On the morning of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony’s 2025-26 season launch earlier this month, principal violinist Allene Chomyn wasn’t holding a bow.
Instead, she was holding a can of hairspray while perfecting a Kitchener bride’s updo.
“I was styling hair for a wedding in the morning and performing at night.”
The orchestra filed for bankruptcy in 2023 and abruptly cancelled its season just four days before it was set to begin, leaving Chomyn and other musicians out of work.
As a result, Chomyn said, she “ramped up” her hairstyling business.
She had done freelance hairstyling for over a decade, mostly in summers when the symphony wasn’t in session. But when the bankruptcy hit, she called PearlGirlMakeup. The Waterloo business, which had once invited her to join, took her on right away, offering flexible hours so she could keep freelancing and performing the small community concerts organized by the symphony’s musicians.
Now, two years later, with the bankruptcy filing behind it, the orchestra has launched a new season, organized by the players themselves and a new board of directors.
On the road to their return, the musicians took on side jobs, staged
