WEYBURN – Competitors at the upcoming Weyburn Rotary Music Festival will have their performances judged by an adjudicator.
The adjudicators are Laurien Gibson for voice, Dianne Gryba for piano and Nora Wilson for band.
The Music Festival will open with the piano competition from March 11-14, followed by voice on March 17-19, and band-instrumental on March 20-21. The Stars of the Festival, featuring the top picks of the adjudicators, will be held on Thursday, March 28 at 7 p.m. at the Cugnet Centre.
Laurien Gibson holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Saskatchewan and an Artist Diploma from the Glenn Gould School. Gibson has been the recipient of numerous awards including first place in the Canadian Music Competition, Gordon Wallis Opera Competition and Young Artist Competition.
She has also sung in the finals of the Hans Gabor Belvedere international
competition, held in Vienna.
As a soloist, Laurien has appeared with Little Opera on the Prairie, Strata New Music Festival, The Canadian Sinfonietta, Jeunes Ambassadeurs Lyriques, North York Concert Orchestra, the Regina Symphony Orchestra, the Saskatoon Opera Association, and Edmonton’s Opera Nuova.
Gibson is a huge fan of recital work and has worked extensively in this vein. She has given performances for intimate house concerts, pop-up street concerts (she and co-creator Andre Milne dubbed “drive-by opera”), as well as in many “proper” recital halls.
As a teacher, Gibson aims to share her love and enthusiasm for music and to create positive learning experiences for her students. She has taught both voice and piano for over 20 years, taking just a small departure to learn the craft of tile setting. She has taught for Persephone Theatre School summer camps and as a sessional instructor at the U of S.
Dianne Gryba resides in North Battleford, where she works as a teacher, accompanist and choral director. As well as maintaining a thriving studio of voice and piano students, Dianne co-teaches musical theatre classes at the Dance Connection with director, Virginia Winterhalt. She is proud of the many students who have gone on to pursue careers in classical music or music theatre.
Dianne has a great love of choral singing. With JoAnne Kasper, she has directed and accompanied several groups in the Battlefords including the Gallery Singers, Battlefords Children’s Choirs, and Kamala Youth Choir. The choruses have been honoured with local and provincial awards, and Kamala has taken part in many wonderful festivals in
Saskatchewan and beyond, including the Voices West events, which were initiated by Scott Leithead of Edmonton.
She has played and performed with her duo-piano partner, Bonnie Nicholson, for almost three decades. This joyful collaboration has always been a highlight in Dianne’s musical life. In 2016, Dianne and Bonnie joined with Chris Kelly and Janice Paterson, and initiated a summer school for young pianists and vocalists. SAVP (Summer Academy for Voice and Piano) is now held annually on the University of Saskatchewan campus in Saskatoon.
Gryba is active in the Saskatchewan Music Festival Association as president of the Battlefords Festival and as a provincial board member.
Dianne enjoys the rich variety in her musical life and is thankful for the many opportunities she has had to collaborate with exceptional musicians in her career so far.
Dr. Nora Wilson is the Associate Professor of Low Brass at Brandon University in Manitoba, Canada. Wilson keeps a busy and varied performance schedule through solo, ensemble, and performance art appearances. Some of her recent creative activity includes an experimental sound making in the duo Wire + Bone, commissions and
performances of new works for trombone at the International Trombone Festival, and exploring Truth and Reconciliation through a Canada Council for the Arts funded project with Peter Morin, and Brendon Ehinger, titled Sonic Dreaming.
She has made numerous appearances with several professional ensembles including the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Regina Symphony Orchestra, the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra, and the Brandon Chamber Players.
Specializing in trombone, euphonium, and tuba performance instruction, Wilson frequently serves as a clinician and adjudicator at colleges, high schools, and festivals across North America.
She is an active scholar in the area of brass pedagogy, presenting clinics at the Manitoba Music Educators Association Conference and the National Canadian Music Educators Association Conference. Wilson received her Masters and Doctoral degrees from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where she studied from Dr. Randy Kohlenberg.
