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Keyword: music
CMU 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.
Continue ReadingProduction 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.
Continue ReadingCMU’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.
Continue ReadingCMU 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:
Continue ReadingChildren 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.
Continue Reading2020 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.
View DetailsBaritone 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).
Continue Reading2020 Verna Mae Janzen Music Competition
Thursday, March 26, 2020 @ 11:49 AM
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View PhotosHeroes and helpers theme of March 15 Mennonite Community Concert
Tuesday, February 25, 2020 @ 10:11 AM
2:00 PM at Jubilee Place, 173 Talbot Ave. Admission by donation.
In 1815, Ludwig von Beethoven composed his Eroica Symphony, to celebrate the general spirit of heroism in the world.
Continue ReadingCMU’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.
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