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Adjudicators

Speech Arts
Susan Duska has wide experience in all areas of theatre, performance, vocal coaching and teaching.

She is on faculty at the Conservatory at Mount Royal University and maintains a busy schedule teaching private and group lessons, as well as theory classes and adjudicating across the country. In addition, she coordinates Presentation MRU, a non-competitive speech festival for Calgary speech students.

She is on the artist roster for the Calgary Board of Education and also travels to Argentina to examine for the International Schools in Buenos Aires.

Recent projects include Poetry and Presentation – Sonnets and Rap for Grade Nine students, Shakespeare for five Grade Three classes – mini productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet and The Tempest.

She holds a B.F.A. in Drama from the University of Calgary, is an Associate of the Royal Conservatory of Toronto as well as an Associate and Licentiate of the Mount Royal College Conservatory.

Vocal
Naomi Williams (B.Mus, Honours Voice Performance, Laurier) has been teaching vocal students of all ages in classical, musical theatre, rock, and pop, for 15 years. She launched AvidDiva Music, her business in Calgary, in 2014. Some of her past AvidDiva Ambassadors (what she has dubbed her students), are now studying post-secondary degrees at schools including McGill, and the National Theatre School of Canada.

Her current students range from incredibly active performers to recreational singers. In addition to her private teaching, over her past ten years in Calgary she has performed in, music directed, and won awards in community and professional musical theatre productions, sung in cover bands as a lead rock/pop vocalist, sung with the Calgary Opera Chorus, and has been a roster singer/performer/writer for Cowtown Opera. She helped launch the successful Morpheus Theatre G&S Jr. young artist performing group, and is currently the director/instructor for the Kids & Music program with the Youth Singers of Calgary.

In 2016, Naomi was one of 3 Canadians awarded the Joan Frey Boytim Award for Independent Teachers (NATS). You can follow AvidDiva Music on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AvidDivaMusic/ and Instagram at @aviddivamusic

Band
Ken Rogers taught Middle, Junior High, and High School band for 32 years, retiring last June from Lethbridge Collegiate Institute where he taught Gr. 9-12 band, jazz band, and guitar. Ken has also taught low brass studio at the University of Lethbridge and currently conducts the choir at McKillop United Church in Lethbridge.   He conducted the Lethbridge Community Bands for 20 years and enjoys conducting musicals, most recently “Titanic, the Musical” and “Jesus Christ Superstar” in benefit of the Lethbridge Seniors Organization and “Les Miserables” and “Sweeney Todd” with the Lethbridge Symphony Orchestra.

He has taught low brass and conducted bands several times at MusiCamrose, MusiCamp Red Deer, and Red Deer College Adult Community Band Workshop.   Ken conducted the Alberta Band Association’s Northern Alberta Junior Honour Band in 2006 and 2019, as well as the University of Lethbridge High School Honour Band in 2019.   Ken is a member of the band director fraternity Phi Beta Mu, an honourary life member of the Lethbridge Community Band Society, a Past President of the Alberta Band Association, and has served on the boards of the Canadian Band Association and Choir Alberta.

He was the recipient of the John Philip Sousa Foundation’s “Legion of Honor Laureate” award in 2015, the “David J. Peterkin Memorial Award” in 2010 for outstanding service to band music in Alberta, and the Alberta Band Association's “Elkhorn Award” for Band Director of the Year in 2002.    Ken lives in Lethbridge with his pianist wife of 34 years, Christine, and they have 2 grown children attending university, Camille pursuing a Master of Music degree at the University of Toronto, and Christopher pursuing a Doctorate in Engineering Physics at Stanford University in California.

Choral and Musical Theatre
Kimberley Taylor, BMus, MMus
Kimberley grew up in Riverview, New Brunswick, where she began her performing
career as a Celtic musician. After releasing her first recording “The Dark Island,”
opening for the late John Allan Cameron, and performing at the Canada Winter Games, she pursued her classical music education at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, studying Vocal Performance. While there, she won two Concerto Night
competitions, appeared in three university operas and three seasons as the title
character of Amahl and the Night Visitors with Opera Nova Scotia. She also performed
with the Peter Togni Consort, and won the Atlantic Barbershop Harmony Award for
excellence in choral music and academics.

