Adjudicators 2020
Adjudicators 2020
Dawn Bruch-Wiens completed her Bachelor of Music (Voice) at McGill University. She returned to Winnipeg and graduated with her Post-Baccalaureate and Master of Music degree at The University of Manitoba where she studied with Tracy Dahl. Dawn has appeared with Manitoba Opera, The Little Opera Company, Manitoba Underground Opera, Groundswell, The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Lyric Opera Studio Weimar and Opera on the Avalon. Dawn has taught private voice lessons for over 12 years and in 2018 began teaching at the post-secondary level at Canadian Mennonite University. As a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, she believes that studying and instructing voice are lifelong learning opportunities for both student and teacher. Dawn is passionate about the festival movement and the learning opportunities it provides as she has been involved as a performer, teacher or adjudicator for over twenty years.
Lara Ciekiewicz
Recently hailed for her “tour-de-force performance” (Winnipeg Free Press) in the gripping title role of Manitoba Opera’s Susannah, Lara Ciekiewicz has established herself as a dynamic, intelligent and moving singing-actress. This season sees her as Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi) and Suor Genovieffa (Suor Angelica) for Pacific Opera Victoria’s Il Trittico, as a soloist for the Victoria Symphony’s Messiah, make her Edmonton Opera debut as the Countess (Le nozze di Figaro) and as Beatrice (Three Decembers) for the Little Opera Company. Lara returns to the NAC’s stage with Opera on the Avalon, reprising the role of May in Ours. Lara is increasingly in demand as an adjudicator, and teacher. She holds a Master of Music (Opera) from McGill University and a Bachelor of Arts - Honours (Voice) from the University of Winnipeg. She is an alumna of l’Atelier lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal, San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera Program, the Janiec Opera Company at the Brevard Music Center, the Banff Centre and Opera NUOVA.
Lynn Ewing has taught piano, music theory, and singing for many years in Saskatoon. Her work with special needs students, including visually handicapped students and students with autism spectrum disorder, is particularly noted. Her students have distinguished themselves locally, provincially and nationally as recipients of diplomas, scholarships and competition prizes. In addition to teaching, Lynn enjoys performing both as singer and as pianist in a wide variety of settings either as a collaborative artist or as a soloist. She works as a music adjudicator in western Canada and has examined for Conservatory Canada. A Fellow of Trinity College of London, UK, Lynn holds diplomas in piano and voice from the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto and Trinity College of London. She has arts degrees from the University of Saskatchewan and a Bachelor of Education from the University of British Columbia. Lynn loves attending concerts and family events, performing music and walking on the beautiful South Saskatchewan riverbank with her German shepherd, Lola.
Naomi Forman
Soprano Naomi Forman is a versatile singing actor who has embraced everything from Mozart to Musical Theatre and New Music. A Brandon University voice instructor since 2006, Ms. Forman has also taught opera workshop and chamber music. As an adjudicator, she has worked with festivals across Canada including the Calgary Performing Arts Festival, the Regina Music Festival the Ottawa, Barrie & Stratford Kiwanis Festivals as well as the British Columbia and Ontario Provincial Finals and Manitoba Provincial Festival. She holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Manitoba and a Master of Music from Boston University, with additional training at Opera NUOVA and the Banff Centre. A big fan of New Music, Naomi recently commissioned a set of five songs for soprano, piano and electronics from Canadian composer T. Patrick Carrabré. Titled “crazy,” an album of the same name is available on all major streaming services. In 2016 Ms. Forman was recognized as a YWCA Woman of Distinction® for her contributions to the arts in Brandon. www.naomiforman.com
Viktoriia Grynenko is an emerging performer born in Kyiv, Ukraine. In 2011 she received a scholarship from Desautels Faculty of Music at the University of Manitoba and came to Canada to study with Oleg Pokhanovski. Viktoria holds a Bachelor of Music (Violin Performance) from the University of Manitoba and Master of Music (Violin Performance) from the University of Ottawa. In Ottawa her studies under the tutelage of Yehonatan Berick were funded by the prestigious KUN scholarship. Grynenko is currently pursuing DMus degree at the University of Alberta, studying wit Guillaume Tardif. Her research explores the idea of ‘metaphoric intersectionality’ between violin and dance gestures. She organizes numerous concerts in collaboration with ballet dancers and explores rare violin repertoire related to ballet music. Viktoriia has performed as a soloist, chamber and orchestra musician throughout Canada, Germany, Austria and Ukraine. This season Viktoriia is going to debut during Edmonton New Music Festival Now Hear This 2020 with a piece by Maxim Shalygin.
