Adjudicators 2018

Adjudicators 2018

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Marie Baron

After training at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto and the University of Toronto’s Opera Department, Marie Baron began her stage career performing with the Canadian Opera Company. After transitioning to Music Theatre, she went on to star in both musicals and plays in theatres across Canada, the United States, London’s West End and on Broadway. As an educator, Ms. Baron was the Head of the Vocal Discipline in the Music Theatre-Performance Program at Sheridan College for 15 years. Currently, she adjudicates Music Theatre in festivals across Canada, conducts Music Theatre Performance Workshops and Master Classes as well as working with theatre artists in her Toronto studio.


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Lauren Eselson

Lauren Eselson is an Instructor of Flute at Mount Royal University Conservatory, where she is also the Woodwind coordinator for their well-known Academy program for gifted young musicians. She has been a regular extra musician in the flute section of the Calgary Philharmonic since 1987 and was Acting Assistant Principal Flute with the orchestra for the 2003-2006 seasons. Ms. Eselson has also performed with the National Ballet Orchestra, Royal Winnipeg Ballet Orchestra, Calgary Bach Society, Kensington Sinfonia, Chicago Civic Orchestra, the American Wind Symphony, and in pit orchestras for Theater Calgary and Broadway touring productions. She has appeared as a concerto soloist with the Calgary Philharmonic, Calgary Bach Society, Kensington Sinfonia and the Calgary Chamber Ensemble, and has been recorded in recital by CBC Radio. Lauren is a Woodwind-Brass examiner for the Royal Conservatory of Music, and is in demand as an adjudicator across Canada. Ms. Eselson holds a Bachelor of Music from the Cleveland Institute, and a Master of Music from Northwestern University.


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Donna Fletcher

Donna Fletcher is an accomplished actor, singer, and concert performer with a wide range of national experience in theatre, musical theatre, and symphonic work. Donna received her early training in Winnipeg and earned a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from the University of Manitoba, a diploma in Music Theatre from The Banff Centre for the Arts, and a Master of Music in Vocal Performance from The University of Toronto. She has been acclaimed in principle roles with the Charlottetown Festival, Drayton Festival, Rainbow Stage, Theatre Calgary, Stage West Calgary, the National Arts Centre, Manitoba Opera, MTC, PTE, MTYP, the Belfry Theatre and Persephone Theatre. Donna has the distinction of being the first Winnipeg born female director at Rainbow Stage where she directed Annie. Donna is a Sessional Voice and Musical Theatre Instructor at the University of Manitoba Desautels Faculty of Music as well as the University of Winnipeg Theatre Department and is a Faculty member of the NUOVA Opera and Musical Theatre Training Program in Edmonton.


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Darryl Friesen

Pianist Darryl Friesen has given acclaimed performances as a soloist and collaborative artist across Canada, the United States, Europe, China, and Brazil, and has been featured numerous times in concert on CBC Radio. He has performed with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Winnipeg Chamber Music Society, and has appeared on the Virtuosi recital series. Darryl completed his DMA at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2009 as a fellowship student of Fulbright scholar Dr. William Heiles and Dennis Helmrich. After studying with distinguished pedagogue Lee Kum-Sing at the Vancouver Academy of Music, he received BM and MM degrees in piano performance from the University of Manitoba as a student of well-known Canadian pianist David Moroz. In great demand as a soloist, collaborative artist, teacher and clinician, he holds the position of Sessional Instructor at the University of Manitoba's Desautels Faculty of Music. He is also a faculty member at the celebrated Morningside Music Bridge program and the Rosamunde Summer Music Academy, where he works as a collaborative artist and coach. He and his wife live with their four children in Winnipeg.


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Elroy Friesen

Elroy Friesen is Director of Choral Studies at the University of Manitoba where he conducts numerous choirs, and teaches graduate and undergraduate conducting and music education. He has recently been Artistic Director of Canzona and he actively researches Baroque performance practice. His award-winning ensembles tour nationally and internationally, and are frequently recorded and broadcasted by the CBC. Dr. Friesen studied at the University of Manitoba (B. Mus., B. Ed., M. Mus.) and at the University of Illinois (DMA), receiving numerous scholarships and grants from the Manitoba Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Foundation for Choral Music in Manitoba. Elroy is a co-founder of fikamusik (an intensive professional choral conducting program), the founder and past Artistic Director of Prairie Voices, and has recently appeared as guest conductor with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and the National Arts Centre Orchestra. He is in demand as a clinician, adjudicator, and conductor throughout Canada, the United States, and Europe.


