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Senior Piano - Han Ding
Han is a classical pianist and composer. He has performed piano concerts, composed chamber and solo works, and written dozens of arrangements that have been widely downloaded. He has taught piano for over two decades and adjudicated at music festivals British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan.
Han’s repertoire ranges from the Renaissance to the modern era, with major works from Bach's Goldberg Variations to Prokofiev's Sixth Piano Sonata. He has performed in concerts and solo recitals in western Canada, including Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Symphony of the Kootenays.
His compositions include Ballad Concerto for Cello and Piano and Three Dances for Oboe and Piano, which was awarded a grant from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. He has also written string ensemble music and solo piano music. His arrangement of Ho Ho Watanay was commissioned by ARMTA for Canada's 150th and published along with works by other Alberta composers.
Han graduated from the University of Calgary with a Bachelor of Music in piano performance and a Bachelor of Arts in English literature, and received Licentiate and Associate diplomas from the Royal Conservatory of Music. He is currently an instructor and chamber coach at Mount Royal University Conservatory.
Intermediate/Junior Piano - Miriam Mahood
Miriam Mahood is a RCM Examiner who exams extensively throughout Canada & the USA. Since Covid she has remotely examined 1000 candidates from Shanghai, Hawai, Texas, Georgia, California, New York, Rhode Island, Florida, Washington, Colorado, New Mexico, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Arizona, Connecticut, Maryland, & Illinois, in addition to those in Canada.
Ms. Mahood has adjudicated regularly for the Alberta, Saskatchewan, & British Columbia Music Festival Associations, her most recent festivals being Ft. McMurray, Red Deer, Grande Prairie, Whitecourt, Wetaskiwin, & Vermilion.
Ms. Mahood is a graduate of the Mozarteum, Salzburg, Austria (Konzertdiplom), Universities of Saskatchewan & Alberta (B Mus. & M Mus.) & holds the ARCT from the Royal Conservatory of Music, & the Associate & Licentiate from the Western Board of Music.
She has been employed by such institutions as Alberta College, The Banff Centre, Universities of Alberta & Manitoba, Western Board of Music, Winnipeg Bible College, & has served as Music Director, Organist, & Choir Director in various Churches, most recently at St. Georges Anglican.
For many years she was Scholarship Chair, & served on the Ball Committee, of the Johann Strauss Foundation. Ms. Mahood runs a successful Piano Studio dedicated to student success. Her hobbies are hiking, languages, ballroom, & travel.
Junior Piano - John Brough
John Brough has enjoyed a multifaceted career as a conductor, pianist, organist, tenor soloist and music educator. John is Assistant Professor and Director of Choral Activities at Concordia, and Chair of Fine Arts at the University of Edmonton, where along with conducting Concordia’s Concert Choir, he teaches courses in choral conducting and music history. John is also a senior examiner for Conservatory Canada, where he examines all levels of voice and piano through every province in Canada.
John began his music studies in Ottawa, studying piano with Edith Orton and Douglas Voice, organ with Frances Macdonnell and Karen Holmes, and conducting with Lawrence Ewashko. He continued with graduate studies in Alberta, studying conducting with Leonard Ratzlaff and Debra Cairns, and organ with Marnie Giesbrecht. Over the past two decades in the Edmonton Area, John has conducted many ensembles, including the Richard Eaton Singers, and fifteen years as artistic director for the Da Camera Singers. John has prepared the choir for many performances with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and Alberta Baroque Ensemble. He has also taken the choir on two international tours, and produced two commercial recordings with the choir.
In the Winter of 2021, John was delighted to receive the Con Spirito award from Choir Alberta, recognizing his years of work, spirit, and dedication to Edmonton’s choral community.
John is active in the early music scene in Alberta. He is a founding member of Early Music Alberta and appears regularly in concerts with EMA as conductor and continuo keyboardist. He continues to be active as an accompanist on both piano and organ, as well as working with choirs all over the province of Alberta.
