strings

The Sycamore String Quartet began in 2012 as the four principal string players of the Kamloops Symphony joined to create together the most refined works in the art music tradition. The quartet has performed works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Dvořák, Ravel, Prokofiev, and Barber, among others, to critical acclaim in Kamloops, Kelowna, and Revelstoke. The Sycamore, a broad-canopied tree with great longevity, mirrors the dense and enduring nature of the string quartet repertoire. 

Cvetozar Vutev was born in Bulgaria. He earned a Master’s degree in Violin Performance under Boydan Lechev and a Doctor's degree in Musicology and Musical Arts at Pancho Vladigerov State Academy of Music in Sofia. He also attended master classes of famous violinists, such as Yfrah Neaman (UK) and Wolfgang Marschner (Germany). Cvetozar has 30 years of violin teaching and performing experience. He has performed in numerous solo, chamber, symphony, and opera performances across Europe and in Korea, Japan, and Canada. From 1990 until 2005, Cvetozar was a violin instructor with the Sofia National School of Music. In 2000, he earned a Master’s degree in Law at the “Kliment Ochridski” University in Sofia, Bulgaria. Cvetozar has been the concertmaster of the Kamloops Symphony since 2005. He teaches violin, viola, chamber music, and string orchestra with the Kamloops Symphony Music School. He is a first violin player with the Okanagan Symphony since 2006 and the concertmaster of the Symphony of the Kootenays since 2016. Since 2007, Cvetozar has been the music director of the Vivace Chorale in Kamloops, and since 2012 he has been the music director of the Kamloops Brandenburg Orchestra. Since 2013 he teaches choir at the Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, BC. In 2017 Cvetozar received the Kamloops Mayor's Award for the Arts - Artist of the Year, Performing Arts.

Born in Kamloops, Annette Dominik was a founding member of the Kamloops Symphony Orchestra. She studied with Gwen Thompson at the Vancouver Academy of Music, playing with the UBC orchestra, the Academy Strings and the Academy Orchestra. While pursuing language studies in Quebec, she played with the Université Laval orchestra and the Orchestre du Conservatoire before joining the Orchestre Symphonique de Lévis, where she was concertmaster during her final semester. She has played with many chamber groups in Montreal and Kamloops. In addition to being a faculty member in Modern Languages at Thompson Rivers University, Annette has been Principal Second Violin of the Kamloops Symphony since 2006 and teaches at the KSO music school. 

Originally from North Vancouver, Ashley Kroetcher has been performing and teaching in the Thompson/Okanagan for 11 years now. He is principal violist of the Kamloops Symphony and assistant principal violist of the Okanagan Symphony. He teaches privately out of his home in central Kelowna. Ashley holds degrees from UBC as well as from the Musikhochschule in Trossingen, Germany. In his free time Ashley loves to explore the great outdoors together with his wife (also a violinist) and their 5-year-old daughter. 

Cellist Martin Krátký is currently the Kamloops Symphony's principal cellist; he also sits as assistant principal in the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra. He teaches weekly at the Kamloops Symphony Music School and the Kelowna Community Music School. A graduate of the University of Toronto and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Martin also took part in several summer residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts. Masterclasses with the St. Lawrence, Miró, and Colorado String Quartets, as well as with Raphael Wallfisch, Aldo Parisot, and Norman Fischer, offered inspiration and solid pedagogical guidance. When not teaching or performing, Martin tends his 60-acre homestead, building and gardening.