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Brad Hougham

Brad Hougham, baritone, has served on the voice faculty at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York for 12 years, where he is Associate Professor of Voice. He is an avid recitalist, opera, and concert singer, and has sung throughout Europe, Canada, and the United States. As a sought-after pedagogue, Dr. Hougham has taught master classes and lessons in Italy, Germany, Canada, England, and China. He was on the voice faculty of The Spoleto Vocal Arts Symposium for 10 summers in Spoleto, Italy. He holds degrees in singing from the University of Saskatchewan, Mannes College of Music, City University of New York and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.


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Judy Kehler Siebert

Solo and concerto performances, teaching, lecturing and adjudicating opportunities have taken Judy Kehler Siebert to Israel, Lithuania, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Paraguay, Brazil, Cuba, Spain, Sweden, Britain and Italy, as well as North America. For six years she performed and taught in Brazil at the Rio International Cello Encounter as a member of the Nacka Duo and with cellists from around the world. Judy, together with faculty colleagues, Oleg Pokhanovski, violin, and Minna Rose Chung, cello, perform and tour as the Desautels Piano Trio. She is passionate about sharing music—whether as a teacher, performer, lecturer, adjudicator or as a life-long student. In this spirit, Judy has also indulged in research of her life-long enjoyment of jazz in Canada, New York, and Italy. A Masters graduate of the University of Toronto (Marek Jablonski) and a Doctoral graduate of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York (Dr. Jean Barr), Judy taught at seven universities in Canada and the USA before returning to Winnipeg, Canada. Currently, she is a Professor of Piano and Chamber Music, and Co-Chair of Collaborative Piano at the University of Manitoba’s Desautels Faculty of Music.


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Elizabeth Lupton

Elizabeth Lupton holds Bachelor and Masters degrees in Violin Performance and Pedagogy as well as Education Certification. She studied and graduated from Brandon University under the direction of esteemed Canadian violinist and pedagogue, Francis Eugene Chaplin. A second prize winner at the National Music Festival and an alumnus of National Youth Orchestra of Canada, Elizabeth began her professional career as a violinist with the Overiijssels Philharmonisch Orkest in the Netherlands. Following her return to Manitoba, she played with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Manitoba Opera, Royal Winnipeg Ballet and Cambrian String Quartet. As a teacher, Elizabeth has taught violin, viola and piano for more than three decades. In 2000, Elizabeth moved to the South Okanagan where she continued her professional life as a teacher, performer, adjudicator and examiner. Elizabeth and her husband Ron Wall, recently moved to Kaslo, BC, where she continues to teach and perform frequently with the Okanagan Symphony, Symphony of the Kootenays, Masterworks Ensemble and Fiddle Frazzle.


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Paul Madryga

Paul Madryga’s academic credentials include a Bachelor of Music degree from Brandon University and a Masters degree in Classical Guitar Performance from Brisbane, Australia's Queensland Conservatorium, where he studied with Julian Byzantine. In 2010, he released his second solo CD, ‘Tone Colour Paintbrush’. In addition to professorial duties as the applied instructor for classical guitar at Brandon University and director of the BU Guitar Ensemble, Paul's work at the Eckhardt-Gramatté Conservatory of Music includes one-on-one teaching in the Suzuki and traditional environments, Suzuki Guitar group class instruction, and the EGCM Guitar Ensemble Program. Paul has adjudicated several festivals in Western Canada, and is also an accomplished arranger and music engraver.


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Morna-June Morrow

A retired music specialist/supervisor in the public school system, Morna-June Morrow has directed vocal and handbell choirs, recorder and Orff groups, accompanied many choirs and adjudicated music festivals. Morna-June has been involved with handbell ringing for 49 years and given handbell workshops in seven provinces as well as in Minnesota. While National Chair of the Handbell Guilds of Canada, she was the Canadian massed ringing conductor at the 9th International Handbell Symposium in Birmingham, England where she conducted 800 handbell ringers from four continents. She was a member of the recorder ensemble “Spitunes”. She presently plays with the handbell choir at Broadway-First Baptist Church, sings and rings at St. Andrew’s River Heights United Church, plays in RING OUT Quartet, and on occasion plays solo bells. M-J has served on the Winnipeg Music Festival Board of Directors for several years.