When not performing, John enjoys spending time with his wife, Kathleen, and their daughters, Annie and Sadie, camping and hiking throughout the beautiful province of Alberta.
Vocal - Tine Hartt
Calgary based jazz vocalist Tina Hartt is a sought-after adjudicator and performer. Tina has enjoyed traveling from Fort McMurray to Lethbridge, including many cities in between, adjudicating Classical & Contemporary Voice in music festivals all over Alberta.
An accomplished classical singer, who has enjoyed performing sacred, rock and operatic repertoire, she now performs mainly in the jazz style. In 2023, she released her 2nd album “Absence of You” which was nominated for Jazz Recording of the Year at the 2023 Jazz YYC Awards and reached #1 on the Specialty Charts for Jazz with CFBX in May 2023.
Tina specializes in bilingual jazz interpretations and adapting French chansons with jazz
harmonies and Latin rhythms. Her songs continue to be played on CBC – Radio Canada but have also received positive attention in Europe.
She is looking forward to meeting tomorrow’s performers and passing on any helpful knowledge to help them on their individual musical journeys.
Strings - Jarred Albright
Jarred Albright is a professional fiddle, mandolin, guitar, and banjo player based in Edmonton, Alberta. He lives and breathes all things music; when he is not practicing or performing, he is teaching, recording, producing, writing, or composing.
Jarred has played the violin since he was seven years old, and music has been his focus ever since. He discovered the joys of fiddle style very early on and spent his underage years with the Calgary Fiddlers performing over a hundred times a year before entering post-secondary to pursue jazz performance at Grant MacEwan University. Since then, he has endeavoured to teach himself to sing and play mandolin, guitar, and banjo. Music has taken him around the world including the United States, South Korea, England, Scotland, and Ireland.
In 2012 he and Ben Plotnick were awarded the 10k20 grant from Rawlco radio and their bluegrass duo recorded the self-titled CD Rye & Fairy Tales, to much acclaim. He has spent much of his time since then in Toronto but has returned to his home province of Alberta and currently resides in Edmonton.
These days Jarred can be found performing with many diverse local acts as a sideman and has also found new excitement in recording, producing, and videography. He happily spends his days practicing, performing, puttering about the recording studio, and sharing his love of music with his many students.
Musical Theatre/Speech - Amanda Brunk
Amanda Brunk (BacMusPerf, MA/Community Music) is a PAVA-Recognized Vocologist and Designated Linklater Teacher specializing in contemporary voice technique and voice habilitation. Amanda teaches voice for singers at Wilfrid Laurier University and periodically coaches actors at Sheridan College/University of Toronto. She also maintains a successful private studio in Waterloo, Ontario.
Her voice students have gone on to perform throughout Canada, on North American tours and in Broadway shows. As conductor of the Grand Philharmonic Youth Choir for eight years, Amanda led the choir to win competitions nationally and internationally, and to perform with grammy-winning recording artists and rock groups.
Amanda is the Founder and Artistic Director of The Singer's Theatre, a summer music theatre training program that attracts singers from across North America since 2002, and has served as vocal director for various cruise lines. She is the proud recipient of two Professional Development Grants from the Canada Council for the Arts.
Amanda adjudicates regularly for classical, choral, pop and music theatre categories. from coast to coast. She is vice-president of the Ontario chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing and is a published author for the NATS Journal of Singing and VASTA Voice and Speech Review.
Guitar - Trevor Sanders
Since 2000, Trevor Sanders has been an active teacher, adjudicator and performer in the Edmonton area and throughout Alberta. He began teaching, and is currently on faculty at MacEwan University’s Alberta College Conservatory of Music since 2001, the Augustana Campus of the University of Alberta since 2008, and at Concordia University of Edmonton since 2023.
