Clarinetist Nicola Everton has made the Kootenays home after a career spanning over twenty years as a member of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Highlights for Nicola during her tenure with the orchestra include participating in the 2008 Grammy and Juno award winning recording with violinist James Ehnes and performing at the Beijing International Music Festival. Her post secondary music studies began with a full scholarship to Arizona State University and continued for a further four years at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where she obtained a Bachelor of Music Degree. Before joining the Vancouver Symphony orchestra in 1989, she spent the winter at the Banff School of Fine Arts. Chamber music has long a been a passion for Nicola and since moving to the Kootenays, she has taken on the role of artistic director of the Kootenay Gallery concert series, is a founding member of Selkirk Pro-Musica and is the coordinator for the Kootenay Chapter of the Health Arts Society.