Zachary Senick

Zachary Senick (Захар Сенюк) is a bassoonist originally from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. He began his studies at age 16 with Marie Sellars. In 2019, he completed his BMus in Orchestral Performance at McGill University under Stéphane Lévesque. Then in 2021, Senick completed a MMus in Instrumental Performance at the University of Toronto under Eric Hall. He has been a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, Orchestre de la Francophonie, and a substitute with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra. Currently, he is pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts in Performance at the University of Toronto, researching works for bassoon by Ukrainian composers. In addition to performing, he has been a music instructor at the Vernon Cadet Training Centre’s summer program for 2018-2019, and a music librarian at the International Music Camp in 2017. In his free time, Senick is an avid cook, and his favorite things to make are вареники (varenyky/perogies) and борщ (borsch).

Zachary has been compiling an annotated catalog of solo and chamber bassoon works (around 200 works) by Ukrainian composers. Most of this music is unpublished and has been quite the process to track down scores. It has involved sending lots of emails to Ukrainian libraries & organizations, composers, and family members. In addition, 3 composers (Sergei Pilyutikov, Dmytro Kyryliv, and Andriy Lehki) have offered and written new works for Zachary.