Julia Jamison is the adjudicator in this year鈥檚 Kiwanis Battleford Music Festival for both Musical Theatre and Speech Arts. Musical theatre entries will be showcased on Tuesday, April 19 with Speech Arts scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, April 20-21. Julia teaches voice and acting in the Department of Drama at the University of Saskatchewan where she has directed numerous Greystone Theatre productions, including: Into the Woods, Amadeus, Assassins, Black Comedy, Picasso at the Lapin Agile and Elizabeth Rex.聽Other local directing credits include: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, The Guardsman (Persephone), Jake and the Kid (Station Arts), john & jen (Live Five) and Billy Bishop Goes to War (Souris Valley).聽 Performance credits include multiple productions at The Stratford Festival, as well as Phantom of the Opera (Pantages Theatre) and numerous lyric mezzo roles with l鈥橝telier Lyrique de l鈥橭pera de Montreal, New York City Bel Canto Opera, San Diego Opera, The Banff Centre and National Arts Centre. She is currently working with British composer Stephen McNeff on revisions to a music theatre adaptation of Dylan Thomas鈥� screenplay, The Doctor and the Devils.聽Julia has a Master of Fine Arts in Acting (York University), a Master of Music in Vocal Performance (University of Regina) and a Bachelor of Music in Music Education (University of Saskatchewan). 聽
Other adjudicators introduced over the last couple of weeks are this year鈥檚 vocal adjudicator, Dianna Woolrich band adjudicator Lenora Wells. Woolrich holds a Bachelor of Music degree in voice with great distinction from the University of Regina, where she also completed course work for a graduate degree in music theory and taught for some years as a sessional lecturer. Wells, who has played the trombone since the age of 10, received a Bachelor of Music in Music Education and Masters of Education from the University of Saskatchewan and was a musician within many ensembles, including a trombone quartet that qualified for the Canadian National Music Festival Awards.
Thank you to all local youth who entered the festival program cover art contest. We look forward to featuring these wonderful creative efforts not only on the cover but within the pages of the program and within the festival venues. The cover winner should be announced within the next couple of weeks!
If interested in volunteering at the festival, anything you have to offer in way of your time or talent is welcome! If your time is not available but you or your business would like to support the festival monetarily, consider sponsoring an award to be presented at the final gala event, or sponsoring a session for a music discipline of your choice, or being recognized as a patron or friend of the festival.
The current聽festival schedule, pending final programming, for the 2016 Battlefords Music Festival is:
Vocal April 16 - 18 (Saturday - Monday), Band April 18 - 19聽(Monday - Tuesday), Musical Theatre April 19 (Tuesday), Speech Arts April 20 - 21 (Wednesday - Thursday), Strings April聽22 (Friday), and Piano April 21 - 23 (Thursday - Saturday).
鈥淢usical theatre is great; you get painted up, you get to play princesses and witches, and you sing. The joy alone of that can really carry a lot.鈥� - Chris Pine