James Hickerson is a teacher of music for the Louis Riel School Division in Winnipeg. James hold a Bachelor of Music Performance and a Bachelor of Education. He has been active as a music teacher and performing musician in Winnipeg since 1977. James has taught in schools, in his own studio, as a university sessional instructor, as a Manitoba Arts Council artist-in-residence for songwriting and choral music and at the International Music Camp in the Peace Gardens.
Ed Hildebrand is familiar to the Manitoba music community as a guest conductor, choral clinician and adjudicator as well as for his lengthy career as choral and band teacher at the Steinbach Regional Secondary School. He has been involved with choral music across Canada and into Europe with choir tours and a teaching term in Romania. At home now in Winnipeg, his latest musical activities have included mentoring music teacher candidates as a University of Manitoba Faculty Advisor, enjoying various guest conductorships with youth choirs, teaching guitar students, arranging choral music and directing choirs - currently, the Men of Song at Winnipeg’s Bethel Mennonite Church. Some of his diversions include gardening, wood working, traveling, motorcycling, wine making and hanging out with the expanding family.
Everett Hopfner
A self-described new music explorer, Canadian pianist Everett Hopfner is celebrated for his passionate and inventive performances. With his dynamic approach to multi-disciplinary pieces incorporating electronic media, improvisation, movement and speech, Everett has been praised as “a surreal performer who gives flesh and life to the music” (Il Cittadino di Lodi). Everett has toured across Canada as winner of the 36th Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition, where he was commended by the jury as “an actor, a poet, a true artist” and “a figure of the future”. Graduate studies in Germany led to tours around Europe with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie and broadcasts on Hessischer Rundfunk. Residencies at the Banff Centre and Casalmaggiore International Music Festival have placed Everett in a diverse community of creative artists expanding musical horizons in Canada and Europe. Committed to education, Everett maintains a private studio at the Eckhardt-Gramatté Conservatory of Music and teaches sessionally at Brandon University. He enjoys sharing his enthusiasm, imagination and constructive pedagogical approach with musicians of all levels in workshops, festivals and masterclasses.
Krystena Krahn-Herbert
Born and raised in Winnipeg, Krystena Krahn-Herbert has been a musician all her life. She began violin lessons at the age of three with Joanne Martin who introduced her to the viola, which has become her passion. She holds a Bachelor of Music in Performance from Canadian Mennonite University studying with Daniel Scholz. A current member of the Suzuki Association of the Americas, Krystena has been privileged to have studied violin pedagogy with many influential teachers extensively across Canada including Joanne Martin, Daphne Hughes, Edmund Sprunger and Paule Barsalou. Krystena has taught students in her home studio for over 20 years, at Winnipeg Mennonite Elementary & Middle Schools, and for the most recent ten years has been a Private Music Instructor with St. John’s Ravenscourt School. Krystena sits on the Winnipeg Music Festival Board of Directors and thoroughly enjoys performing solo concerts, collaborating with colleagues and working with young musicians and their families. She looks forward to a new chapter in her life of becoming a Suzuki mum as her little ones embark on cello and violin lessons.
Joan Linklater holds a Bachelor of Music from Brandon University, a Master of Music from the University of Michigan, an ARCT in piano performance from the Royal Conservatory of Toronto and Orff Certification from the University of Denver. She is currently retired from the University of Manitoba where she was an assistant professor of music and chair of the music education committee at the Desautels Faculty of Music. Joan taught courses in elementary music education and was coordinator of the University of Manitoba’s highly respected Orff Certification Program. As a past president of Carl Orff Canada, she made a presentation on the history of Carl Orff Canada at an international forum on Orff Schulwerk in Saltzburg, Austria. In her work, Joan communicates the joy of music making with students in Kindergarten to grade five through careful presentation of Orff pedagogy and process, using movement, singing, speech, improvisation, recorder and listening. She believes that through the Orff approach teachers can enrich their students’ lives and help them develop their full potential as musicians and global citizens.
