Keyword: music
CMU School of Music alumna awarded prestigious Yamaha Fellowship
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:
Children in the classroom
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.
2020 Verna Mae Janzen Music Competition winners (videos)
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.
Baritone Nathan Dyck winner of 15th annual Verna Mae Janzen Music Competition
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).
2020 Verna Mae Janzen Music Competition
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CMU’s Neil Weisensel receives $50,000 SSHRCC grant for continued development of Louis Riel opera
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.
Doktorvater: How Dietrich Bartel is bringing a teacher’s heart to research communication
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.
Nolan Kehler (BMus, ’17): How good listening makes good music
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.
This Thirsty Land: CMU Festival Chorus and Mennonite Community Orchestra in performance
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.
Faculty: In Their Own Words - Dr. Matthew Pauls
Dr. Matthew Pauls, Assistant Professor of Music, has taught at CMU since 2015.
What do you love about your work here?
I wear a few different hats, so I see students in different kinds of places: one on one in the voice studio, in a classroom, and then in men's chorus. They each have a very different flavour and I enjoy the variety. I love that because of the size of the institution, you get a chance to get to know students better. In a place like the voice studio, where I don't just teach students for one semester, I get to see them grow over a longer period of time and that's very rewarding.
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