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Keyword: School of Music
Production Update: Dr. Suzanne Steele and Neil Weisensel’s Li Keur, Riel’s Heart of the North
Wednesday, July 8, 2020 @ 12:00 AM
Two CMU Peace and Conflict Transformation Studies (PACTS) students will assist completion of Indigenous Language pronunciation database essential to new opera.
Co-creators of the new opera Li Keur, Riel's Heart of the North—Dr. Suzanne Steele, Métis poet and scholar, composer Neil Weisensel, Adjunct Professor of Music at CMU—have hired two CMU students to learn and assist on the opera's production team as they move towards the show's first staged production in 2021. Senior PACTS students Bryna Link of Peguis First Nation and Hannah Connelly of Saskatchewan will take on the roles of Communications Assistant and Production Assistant respectively.
Read MoreCMU’s Anna Schwartz wins Canada Music Week’s Student Composer Competition for Manitoba
Friday, June 19, 2020 @ 9:02 AM
Anna Schwartz is drinking in the opportunities CMU's vibrant musical community provides. Following her provincial win last month, her original work "Prairie Sunrise" now goes to compete at the national level.
CMU's Anna Schwartz has taken first place at the provincial level of this year's Canada Music Week Student Composer Competition, hosted by the Manitoba Registered Music Teachers' Association. Schwartz's original composition for orchestra, "Prairie Sunrise," earned $200 in prize money and will now go on to be entered in the nation-wide summer competition. Schwartz also entered an original piece for choir that garnered honourable mention.
Read MoreCMU School of Music alumna awarded prestigious Yamaha Fellowship
Tuesday, May 26, 2020 @ 9:18 AM
CMU alumna Anneli Loepp Thiessen has been awarded the University of Rochester's coveted Yamaha Fellowship: a full-ride scholarship to study for one intensive week at the university's Eastman Leadership Academy this summer.
Limited to just 25 people, the program will include mentorship from faculty, training in essential skills like grant-writing, and support in developing a personal project of each Fellow's choice. Loepp Thiessen says her passion project will, "as always," have a feminist objective:
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 More2020 Verna Mae Janzen Music Competition winners (videos)
Tuesday, March 31, 2020 @ 3:05 PM
The Verna Mae Janzen Music Competition, open to CMU music students, is made possible each year through the generous contributions of the event sponsor and prize donor, Peter Janzen of Deep River, Ontario. Janzen established the competition in memory of his wife, Verna Mae, who died of cancer in 1989 at the age of 53, and who shared the joy of singing with her husband.
Read MoreBaritone Nathan Dyck winner of 15th annual Verna Mae Janzen Music Competition
Thursday, March 26, 2020 @ 1:05 PM
Despite uncertainty and the changing circumstances of campus life under COVID-19, competitors in this year's Verna Mae Janzen Music Competition kept their focus.
Singing to a closed auditorium of adjudicators only instead of the usual community audience, seven finalists gave it their all: Michelle Fast (soprano), Georgeanne Van Helden (piano), Katy Unruh (soprano), Anna Schwartz (piano), Nathan Dyck (baritone), Anne Kelm (piano), and Johanna Klassen (soprano).
Read More2020 Verna Mae Janzen Music Competition
Thursday, March 26, 2020 @ 11:49 AM
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Read MoreCMU’s Neil Weisensel receives $50,000 SSHRCC grant for continued development of Louis Riel opera
Wednesday, February 12, 2020 @ 9:00 AM
Funding will help ensure every possible measure is taken to make Li Keur, Riel's Heart of the North a reconciliation project, curtain to curtain.
Grant writing is notoriously difficult, time-consuming, meticulous work, yielding unpredictable return on investment. Yet it remains an essential and unavoidable demand of research and creative careers. For Neil Weisensel, adjunct Professor of Music at CMU and composer of Li Keur, Riel's Heart of the North which débuted last year, the effort is paying off. He recently received $50,000 in the form of a federal grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC) for further work on a thriving production.
Read MoreDoktorvater: How Dietrich Bartel is bringing a teacher’s heart to research communication
Tuesday, February 4, 2020 @ 10:23 PM
In German, the word for a doctoral supervisor is doktorvater, or "doctor father." No phrase could better express the spirit of pedagogical generosity and delight which critics have identified in the work of Music Professor Emeritus, Dietrich Bartel.
Bartel has been teaching at CMU since before it existed, beginning with CMBC back in 1985. Though he now teaches only part-time, Bartel's passion as an instructor is unflagging. In the classroom he is beloved for his animated and sympathetic teaching style, his expertise, and his sensitivity to the connections between music and discipleship. Outside of school, Bartel puts his specialized knowledge and talents to work for the wider community, serving as music director and organist of All Saints Anglican Church in Winnipeg. Between times he also sustains a vibrant research life, most recently exampled in his 2018 annotated translation with commentary of Andreas Werkmeister's 1707 music theory treatise Musikalische Paradoxal-Discourse.
Read MoreNolan Kehler (BMus, ’17): How good listening makes good music
Tuesday, November 19, 2019 @ 1:18 PM
For Nolan Kehler, building a career in which singing can be of service to others, whether through critical storytelling, powerful encouragement, or creative advocacy, is the goal to strive for.
Nolan Kehler (tenor) completed his Bachelor of Music in 2017, concentrating in Vocal Performance. In his graduating year he placed third in CMU's prestigious Verna Mae Janzen Music Competition, and in 2019 he graduated from University of Victoria (BC) with a Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance. New as he is to life as a working artist, Kehler is already booking regular singing work in leading roles, on top of his part-time job as a technical producer for CBC Manitoba.
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