She then moved to Edmonton and completed her Masters degree in Choral
Conducting from the University of Alberta in 2011, and during that time was the
Assistant Conductor of the University of Alberta Concert Choir, the Assistant
Conductor of the University of Alberta Madrigal Singers, a soloist with Alberta Baroque, and Edmonton’s award-winning chamber choir i Coristi. In 2011 Kimberley moved to the UK for 2 years where she taught, directed music at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, and founded Spiritus Community choir, with whom she recorded a Christmas CD entitled “The Sacred Sounds of Christmas.”

She returned to Canada in August of 2013 and is currently the Artistic Director and Conductor of the Edmonton Metropolitan Orchestra, the Assistant Conductor of i Coristi Chamber Choir, and the Director of Music at McDougall United Church. While maintaining these contracts, Kimberley also regularly conducts musicals and operas around Edmonton, including Fiddler on the Roof, Music Man, Spamalot, and Into the Woods, which was performed at the prestigious Winspear Centre.

Kimberley has been married to her husband Sean for almost 8 years, and has two beautiful children, James and Gemma.

Strings
Canadian violinist Joan Barrett has a wealth of experience as performer,
teacher, adjudicator and coach. Her performing experience includes chamber
music, solo recitals and performances with orchestra in addition to serving
as Principal, Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Assistant Concert Master,
Stratford Festival Orchestra, and member of Kensington Sinfonia.

Prior to leaving Calgary for Toronto, Joan Barrett was deeply involved in the
founding of the Academy program at MRU’s Conservatory where she taught
violin, chamber music and conducted one of the orchestras. A recipient of
Mount Royal University’s Distinguished Teaching Award, her students have
been competition winners at the national level and are active professionally.
Raised in Ontario then furthering her musical education at Indiana
University, Joan Barrett is grateful to have been taught and mentored by
outstanding teachers and musicians such as Josef Gingold, David Zafer, Paul
Rolland, Ivan Galamian and Ruggiero Ricci. Subsequently she has been
greatly influenced by the work of Moshe Feldenkrais, M.F. Alexander, Carol
Ann Erickson and Andover Educators ( Bodymapping.)

A passionate educator, Ms. Barrett has taught at University of Toronto,and
The Royal Conservatory, as well as being the first String Co-ordinator of its
Young Artists Performance Academy. In 2012 she was the Artistic Consultant
in the creation of nine recordings to accompany The Royal Conservatory’s
new Violin Series publications. Currently she teaches privately, teaches violin
and chamber music at University of Calgary, and is an Academy Coach at
MRU Conservatory.

Joan Barrett is an accredited (OISE/Adler)and experienced professional
coach (“life”)whose coaching practice includes arts professionals and
students as they prepare for performances or navigate personal or
professional transitions . A former student, William Fedkenheuer, member of
the Miro Quartet, sums up Ms. Barrett’s approach and mission - “She
challenged me on technical, artistic, and human levels, pushing me to
develop my own voice and to always appreciate how lucky we are to be
allowed to spend time with the violin.”

Piano
Morgan is from Red Deer. He received his Bachelor of Music from Berklee College in Boston Ma, 1997 and has been active as a touring musician, musical director, adjudicator, clinician and composer all across Canada.

His most recent endeavors include music direction for Antyssey (Concrete Theatre, Edmonton), Music Director and pianist for two Beyond the Stage productions at the Citadel, and numerous appearances for the Calgary, Edmonton and Sylvan Lake Jazz Festivals.

Alberta Music Camps

Piano:
Calgary Arts Summer School Association https://cassamusicalarts.com/

Vocal, musical theatre:
Southern Alberta Vocal Experience http://www.uleth.ca/music-conservatory/southern-alberta-vocal-experience-save
(the info on their home page is for 2018, but it will be updated soon to the 2019 info; the link will be the same)

Band, musical theatre:
MusiCamp Alberta http://www.musicampalberta.com/

Choral:
Singspiration https://concordia.ab.ca/arts/departments/fine-arts/school-of-music/singspiration/

Strings:
Amici Stringfest http://amicistringprogram.com/wp/calgary-stringfest/
Amici String Camp http://amicistringprogram.com/wp/amici-string-camp/