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Keyword: Janet Brenneman
CMU announces appointment of academic dean
Thursday, January 23, 2025 @ 4:46 PM
Dr. Janet Brenneman, Professor of Music, has been appointed Academic Dean of Canadian Mennonite University (CMU).
Effective July 2025, Dr. Brenneman begins a five-year term as Academic Dean spending her time working to support CMU faculty processes as well as maintaining a small teaching load to conduct CMU Choirs.
Read MoreBringing CMU choruses ‘Bach’ together this festive season
Tuesday, December 6, 2022 @ 8:48 AM
The Canadian Mennonite University Festival Chorus presents J.S. Bach's magnificent Christmas Oratorio, Weihnachtsoratorium, BWV 248 — a musical telling of the nativity story and the major feast days celebrated as part of the 12 days of Christmas.
"This oratorio is, in fact, six cantatas in one," says Dr. Janet Brenneman, Associate Professor of Music and conductor of the performance. "You get the whole Christmas story."
Assembled in 1734, Bach's Nativity-to-Epiphany cycle draws on pre-existing sources — including three secular cantatas — and was composed as part of his duties for two Leipzig churches, St. Thomas and St. Nicholas.
"Performing Bach is a breath of fresh air," says tenor soloist and CMU alumnus Nolan Kehler. A versatile and varied singer, the music also marks a return to his roots in more ways than one.
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Read MoreFaculty-alumni collaboration explores decolonizing music education in the classroom
Monday, July 4, 2022 @ 10:52 AM
Studying music education means learning scales and chord progressions, practicing how to move your hands while conducting, and planning out class schedules. But sometimes it also involves examining and re-evaluating the entire education system at its core.
This is what a group of CMU students did every week last semester, when they gathered for one of CMU's newest courses: Decolonizing Music Education, guided by Associate Professor of Music Janet Brenneman. Through listening, reading, discussing, and creating, students learned about the history and current forms of colonialism present in Canadian music education classrooms, and explored how to put the concepts of decolonization and indigenization into action.
Read MoreCMU choir continues to connect during cancelled tour
Friday, July 10, 2020 @ 11:39 AM
From April 27 to May 4, the Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) Singers were to spend a week singing and travelling across the country, all the way from Manitoba to British Columbia. Unfortunately, the choir tour had to be cancelled—one of the many casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But that didn't stop the choir from connecting. Instead of boarding a bus every morning, the singers were greeted daily by a new email from Dr. Janet Brenneman, Associate Professor of Music and conductor of the CMU Singers.
Read MoreChildren in the classroom
Monday, April 6, 2020 @ 12:16 PM
If you had walked into Dr. Janet Brenneman's Early Musical Development course last semester, you might have been surprised at what you would have found: a group of preschoolers.
Brenneman, Associate Professor of Music at CMU, invited children from Assiniboine Castle Daycare to come to her university class for five weeks, so her students could gain hands-on teaching experience.
Read MoreThis Thirsty Land: CMU Festival Chorus and Mennonite Community Orchestra in performance
Monday, October 28, 2019 @ 9:33 AM
On Saturday November 2, the newly formed CMU Festival Chorus and resident Mennonite Community Orchestra will join forces, along with student and faculty soloists, to present This Thirsty Land, a bill of masterworks reanimated for the present moment.
Directed by CMU's Janet Brenneman (PhD), and grafted into the roots of the former Mennonite Festival Chorus, the CMU Festival Chorus brings together three distinct ensembles under the university umbrella, comprising current students, alumni, and community members. Still in its inaugural season, the choir has already worked with several distinguished WSO directors, performing definitive repertoire by Mozart, Britten, Handel, Beethoven, Verdi, Mahler, Schoenberg, Silvestrov, and Pärt.
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