Music in Performance
Feature Article
Violinist makes the grade for Juilliard
Andrew Wan, a second-year violin performance student at the University of Alberta, was accepted into the Bachelor of Music program in violin at the prestigious Julliard School of Music. Wan is looking forward to his move to New York. "While the musicology program at the U of A is phenomenal, and the academic aspect is excellent, there is a huge emphasis on performance at Juilliard."
Original: ExpressNews
Music performance by university-based musicians is both renowned and diverse. Its range includes unaccompanied solo or orchestral performance, collaboration with advanced students or world-famous professional musicians, and presentation in a provincial town or on a world stage. It may focus on little-known classical literature, music so new the ink is hardly dry, or the best-known music of the Western European canon. This contrast between local and international, new and old, characterizes exciting university-based music performance.
There are several internationally acclaimed musical performers or conductors in the Department of Music. These musicians present a total of more than 80 performances a year, spanning the range from solo recital through chamber music to orchestral and choral performances, often with orchestras and choirs from across the country and around the world. Solo recitals in the University's Convocation Hall are increasingly recorded by CBC for subsequent broadcast nationally. In 2000, University of Alberta musicians appeared at international venues fifteen times as recitalists or featured soloists with large ensembles.
The musicians perform with ensembles of various sizes, including the relatively new combination of piano and organ, and a piano trio. Choral conductors work with student groups as well as with community choruses: choirs have won national and international awards in major competitions. The Madrigal Singers choir, for instance, has been a frequent finalist in the CBC Competition for Amateur Choirs (1996, 1998, 2004), and has participated in a number of international competitions, including the Robert Schumann International Choral Competition in Zwickau, Germany where it was awarded first prize in 1992 and third prize at the 1997 International Chamber Choir Competition, also in Zwickau.
Through involvement in festival adjudications, master classes, and workshops nationally and internationally, faculty members further contribute to the cultural life of the community. Production of some twenty CD recordings and publication of several music education books testify to the wide recognition of the work of performers and conductors.