Karen Langille, Violin
Karen has been a member of Symphony Nova Scotia since 1985, and a member of the Charlottetown Festival Orchestra in Prince Edward Island since 2000.  She is also active as a chamber musician and violin teacher, and has been a regular coach with the Nova Scotia Youth Orchestra for several years.   A graduate of McGill University,  Karen pursued studies in  both modern and baroque violin.  She was a founding member of McGill’s first Colligeum, performing on period instruments, and is a past member of  the  Studio de Musique Ancienne de Montreal.

Karen has worked with members of Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, and participated in summer sessions with renowned baroque violinists Simon Standage and Lucy van Dael,  at the Amherst Baroque Academy in New England.   She is a founding member of both Réjouissance and Tempest, ensembles specializing in early music performance on period instruments, and has recorded for CBC Radio 2 both locally and nationally.

Yvonne DeRoller, Viola

Yvonne has been a member of Symphony Nova Scotia, and prior to that, the Atlantic Symphony, for 30 seasons. She founded and directed the Halifax Talent Education Suzuki School for 13 years, introducing the Suzuki Method to Halifax. She has taught violin and viola privately for 32 years. Yvonne is an active advocate of music education, having taught in the school system, as string syllabus coordinator for the Nova Scotia Kiwanis Festival for many years, as Symphony Nova Scotia Board rep to the education committee, as a music festival adjudicator, coach at the String Music Atlantic's summer camps, coach for the Nova Scotia Youth Orchestra, and as President of the Nova Scotia Youth Orchestra for two years. She was a fellow at the Boston Symphony Orchestra's Tanglewood Music Center and a participant in the Nantucket Island Chamber Music Festival before coming to Canada in September 1978 to join the Atlantic Symphony under Victor Yampolsky.

Yvonne also played in the Charlottetown festival orchestra for five summers. She is a former member of the Rhapsody ensemble, the Octet, and Tempest Baroque Ensemble. Currently, she is serving her fifth year as the Managing Director of the Nova Scotia Youth Orchestra.

Yvonne resides in Lunenburg County in an 1880's era home on the ocean, and is the proud mother of Lauren, an aspiring violinist who recently completed a bachelor of music in performance degree at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where she studies with Jaime Laredo. After her summer at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Germany, Lauren will be touring Europe and the Caribbean with her string quartet before returning to Indiana in January to pursue her performer's diploma.

Max Kasper, Bass
Max has been the Princiapl Bass of Symphony Nova Scotia since 1986. As well as performing in many solo recitals over the years, Max has appeared as a soloist with the orchestra on several occasions. He loves playing chamber music, and has formed Duo Gatto Dolce with cellist Colin Matthews. You may have heard him in the Scotia Festival of Music, St Cecilia, or Music Room chamber series concerts. Max also has a keen interest in Period music; he plays in Halifax with Rejouissance and Tempest baroque ensembles, and has had the pleasure of playing in Toronto with Tafelmusik.

In addition to occasionally narrating the Symphony’s children's concerts, he organizes and hosts the ongoing series of public education concerts/lectures at the Halifax Public Library, and is the host of the Symphony’s “Musically Speaking” series.

He is now pursuing a second career as a bow maker, and has the unique distinction of playing on a bass and bows he has made himself. Max lives in Halifax with his love, Esther Ricketts, and their two cats: Xena and Murray.

Lena Turofsky, Bass
Lena is the Assistant Principal Bass in Symphony Nova Scotia. She graduated with her Bachelor of Music Degree in Performance from the University of Toronto in 1978. She was a member of the National Youth Orchestra for two summers, and has played with the National Ballet of Canada, the Hamilton Philharmonic, Orchestra London, the Thunder Bay Symphony and many other orchestras in southern Ontario. She moved to Halifax in 1978 to join the Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, and was a founding member of SNS. She has performed with Scotia Festival of Music since its inception, and has also been a member of the Charlottetown Summer Festival, in the Anne of Green Gables Orchestra.

Lena teaches at Acadia University, Dalhousie University and the University of PEI. She also teaches for the Halifax Regional School Board, and is a faculty member at the Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts.
In September, Lena will be leaving for a sabbatical year performing with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in Australia.