GAYE-LYNN KERN (voice) is a teacher, performer, and clinician. She has enjoyed adjudicating at over 100 festivals in Western Canada since 1990. Her areas of specialization are: voice, music theatre and speech arts.
Twelve of her twenty-eight years of vocal pedagogy have been at universities and colleges where she has taught for both music and drama departments and her students are frequent festival scholarship winners at both local and provincial levels.
Ms. Kern has a Master of Music (Voice) and a post graduate diploma from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, England, with post-graduate studies at the Mozart Opera Studies Institute. She has performed professionally in England, the United States, as well as in Canada in twenty-seven leading roles in opera (The Medium, Hansel and Gretel, The Magic Flute), operetta (The Mikado, H.M.S. Pinafore), music theatre (The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Angel of Alagoas - premier performance), and theatre (Dancing at Lughnasa, Murder at the Howard Johnsons).
SARAH KONECSNI (piano) is known throughout the province as pianist, clinician, adjudicator, composer, accompanist, teacher, and as an examiner for the Royal Conservatory of Music (with 25 of her students receiving silver medals for the highest marks in piano examinations in every grade from Preparatory A through Grade 10 RCM). A recipient of nearly all awards for piano performance provincially, including soloist with the Regina Symphony Orchestra; she was the Young Artist for Western Canada and performed ten concerts from BC to Manitoba; and was a winner of five provincial classes and the St. Geraldine Boyle award for the most outstanding competitor of the Provincial Finals in 1994. In 2003, she was awarded a grant from the Saskatchewan Arts Board to present a series of seven concerts throughout Saskatchewan to present her compositions to the public.
ANDREE DAGENAIS (choir) associate professor at Brandon University where she conducts the Brandon University Chorale, the Brandon Concert Choir and the Brandon University Women's Voices. Under her direction BU Chorale performed in Cuba, toured Saskatchewan in 2008 and France in 2007 for a choir exchange with the Ensemble vocal of l'Université de Poitiers. BU Chorale has been invited to perform at the Choral Conductor's conference in Québec in 2005, at the Winnipeg New Music Festival (2003 and 2004), the Festival Unicanto de Corais de Londrina, and at the Festival of sacred music in Sao Paulo (2002). The BU Chorale represented Manitoba at the National Festival of music and won the City of Lincoln trophy in 2000 and 2001.
In 2008, she guest conducted in Poitiers the Ensemble vocal of l'Université de Poitiers. As an associate researcher for the Conseil National de Recherche Scientifique at the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles, she is responsible for the critical edition of the collection of the grands motets by Pierre Robert, an important composer from Louis XIV's Royal Chapel.
GREG MCLEAN (bands and ensembles) has recently retired after 35 years of public school music education, the last 21 years at the Swift Current Comprehensive High School, where he was the music director for 150 instrumental students in grades 9-12. Under Mr. McLean's direction, the Senior Wind Orchestra and Senior Jazz Ensemble received many awards, including gold medals at the national music festival, "MusicFest Canada", in 1993, 1995, and 1998. The Wind Orchestra performed guest showcase concerts at the "Canadian Rocky Mountain Festival" in 1996, 1997, 2007, and 2009 and at the Moose Jaw International Festival in 1999 and 2003. His senior jazz ensemble, Thursday Night Jazz, also performed a showcase concert in 2008 for the Banff Festival. In 2001 he received the "Paul Harris Fellowship" from the Swift Current Rotary Club for outstanding leadership and community work with young people. He was the recipient of the "Outstanding Achievement Award" presented by the Saskatchewan Music Educator's Association in 2006.
Mr. McLean received his Bachelor of Music degree from Brandon University. His graduate work included courses at Brandon University in music education and jazz, a Graduate Diploma of Fine Arts from the University of Calgary in conducting and wind repertoire, and more recently a Master of Music degree in conducting from the University of Manitoba.
WAYNE TOEWS
(band, woodwinds, strings, guitar) began to study the violin at the age of 4. He sang with the Westmount Boys Choir under Donald Forbes and served as concertmaster of the Saskatoon Youth Orchestra. He studied violin and composition with Dr. Murray Adaskin at the University of Saskatchewan where he received B.A. and B.Ed. degrees. He played for nine seasons in the Saskatoon Symphony, first on violin and later on viola. He holds a Master of Music degree from Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.
Mr. Toews taught music in Saskatoon public schools from 1969 until retirement in 2001. From 1983 until 2009, he was director of the Saskatoon Youth Orchestra. The orchestra won the Canadian Music Educators' Association's national performance award for excellence six successive times.
After studying conducting at the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo in 1983, he edited the English edition of the Saito Conducting Method textbook that was published in Tokyo in 1988.
In 2005 he founded ConductorSchool and has helped more than 100 students from around the world learn the Saito conducting method.
ROBERT GIBSON (band, brass, percussion) comes from the Lake District in the north of England. His early studies in music included piano, voice, and several wind instruments. He served as a military musician in the band of the Border Regiment in both England and Germany and, while in Germany, studied with Horst Hergut, former principal trombonist with the Berlin Philharmonic, and the Carlottenburg Opera House.
Following his military service he was employed at Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering in his hometown of Barrow-in-Furness and played principal trombone in the Vickers band, Darlington and Westmoreland symphony orchestras. He was a member of various choral societies in England, and directed bands for the Lancashire Department of Education. He holds the Associate Diploma in trombone from Victoria College of Music, London.
After coming to Canada in 1965, he directed the Prince Albert Lions Bands for ten years and also directed bands in the public school system. Highlights of the Lions Band years included a tour of England and Wales in 1973 and numerous successes at music festivals. In the early 70's, the senior Lions Band and the Lions Brass Band were awarded first place in their respective classes at the Moose Jaw International Band Festival. Many soloists in the bands were scholarship winners and several were Royal Conservatory of Toronto silver medallists
