It's been a good year for SFCM violinist Daniel Dastoor: First, he won the Canada Council for the Arts' Musical Instrument Bank 2023 competition and was awarded use of the Bank's 1700 Taft Stradivari violin, and, more recently, his trio picked up a first-place win at the prestigious Trondheim International Chamber Music Competition, held at the end of September in Norway. Their triumph secured them not only a cash prize, but upcoming concert engagements.

Dastoor's group, the Rilian Trio, formed in 2021 at the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Canada, winning the school's internal chamber music competition five months later and securing their invitation to Trondheim not long thereafter. 

"We had such a wonderful time performing in the competition rounds, in an incredibly beautiful acoustic for chamber music, and for supportive and appreciative audiences," Dastoor said. "What brought us the most success I think, was our focus on the narrative of each piece, on musical storytelling, and on just simply bringing these masterworks of the trio repertoire to life!"

The Rilian Trio.

"We couldn't be more proud of Daniel and that one of SFCM's chamber music majors was able to demonstrate the core values and skills taught in our unique program on the international stage and received critical recognition for it at such a prestigious competition," Associate Chair of Strings & Piano Chamber Music Julio Elizalde said. "Chamber music majors like Daniel represent SFCM's rich history of teaching chamber music at the very highest level and we look forward to his upcoming performances with distinguished visiting artists this year." (Among other performances, Dastoor will be playing with Inon Barnatan at SFCM's opening Chamber Music Tuesday concert on Oct. 17.)

All three trios chose to play Schubert’s Piano Trio No. 1 in B-flat major, D 898. Anthony Marwood, head of the competition jury, said, “It has been incredibly moving to listen to performances of such astonishing maturity” during the awards presentation. Watch the group's performance—which, aside from the €15,000 first-prize, also won them the commission and audience prizes—below.

The win is all the more noteworthy because Dastoor had only been playing his Stradivarius for under two months when he competed at Trondheim. It's one of three Stradivari violins in use by the Canada Council for the Arts, which loans out instruments to musicians on a rotating competitive basis. 

"There's still a lot of debate actually as to why Stradivarius instruments are among the best and why they haven't been replicated," Dastoor said earlier this year. "It comes down to the composition of the varnish, the type and age of the wood, the exact dimensions and shape, and the climate where he was making them. But they have characteristics that most other violins don't have." While some violins may have a complex tone that sacrifices volume, or vice-versa, "with these violins, and the one I'm playing especially, you have both at the same time, with pretty much no compromise, except for the fact that they can be hard to play."

Dastoor said that many violinists who have played Strads have talked about the adjustment to their playing style the instrument requires. "It can be frustrating at times when you know how good it can sound and you want to get it there but you have to really figure out exactly how to do it, to change your technique to really make it sing. Because these instruments can do absolutely anything, it's up to you to figure it out."

It turns out a few judges in Norway think that he has.

Learn more about studying violin or chamber music at SFCM.