Alumni newsletter, December 2021
Season’s Greetings from the Head of Music
The Conservatory has again been filled with the bustle of students and the sounds of practicing and rehearsals over the past few months. Though masked and physically distanced, faculty and students have been able to resume almost all of our usual activities, and with an almost fully vaccinated campus, Mount Allison has proven a safe and productive space over the fall and early winter. Our Faculty Gala concert at the end of the first week of classes took place in front of an excited and appreciative audience, marking the return of live in-person concerts in Brunton Auditorium. Musical highlights from the past months included a concert of music by women composers from the Renaissance and Baroque eras as part of the Sackville Festival of Early Music; a long-delayed performance of Messiaen’s landmark Quartet for the End of Time featuring MtA faculty David Rogosin, James Kalyn, and Nadia Francavilla with guest cellist Emily Kennedy; an exciting concert of new music for piano and percussion presented by Ottawa’s SHHH!! Ensemble; and the term drew to a close with concerts by the Mount Allison New Music Ensemble, Chamber Orchestra, Symphonic Band, and finally a capacity audience in the University Chapel who enjoyed music for the holiday season sung by the Choral Society and Elliott Chorale. The Fall semester concluded with a joyous Christmas Collegium, and as those gathered joined in the round of Dona Nobis Pacem, we all hope for a safe and healthy holiday season and look forward to even brighter days in 2022.
Happy holidays!
Dr. Stephen Runge
Mount Allison Honour Band
After a year of on-line events, we were pleased to be able to welcome 25 talented and enthusiastic high school students to campus in October to take part in the 7th annual Mount Allison Honour Band. These students, nominated for the program by their high school band directors, came together for a one-day intensive of rehearsals and sectionals with MtA faculty, culminating in a performance conducted by Dr. James Kalyn in Convocation Hall, showcasing the many talented high school participants from throughout New Brunswick, PEI, and Nova Scotia.
In Memoriam: Brian J. Ellard (1940-2021)
Dr. Brian J. Ellard, Professor of Music, Emeritus, joined the Department of Music at Mount Allison in 1983, having previously taught at l’Université de Moncton (1969-1980) and l’Université de Sherbrooke (1980-1983). During his twenty-year career Mount Allison, Dr. Ellard served as head of the Department of Music (1983-1988) and as a Dean in the Faculty of Arts (1992-1997), retiring in 2003. He was particularly well-known as the director of various Mount Allison ensembles – including Choral Society and Jazz Choir – and as the music director and conductor of the Prince Edward Island Symphony Orchestra (1983-1997). In addition to his roles as educator and conductor, he was a scholar of medieval music, a musicologist, a biographer, and an arranger.
Click here to view Dr. Ellard’s full obituary.
News from MtA’s Student Composers
We are delighted to have 20 students studying composition at various levels this year with Dr. Kevin Morse, creating exciting new work in a range of styles. Two of our student composers were recognized at our annual Awards Banquet this year, with the Robert and Margaret Fleming Award for Music Composition Studies presented to Dawson Gillis, and the J. MacAleese Memorial Award from the Moncton Jazz and Blues Festival presented to Kristopher Williams.
Student composers have also had an opportunity to hear workshops and readings of some of their new compositions by students in our recently-formed New Music Ensemble (under the direction of Dr. James Kalyn), as well as by a guest ensemble: the woodwind quintet Ventus Machina.
November 5 -7 marked the third installment of the University of New Brunswick’s Contemporary Music Festival, curated by MtA Music professor and UNB Musician-in-Residence, Nadia Francavilla. This year’s live, in-person concerts included several recent works by MtA Music student Hope Salmonson (Class of 2022). Hope also took part as one of the featured performers, on tuba and euphonium; other members of the MtA Music contingent included Karin Aurell (flute), Joël Cormier (percussion), Nadia Francavilla (violin), and alumna Sally Dibblee (soprano).
This year also marks 10 years of our semi-annual New Music @ Mount Allison student composition concerts. Student composers at all levels shared their new compositions at a lively and well-attended concert on December 6 in Brunton Auditorium. This year's concert featured a substantial composition by graduating student Hope Salmonson: an 18-minute cantata titled Et tibi miserere ("And have mercy on yourself") premiered by Mount Allison's Elliott Chorale under the direction of Kiera Galway, with soloists Dory Haley and Vicki St. Pierre, and with faculty instrumentalists Jennifer Del Motte (piano), Olivier Huebscher (horn), and James Kalyn (clarinets). Hope's composition was created over the summer months as part of her Independent Student Research Grant work with Dr. Kevin Morse, which was supported in part by the J.E.A. Crake Foundation.
STUDENT ACHIEVEMENTS
“At a Dinner Party,” a song by Hope Salmonson, has been included in a new publication, the NewMusicShelf Anthology of New Music: Trans & Nonbinary Voices, Vol. 1.
Christina Acton was a featured panelist for the "Activating Youth Leaders: Youth Music Advocacy in the Post-Covid Classroom" workshop, presented virtually in October by the Canadian Youth4Music Coalition.
Sarah MacLoon was awarded first place in the Musical Theatre category and alumnus Branden Olsen (’17) received first place in the Voice category at last summer’s National Music Festival, held virtually.
FACULTY NEWS
Welcome to Dr. Dory Hayley!
We are delighted to welcome soprano Dory Hayley to the Mount Allison faculty this year as instructor in Voice. Dr. Hayley is recognized as a leading voice in Canada’s contemporary and experimental music scene. Praised for her “very personal creative power” (Badener Zeitung) and her “amazing coloratura skills” (Opera Canada), she has worked with composers such as Helmut Lachenmann, Georges Aperghis, Cassandra Miller, and Diógenes Rivas, created roles in Mark Haney’s Omnis Temporalis and Michael James Park’s Diagnosis Diabetes, and commissioned and premiered an expanding catalogue of new works.
