Harold Birston studied cello with Julie Banton, and piano with Ruth Moir in his native Winnipeg, Canada, before pursuing post-secondary cello instruction with Claude Kenneson and Eric Wilson. He graduated with a degree in cello performance from the University of British Columbia, where he also continued his piano studies, including courses and master classes in accompanying.
Harold is a cellist for the Vancouver Opera Orchestra, and has maintained a large class of private cello and piano students in White Rock, BC, Canada since 1986, and is on the faculty of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra School of Music. He has composed and arranged hundreds of jazz and concert works for string ensembles, which have been performed by students and professional musicians around the world. Many of his compositions and arrangements appear in the Royal Conservatory of Music string and wind instrument series.
Harold takes great pleasure in providing string arrangements for singers, notably the opera singers Alexander Dobson and Lance Ryan, and the great jazz vocalist Sheila Jordan, with whom he performed, along with jazz violinist Mark Feldman and the Steve Kuhn trio, at New York City’s Jazz at Lincoln Center, in honour of Ms. Jordan’s eightieth birthday.