Keyword: music

Faculty-alumni collaboration explores decolonizing music education in the classroom

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.

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Pianist wins 2022 Verna Mae Janzen Music Competition

A pianist from Fort Frances, Ontario is the winner of the 17th annual Verna Mae Janzen Music Competition at Canadian Mennonite University (CMU).

Anna Schwartz's performance in the finals, held on Friday, April 8 in CMU's Laudamus Auditorium, earned her first place and the $700 prize that comes with it.

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CMU student and instructor make music come alive through synesthesia, art

Imagine if you could see sound. When Anna Schwartz listens to music, she not only hears the different instruments, keys, and dynamics—she sees them. That's because she has synesthesia, a neurological condition in which information entering a person's brain stimulates multiple senses at once.

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2022 Verna Mae Janzen Music Competition Finals (video)

View the full performance of each finalist, hear the jurors' comments, and learn the outcome of the competition.

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Dual winners mark the 16th annual Verna Mae Janzen Music Competition

For the past 16 years, the CMU School of Music hosts the Verna Mae Janzen Music Competition for music students capable of performing at a high skill level. It is a time, as adjudicator Henrietta Schellenberg puts it, "of comradery and competition for music students, a chance to bring their art to the public, a jewel in the life of the musical calendar at CMU."

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Final Performances from the 2021 Verna Mae Janzen Music Competition (videos)

The 16th annual Verna Mae Janzen Music Competition finals are held virtually in 2021, with performanaces recorded to comply with COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.  

This year's edition of the competition features two seperate categories and winners in both voice and piano performances. The winner of each category is announced by adjudicators Henriette Schellenberg (voice) and Dr. Edmund Dawe (piano) at the conclusion of each video below. 

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Student assistantship with Li Keur project yields golden opportunities for two PACTS majors

Peacebuilding students Bryna Link and Hannah Connelly describe joys and challenges of their work on the Li Keur Podcast, interviewing creators and collaborators from the eponymous new opera.

Bryna Link and Hannah Connelly joined the production team of celebrated new opera Li Keur: Riel's Heart of the North as student assistants back in July. What began as a summer position—and for Connelly, a practicum placement ahead of graduation next Spring—has developed into a long-term student assistantship that will take both women all the way through Summer 2021.

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CMU choir continues to connect during cancelled tour

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.

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Production Update: Dr. Suzanne Steele and Neil Weisensel’s Li Keur, Riel’s Heart of the North

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.

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CMU’s Anna Schwartz wins Canada Music Week’s Student Composer Competition for Manitoba

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.

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