Dr. Hayley has been a soloist with the Vancouver Symphony, the Allegra Chamber Orchestra, the Turning Point Ensemble, and Capriccio Basel, and has appeared in recital across four continents. She has performed in festivals such as Sonic Boom, the Happening Festival, New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival, Gulangyu Autumn Festival (China), Performer’s Voice Symposium (Singapore), and Festival Atempo (Venezuela), and with organizations like the SMCQ, Chants Libres, CIRMMT, Codes d’accès, Vancouver New Music, Little Chamber Music, and the Land’s End Ensemble.
An avid and adventurous collaborator, her performances have ranged from early music to free improvisation. She is a member of the Erato Ensemble, the Broadwood Duo, and the Hayley-Laufer Duo, and has recorded with Postcommodity, Sun Belt, and the Negative Zed ensemble. She is the Artistic Co-Director of the Blueridge Chamber Music Festival.
Dr. Hayley is an enthusiastic and sought-after adjudicator, clinician, and teacher, and has served on the faculties of Vancouver Community College and the Vancouver International School of Music. She is a former visiting artist at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute, University at Buffalo’s Creative Arts Initiative, and the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, and a frequent Musician in Residence at the Banff Centre.
Dory Hayley holds performance degrees from the University of British Columbia, McGill University, and Université de Montréal. Alongside her musical activities, she recently completed a master’s degree in Public Policy, with a focus on cultural policy, at Simon Fraser University. Her research and artistic projects have been funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Koerner Foundation, the Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada, the BC Arts Council, and the Conseil des arts et des letters du Québec.
Congratulations, Bindy Code!
After 52 years of teaching at Mount Allison, oboe instructor Bindy Code is retiring this month. Bindy enjoyed a long career as oboe soloist and in orchestral, opera orchestra, pit orchestras for musicals, and chamber music settings since 1970. She held the Principal Oboe position in Symphony New Brunswick from 1989 through 2014, and has held that position with the Prince Edward Island Symphony Orchestra since 1982. After retirement from her full-time faculty position at Mount Allison, Bindy had continued teaching our oboe students on a part-time basis for the past decade. We wish Bindy all the best and thank her for so many years of dedicated service to the MtA Music Department!
Alan Dodson presented a paper entitled “Schubert’s Medial Overlaps” at the Society for Music Analysis (UK) Annual Meeting in July 2021 and in the Colloquium Musicum series at Mount Allison in September 2021. The paper discusses the formal and expressive significance of Schubert’s tendency to use a phrase overlap (often in tandem with a striking tonal or hypermetric contrast) at the midpoint of the exposition in his early sonata forms.
Congratulations to the members of the Ventus Machina woodwind quintet – including MtA Music’s Karin Aurell, James Kalyn, and Patrick Bolduc – who received two nominations for Prix MNB Awards: Album of the Year for their latest release, “Roots”, and Video of the Year for “Blackbird”.
Click here for the full list of 2021 Music / Musique NB award nominees – including MtA grads Kylie Fox (’18) and Wolf Castle (’18)
Congratulations to Karin Aurell, Nadia Francavilla, and Mark Kleyn, who are all recent recipients of Creation Grants from artsnb.
ALUMNI NEWS
Mezzo-soprano Gabrielle Brochu (’21) has been named one of the “30 hot Canadian classical musicians under 30” by CBC Music.
Congratulations to MtA Music grad Keli Brewer (’01), who has received a Canadian Music Educators’ Association (CMEA) Builders Award. The award recognizes those who advance music education in Canada, through building community or establishing significant collaborative efforts.
Morgan Reid (’18) has joined the team at Dean Artists Management (Toronto) as an Administrative Associate. She continues to pursue her Doctor of Musical Arts at the University of Toronto, with a dissertation focus on interdisciplinary performance and movement for singers. See deanartists.com/team for an update on Morgan’s activities.
Saxophonist Jack Smith (’20) was one of the instrumentalists selected to perform with acclaimed soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan, as part of her Equilibrium Young Artists program at the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance, August 28 – September 4, 2021. The project included a week of intensive workshops and rehearsals, culminating in two performances, with excerpts from William Walton’s Façade and the world première of Gavin Fraser's composition Penelope, for vocalists and chamber ensemble.
After almost a decade of professional music-making in the Halifax area, Andrea (Dickinson) Mathis (’08) has started a new position with the Advancement office at St. Mary’s University.
Sarah MacDonald (’09) is the new band director at Glace Bay High School in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
Congratulations to Jason Hall (’82), who is a featured performer on a new recording release of works for solo woodwinds by composer Jeffrey Ryan. The album, "My Soul Upon My Lips: Music for Woodwinds," was released on the Vancouver-based Redshift Music label, made possible through the financial assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts. Hall plays Ryan’s Arbutus for tárogató (a Hungarian cousin of the clarinet) and piano. Other performers are drawn from the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s woodwind section. For details click here.
Opera Canada recently featured a tribute to soprano Annon Lee Silver (’58) on the 50th anniversary of her tragic passing at age 32. Read about this remarkable musician and her career here.
And in case you missed the article in the Summer 2021 edition of The Record, you can read about the career path of Presley Hynes (’16) who is now a sound designer with PlayStation, here.
Keep in Touch!
The Department of Music appreciates the continued support of its Alumni. Please stay in touch with us, keeping us posted on your news and accomplishments. We also have a presence on social media, and hope you will follow us on Facebook and Twitter.