MUSIC
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| Katherine Rapaport of Ontario will adjudicate strings |
The 63rd annual Queens County Music Festival will be held May 8 to 16 at UPEI, Park Royal United Church, Calvary Christian Church and the Carrefour de L’Îsle-St-Jean. With almost 1,000 entries, the festival is one of Prince Edward Island’s largest community events. Several highly respected adjudicators have been recruited to the festival this year.
Janice Jackson of Halifax will adjudicate vocal and musical theatre classes. She is a private music teacher and artistic director of the Halifax vocal music society Vocalypse Productions. A graduate of the Utrecht Conservatoire in the Netherlands, she is one of Canada’s foremost interpreters of contemporary vocal repertoire. Ms. Jackson has sung with several opera companies in Canada and Europe and she is a lover of cabaret and jazz standards.
This year’s piano adjudicator is Dr. Christine Vanderkooy who teaches music at the University of Regina. With extensive experience as a solo pianist and collaborative artist, she received her Doctor of Music in Piano Performance from McGill University. The recipient of several prestigious music awards, she was invited to perform at Carnegie Hall.
Roger Lord of Université de Moncton returns to the Queens County Music Festival as the adjudicator of pre-junior piano classes. A concert pianist, Dr. Lord has been featured as a guest soloist with symphony orchestras throughout the world, including the PEI Symphony Orchestra.
The string adjudicator is Katharine Rapoport who teaches violin and viola performance and chamber music at the University of Toronto and at the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music. She has performed as a soloist and chamber musician at major recitals in Canada and Italy. Her students have won national awards and have been accepted to the world’s leading music schools. She is the author of many publications including “Violin For Dummies,” a new title in the well-known series. She is currently a senior examiner for the Royal Conservatory of Music and conductor of the Royal Conservatory of Music Chamber Orchestra.
Gary Ewer returns to the festival as adjudicator of instrumental, choral and composition classes. A Halifax composer and arranger, he teaches aural perception and music theory at Dalhousie University where he also conducts the Dalhousie Chorale and the Dalhousie Chamber Choir. He has developed music theory courses and his compositions have been performed by such groups as Symphony Nova Scotia, the Cape Breton Chorale and the CBC.
The Rose Bowl competition will be held May 16 at the Dr. Steel Recital Hall. The final festival concerts will be held May 22 at Calvary Christian Church. Festival programs are on sale at Sober’s Music and the National Music Store. To volunteer for the festival, or for information, contact a member of the festival committee: Kay Linkletter, Norma Mossey, Kathleen MacDonald, Julia Purcell, Gertrude DeBoer, Jean Doherty and Kip Holloway.