Event Descriptions 2024

Performance Psychology
Thursday, January 11, 2024, 5:30-6:30 PM
Room 224, Edward Johnson Building

Dr. Beth McCharles will cover how to move succinctly through the stages of technical (practice), play, and perform for audition preparation. After this session, musicians will have the capacity to develop a 6 week schedule to find their full voice for auditions. We will discuss owning your strengths, confidence and visualization which will create an intentional process leading up to the day of an important performance.

Exploring Positions in Arts Administration
Thursday, January 11, 2024, 6:45-7:45 PM
Room 224, Edward Johnson Building

Janet Anderson, Christine Passmore and Jen Stephen are all prominent orchestral musicians in Southern Ontario. In addition to their performance work, they also hold various positions in Artistic Management and Administration. Join them as they discuss how to strengthen your skills in areas of Arts Administration, including Personnel Management, Artistic Administration, and Contract Negotiations, how this can complement a performance career, and why it is important to have women in these leadership roles.

Jazz Open Rehearsal
Friday, January 12, 2024, 3:00-5:00 PM
Upper Jazz, 90 Wellesley St. West

This masterclass will be an open rehearsal for anyone to watch the Rebecca Hennessy Quintet prepare music for a concert for the following evening of January 13th. The music being presented will be all original songs by trumpeter Rebecca Hennessy. These songs are inspired by the tradition of New Orleans brass bands, jazz, blues and roots music. The other musicians in the ensemble include: Emily Ferrell on trombone, Tania Gill on piano, Lauren Falls on upright bass and Ethan Ardelli on drums. If you’re interested in doing some pre-listening to some of the repertoire they will be playing check out Rebecca Hennessy’s Fog Brass Band album “Two Calls” as well as on Way North’s albums: “New Dreams, Old Stories”,“Fearless and Kind” and “Kings County”.   

Injury Prevention and Recovery
Friday, January 12, 2024, 5:30-6:30 PM
Room 224, Edward Johnson Building

Meet Nadia Côté, hornist with the Montreal Symphony and Tubist Karen Bulmer, Interim Dean at the School of Music at Memorial University as they discuss how to navigate common brass playing injuries.  Nadia, who overcame embouchure strain and injury will share ideas about how to recognize it in the beginning, and what to do if you are in doubt, where to turn for help and why it happens to some players and not others. Karen will teach us how the nervous system works, and how to craft nurturing healthy practice routines.  Most importantly, you will come away from this class with ideas about how to approach the journey of navigating challenges with self-compassion and a proactive mindset.

Brass Fundamentals
Saturday, January 13, 2024, 9:00-10:30 AM
Walter Hall

Success in any day depends on understanding function and setting yourself up in a way that will create efficiency and ease. Professor Merrie Klazek will share her expertise from decades of teaching, orchestral and solo performing to talk about how to lay this foundation and how to trouble-shoot issues that will inevitably come up in a moment, in a session, in a week, in a career. As a first generation Cichowicz student, Merrie is continually in a state of curiosity about how to make brass playing feel easy, so that artistry can prevail. Her way of understanding includes many visual analogies and conceptual metaphors derived from exposure to a multitude of wonderful teachers and colleagues. The class will include specific concepts that when applied, can transform your sense of ease, power, accuracy, finesse, and confidence on your instrument. This is a lecture/experiential based class with some opportunity to play as a group and develop a kinesthetic association to the concepts in order to maximize retention potential.

Mindfulness and Peak Performance
Saturday, January 13, 2024, 12:00-1:00 PM
Room 224, Edward Johnson Building

Join Allene Hackleman, Audrey Good and Merrie Klazek to hear about their personal experiences and strategies in the workplace. Some of the topics we'll be exploring in this discussion are how to achieve consistency in performing at your best under pressure, how the use of meditation can facilitate peak performing and understanding how to channel excess energy on stage with the goal of feeling in control, with the freedom to express and trusting that our voice will translate though our instrument. 

Solos for Horn by Black Composers
Saturday, January 13, 2024, 4:00-5:00 PM
Room 209, Edward Johnson Building

Margaret McGillivray is a Washington, DC-based freelancer, educator and advocate for historically marginalized composers and musicians. She'll be discussing her latest project, LIFT: Solos for Horn by Black Composers, its genesis, commissioning and fundraising process and where the project stands now. She'll also play excerpts from the collection, including works by Shanyse Strickland, Althea Talbot-Howard,  and Canadian composers David Eastmond and Stewart Goodyear.