Winner of the 2021 Michael Measures Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts, Métis-Canadian cellist David Liam Roberts enjoys an international performing career as a soloist and chamber musician. The 2024-25 season included a 40-concert tour of the Canadian Prairies with pianist Godwin Friesen presented by Prairie Debut. With his Rilian Trio, David Liam won the 1st Prize, Audience Prize and Commissioned Work Prize at the 12th Trondheim International Chamber Music Competition in Norway. Originally from Winnipeg, David Liam began performing his siblings at age 5, and some of his earliest musical memories are of playing the bass lines to Métis fiddle tunes at farmers' markets in Manitoba. Recent and upcoming appearances include the Copenhagen Summer Festival (Denmark) and the Prince Edward County Festival (Ontario), Trondheim Kammermusikkfestival (Norway), as well as debuts in Calgary (Calgary Pro Musica), Bergen and Oslo with the Rilian Trio. David Liam has performed as a guest with the Toronto Symphony and the Winnipeg Symphony and has participated in the Open Chamber Music seminar at Prussia Cove in Cornwall, UK. David Liam holds a bachelor's degree and Artist Diploma from the Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, where he studied with Hans Jørgen Jensen and Andrés Díaz. He is now studying with Danjulo Ishizaka in the Masters program at the Basel Academy of Music in Switzerland. Additionally, he studies Historical Cello with Petr Skalka at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. David Liam performs on the 1690 Francesco Rugeri cello, on loan from the Canada Council for the Arts Musical Instrument Bank, and a WE Hill&Sons bow generously loaned to him from CANIMEX, Inc.