He is a graduate of the University of Alberta (MMus) and Augustana University College (BA specialized in Music). As an active performer, his appearances as a chamber musician and as a soloist have been heard in numerous concert series and on radio. Trevor has been involved with a number of guitar ensembles, and is a founding member of the University of Alberta guitar quartet and the Edmonton Guitar Trio. He has also performed as a soloist with the Alberta Baroque Orchestra. Trevor currently teaches music theory and guitar for MacEwan Conservatory; music theory, jazz guitar, and classical guitar for the University of Alberta at its Augustana Campus; classical guitar for Concordia University of Edmonton; and guitar (classical, jazz, contemporary) for the Purple Door Music Academy.
Instruments and Music Composition - Craig Johnson
Originally from Winnipeg MB, Craig studied privately with a long list of classical and jazz instructors on his primary instruments (Trumpet & Piano). After high school he attended
The University of Manitoba furthering his studies in the Performing Fine Arts Program.
He went on to study Jazz Arranging, Orchestral Composition, and Writing for Motion Picture and TV earning his General Music Studies degree at The Berklee College of Music in Boston.
Now living in Calgary with over 30 years of teaching and performing experience Craig remains an active clinician, teaching within the Calgary Board of Education and private sector band music programs. He maintains a large private student base and has had a number of students go on to pursue their own musical careers at the professional level.
In 2003 Craig accepted the position of Musical Director for a Calgary based big band association followed by a second offer in 2019 from an additional association. His roles include, directing, writing and arranging a large portion of the band’s repertoire for performance.
In addition to teaching and adjudicating music festivals throughout Alberta, as a band leader he leads his own groups of various sizes and has been commissioned by different organizations and independent artists to write music for their specific recording and or performing projects.
Currently Craig is creating a self-published music company under the name MAXALBY Music Publishing, making available his original works and arrangements for Jazz Ensemble, Concert Band, Orchestra, and various small group ensembles ranging from beginner to advanced to professional levels.
Choral - David Mikuliak
Dave has over 150 performing/directing/adjudicating credits spanning over 50 years. An award-winning public educator, Dave is a retired Arts Educator who taught Music, Music Theatre and Drama in Lethbridge and area schools for three decades. Dave has an extensive and varied background with choral ensembles since 1989 including University of Lethbridge youth ensembles, The Chinook Children’s Choir, multiple middle school, junior high and high school choruses and an assistant conductorship with the U of L Singers.
Dave also has an eclectic background in performance work - some highlights include, for NEW WEST THEATRE: Shakin’ All Over; Godspell (Jesus); Forever Plaid (Smudge); Beethoven Lives Upstairs; Puttin’ On The Ritz; Elf. Other highlights, for LETHBRIDGE MUSICAL THEATRE: Man of La Mancha (Don Quixote); Oliver (Fagan). For CENTRESTAGE PRODUCTIONS: Jesus Christ, Superstar (Pilate); Sweeney Todd (Anthony). For THEATREWORKS: Joseph, and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat (Joseph). For LETHBRIDGE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: Sweeney Todd (Sweeney); Les Miserables (Javert); Fiddler On The Roof (Tevye). Directorial Highlights include: 1996 Alberta Winter Games Opening Ceremonies, Les Miserables, Newsies, Rock The Halls. Also, Compact Disc album releases of Sing To The Child (2007); My Favourite Christmas Song (2010) with Classical Guitarist, Sheldon Arvay.
Dave currently works (super part time) as an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Lethbridge and picks up many and varied performing/workshopping/adjudicating contracts as they appear! Upcoming: Dave will be adjudicating at the Alberta High School Provincial One Act Festival in May and will be Stage Directing for Phoenix Arts Co. with their company’s premiere production of “Newsies” in July. He would truly tell you that he is an incredibly fortunate human being.
Dave encourages the people he gets to work with to work on three fundamentals: 1) Know their “why”; 2) Take responsibility for their creative process and reflect on it constantly; and to 3) Aim For Growth!
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