Recently hailed by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette as a performer who plays “with a flair that we are coming to know well,” Heidi Van Hoesen Gorton joins the Toronto Symphony Orchestra as Principal Harp for the 2011-2012 season. She has been described as one of the most outstanding solo, chamber and orchestral musicians of her generation and has performed solo recitals the world over from New York to Los Angeles, Vancouver to Vienna. As an orchestral player Heidi has performed with the Pittsburgh, Boston and Hartford Symphony Orchestras with maestros Manfred Honeck, Andrew Davis, Marek Janowski, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos, Gianandrea Noseda, and James Levine. She has been a member of the Sun Valley Summer Symphony since 2001, after having participated in the National Repertory Orchestra of America (a preeminent intensive fellowship that equips young musicians for orchestral music careers). Heidi has been an active participant in the Strings Chamber Music Festival, as well as the Music Festivals at Aspen, Tanglewood and Interlochen.

Heidi earned two degrees in harp performance from The Juilliard School of Music under the tutelage of Nancy Allen, and has also studied with Gretchen Van Hoesen, Anne Marguerite-Michaud and Elizabeth Fontan-Binoche. Actively competing in domestic and international competitions, she was awarded first place in the Young Professional Division of the American Harp Society National Competition in June of 2009. She has been a winner of an Anne Adams Award (2010), as well as a Victor Salvi Award (2008). In 2004, she was the winner of the Lennox Young Artist Competition for her performance of Gliere’s Concerto for Harp and Orchestra and in 2005 won the Juilliard School concerto competition playing Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp. In 2004 she was the First Prize winner of the American String Teachers Association (ASTA) National Solo Competition. She was invited back to ASTA to be a guest lecturer and master class clinician at the 2012 National Conference held in Atlanta, GA. She has been featured twice as a soloist on ‘From the Top’ on American National Public Radio. Heidi has taught master-classes in Pittsburgh (Carnegie Mellon University), New Orleans (Tulane University), Charlotte, Denver, San Francisco, Syracuse, and Milwaukee. In 2010 she joined the faculty of the Advanced Chamber Music Seminar Summer Camp in Pittsburgh, PA.