordionist Michael Bridge. When the two are off-stage, they love to foster cats, dance salsa, and hike forest trails across Canada. 

For Yolanda, music isn’t just a career. It’s a way of sharing an intense devotion to beauty and companionship with anyone who inhabits our increasingly fragile world, with anyone who cares to listen.


Biography may not be altered or cut without written approval.