Melissa Morgan is a choral conductor, educator and performer. Currently, she directs the choral program at the University of Regina where she also teaches courses in choral conducting and vocal diction. She is frequently asked to appear as a clinician, adjudicator and guest conductor throughout Canada. Melissa holds a Doctorate in Music Performance (Choral Conducting) from the University of Toronto, a Master of Music Performance (Choral Conducting) from the University of Western Ontario, a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Regina. She is also an Associate of the Toronto Royal Conservatory of Music (ARCT) in piano, voice, and flute. Throughout her education she has had the privilege of studying with exemplary teachers. She is grateful to have worked under the supervision of Dr. Hilary Apfelstadt, Dr. Victoria Meredith, Kathryn Laurin and Diana Woolrich. In October 2017, Dr. Morgan was named as one of CBC Saskatchewan's Future 40 under 40 recipients.
Justin Odwak is an active choral conductor, vocal instructor and vocalist based in Winnipeg. Justin serves as artistic director and founder of the Winnipeg Jewish Chorus and the Shaarey Zedek Quartet at Congregation Shaarey Zedek, co-founder and co-artistic director of NUOVOCE Chamber Choir and currently directs the St. James-Assiniboia Divisional Junior Concert Choir. He is the past director of the Rainbow Harmony Project, Kolot Choir, Interlake Youth Choir, as well as the St. James-Assiniboia Divisional Senior Concert Choir. He recently conducted the Louis Riel School Division Senior Choir for their 2019 Choral Celebration. Justin has performed as a soloist across Canada with orchestras such as the Victoria Symphony, Regina Symphony and Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. He currently teaches voice at Westgate Mennonite Collegiate and maintains a private voice studio. Justin holds a Bachelor of Music (Voice) and Bachelor of Education (Choral) from the University of Manitoba.
Tom Oliver is in demand as a voice teacher, performance coach and adjudicator. At his studio, Voice Concepts (in Hamilton, Oakville and Toronto), he has prepared young singers for universities and colleges throughout Canada and the United States. Voice Concepts student roster includes artists engaged with Stratford and Shaw Festival, Mirvish Productions and Broadway NYC. Classical students from his studio have advanced to engagements with opera companies in Canada, USA and Europe. From 2004 to 2019, Tom collaborated with the Voice Faculty of the Honours Bachelor Music Theatre Degree Program at Sheridan College, as a Professor of Voice Production. Tom’s passion for teaching voice production was sparked in his first year of University studies at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Tom is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), Ontario Registered Music Teachers Association (ORMTA) and the Canadian Actors Equity Association (CAEA). Tom is thrilled to collaborate with the Winnipeg Music Festival Team.
Jenny Regehr is well known across Canada for her solo recitals, duo and chamber music performances and Lieder collaborations. She has been widely heard in duo performances with violist Rennie Regehr and has performed with many of Canada’s leading musicians in university and concert series across the country. For many years she was the harpsichordist and pianist of the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra. As a faculty member of the Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Ms. Regehr was a senior piano and pedagogy instructor and for more than a decade, coordinated its piano master class program, featuring a roster of international visiting artists. Ms. Regehr is also a senior piano examiner for the Royal Conservatory of Music. She has performed and taught at summer music festivals in Canada, the United States and Europe and has been invited for several teaching residencies at the renowned Central Conservatory in Beijing as well as at the Shanghai Conservatory. More recently, she was on an international panel of adjudicators at the prestigious Hong Kong Schools Music Festival. Jenny’s understanding and love of hands in the context of the piano, have inspired her to become certified as a hand reflexologist, a new endeavor in which she is already most effective.
Jean-Philippe Tanguay balances a varied career in both teaching and performing. He has played with most of the major orchestras in Québec as well as performed as soloist and in chamber music ensembles. Among others he performed with l’ensemble Amati, l’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, l’Orchestre des Grands Ballets Canadiens, l’Orchestre symphonique de Québec, l’Orchestre Métropolitain, Les Violons du Roy and I Musici de Montréal. As a chamber musician, Jean-Philippe has played with Camerata de Montréal, l’Ensemble Polymnie, le quatuor La Flûte Enchantée as well as the quintette à vent Pentaèdre. He tours frequently with Les Violons du Roy and with I Musici de Montréal and is involved in recordings and film music. Jean-Philippe studied flute with Jean-Paul Major and Chamber Music with Yuli Turovsky at the Conservatoire de Musique de Québec in Montréal. Further studies continued with Timothy Hutchins, as well as Masterclasses with Jeanne Baxtresser, Robert Aitken, Robert Stallman and Paula Robison.