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Jackalyn Short

Canadian soprano Jackalyn Short has sung leading lyric coloratura roles with every major opera company and orchestra in Canada. Internationally, she has performed in many U.S. cities, and also in Korea, Japan, Singapore, New Zealand, England and Israel. A highly in demand teacher, Jackie has been teaching voice to undergrads and grad students at Western University since 2001. Her duties include teaching vocal technique and coaching repertoire, teaching Italian, French, English and German lyric diction, and instructing her students in the use of the IPA system. She is a member of NATS. Jackalyn has received the top teaching honour at Western every year since 2001. Ms. Short has been a faculty member of the NUOVA opera program in Edmonton, HSOF in Halifax, COAA at Western and also Opera on the Avalon in St John’s, Nfld. She is also in demand as an adjudicator across Ontario. Jackalyn is married to acclaimed opera director Michael Cavanagh and has a daughter, Amelia, a pianist, who teaches and coaches music theatre and is actively involved in the musical theatre scene in Toronto.


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Dianne Sjoberg

Before retiring in June of 2017, Dianne Sjoberg enjoyed a varied career, teaching music and physical education from kindergarten through grade twelve in Manitoba public schools. With Orff Levels training from Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota she has also been in demand as a sessional lecturer at Universities and as a clinician and adjudicator across Western Canada and Ontario. Dianne and her husband Dave have three grown children and four grandchildren.


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Stuart Sladden

Stuart Sladden, born and raised in the Greater Toronto Area, moved to Winnipeg in 2010 to begin a Master of Music degree from the University of Manitoba. He has recently completed a Doctor of Music degree in Choral Conducting at the University of Alberta. Over the last nineteen years, he has enjoyed working with a variety of classical, jazz, and church choirs as a singer, conductor, and clinician. His interest in vocal performance was first nurtured at Mayfield Secondary School in Brampton, Ontario. He then furthered his training in vocal performance at Humber College, earning a Bachelor of Music degree, specializing in vocal jazz performance, from the University of Toronto. In Winnipeg, Stuart continued working as a freelance musician and clinician, was a member of the Winnipeg Singers, the Director of Music at Westworth United Church, the founder and Artistic Director of the Winnipeg Oratorio Project Chorus, the Music Director of Liaison at the Université de St. Boniface, and was on the board of the Manitoba Choral Association as the Chair of ChoralFest.


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Edward Turgeon

Edward Turgeon’s college, conservatory and university work has included Associate Professor of Music and Artist Faculty in Collaborative Arts at the HARID Conservatory, Associate Professor of Music, Director of Keyboard Studies, Director of Collaborative arts and Ensemble-in-residence at Florida Atlantic University’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, School of the Arts, Boca Raton, Florida. In July 2013, Turgeon was appointed Associate Professor at Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada, where he serves as Chair of the Music and Visual Art Department, Keyboard Faculty Member and Artist-in-residence with his wife Anne, as a member of the piano duo, ‘Duo Turgeon’. He has served as senior mentor examiner for the Royal Conservatory of Music’s College of Examiners since 1990, and is a frequent clinician and presenter at conferences. Edward holds a Bachelor of Music Degree in Piano Performance from the University of Toronto. He pursued graduate studies at Yale University School of Music, earning a Master of Music (1993), Master of Musical Arts (1994) and Doctor of Musical Arts (2000) degrees in piano performance.


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Kerrine Wilson

Kerrine Wilson holds a Bachelor of Music Degree in Piano Performance from the University of Manitoba and an Associate and a Licentiate Diploma from the Western Board of Music. Born in Winnipeg, as a pianist in the 60’s she performed in trios with her brothers Eric (cellist) and Carlisle (violinist), and accompanied Eric in recitals in New York, Indianapolis and Iceland. She has adjudicated music festivals in Manitoba, Ontario, and in 2017, the Yukon. Kerrine has served as President of the Junior Musical Club, Wednesday Morning Musicale, Manitoba Registered Music Teachers’ Association, Royal Canadian College of Organists, as well as serving on the Board of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. Currently, Kerrine is Organist/Choir Director at St. Paul’s Anglican Church and the Music Director of the Solskrikjan Icelandic Choir.