The Score – Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts Association Update – Summer 2016 1

The Score

Image by Ed MacDormand

MCPA Association Update Summer 2016, Vol. 1, No. 2

Ken and Gloria Mader Professional Development Fellowships As a new Faculty member, Dr. Jennifer Farrell’s dream was that MCPA would one day create a program to assist teachers in continuing their development both creatively and as instructors. After she was appointed Dean of Music, she set about to bring this goal to fruition. As Dean, Jennifer is an ex officio member of the Conservatory’s Board of Governors, and she proposed to that group that they adopt this project as a way that they could personally support MCPA Faculty members. The Board rose to the challenge and everyone donated to a fund to establish a Professional Development Fellowship program.

On hearing of this initiative, the Association’s Board immediately wondered whether the Association too could participate. While we offer many prizes, scholarships, and bursaries to students and we regularly contribute to support the Conservatory in other ways, we have not regularly assisted individual Faculty members. Here was the ideal opportunity for the Association to expand our range of programs and in a way that would support a group that has formed a critical core of Association membership for almost a century—the Conservatory’s teachers. But how could the Association help fund this new program?

Fortuitously, the Association had recently received a generous donation from long-standing members, Ken and Gloria Mader. What better use for their contribution than for the Association to join the MCPA Board as co-sponsors of the fellowship Program. The Maders have graciously agreed that our new awards be called the MCPA Association Ken and Gloria Mader Professional Development Fellowships.

The Fellowships will allow Faculty members “to continue to develop both creatively and as teachers [and] are designed to inspire [them] to remain actively engaged with their own artistic and pædagogical development”. Faculty members might wish, for example, to attend a master class or workshop to upgrade a specific skill set or to work towards another qualification as a performer or teacher.

There will be two application cycles each year, and the number of fellowships will depend on the funds available and the number and nature of the applications. The Deans of Dance and Music will sit on the adjudication committee along with a representative of the Association—this year

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Walter Toth

Daryl Chaddock. In the first application period, three Professional Development Fellowships were awarded.

Christy Hodder, violin instructor and Head Teacher of the Suzuki Division, received support to assist with her tuition at the Beaver Creek Colorado Suzuki Institute. Christy travelled to Colorado in June to attend two weeks of courses of advanced training that will allow her to teach Grades 5 and 6 repertoire to our Conservatory Suzuki students.

Susannë Brown, Kindermusik instructor, violin and viola teacher, and conductor of the MCPA Adult Orchestra, received a grant to help her participate in an intensive training program this August in Ottawa in the Dalcroze Eurhythmics method which uses rhythmic movement, focused listening, and improvisation to develop musical literacy, ear training, and artistic sensitivity with a goal of creating an adaptable, creative musician.

The third recipient was Jennifer Publicover, Head of the Conservatory Woodwind Division, director of the Traditional Music for Youth Ensemble, and flute instructor. The support Jennifer received will assist her in participating in the Boxwood Festival and Workshop. This week-long festival takes place every July in Lunenburg and presents a full range of classes with world-renowned artists in traditional folk music, early music, and dance. Jennifer plans to study with early woodwind specialists to further her expertise in Baroque flute techniques and to develop more traditional Scandinavian and Breton repertoire.

The cost of each of these programs to the teacher is far greater than the support the Conservatory and Association are able to offer through the new Fellowship program, but in time we hope that we will be in a position to expand both the number and value of the awards we are able to offer each year.

Who is MCPA‘s New Executive Director? Coming from a stereotypical Hungarian first-generation household, as a child Walter Toth started out playing accordion but, with little advancement, all hopes of a career in music quickly evaporated. With classical music LP’s alternating with Old Time Country music on the family HiFi, nothing solidified musically until years later.

As a youth, a greater interest in how and why things worked than in actually having them work led Walter to the disassembly of several mechanical household and garden devices (family TV and HiFi included). Most were eventually reassembled, although not necessarily for their original purpose. While the inner workings of “why” were answered, there were bigger projects on the horizon than the reassembly of the kitchen clock.

Early on, a myriad of odd jobs allowed Walter both to develop his hoarding skills and to realize how satisfying it can be to support the work of others. Unconsciously, these abilities were honed and ultimately came to be a deciding factor in the selection of

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undergraduate studies. Walter secured a degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Waterloo in 1992. The intent of this degree had less to do with civil works than it did with the profession’s acceptance and respect in a wide range of professional industries and academia—not to mention that the ability to finish studies with an actual professional trade, and thus an income, supported his hoarding habits.

A number of years in municipal land development engineering, followed by an abrupt downturn in the economy, provided the opportunity to pursue an MBA in Real Property at York University which, in turn, led to a specialization in commercial land development. Work with Big Box retailers, institutional and industrial clients, and cemeteries (where the clients were dying for attention) provided the foundation for the application of his combined degrees and a natural tendency toward management of client service teams and, eventually, a corporate office fiscal environment.

“Change” was once again a driver for the move to Halifax. Frequent business trips to the Maritimes kindled a desire to live near the ocean and the lifestyle it offered. Originally from Barrie, Ontario, Walter moved with his wife and daughters from Toronto to Halifax in 2007, where he could soon be found loitering in the Conservatory’s halls. Since then his two daughters have attended Conservatory classes in piano, violin, orchestra, and in ballet and modern dance, all of which brought and kept him in the building on a continual basis.

With the move to Halifax, Walter made another career change—from consulting engineering to domestic. More specifically, he became a “Mr. Mom”. Frequently finding himself defending this most exhausting and demanding career choice, he always adds that it is also the most rewarding.

Still juggling the role of Mr. Mom, Walter was invited to sit on the MCPA Board of Governors and was eventually elected Vice-Chair. As a Board member, he participated in the evaluation of the building and the options that were presented to the Board of either staying in the Chebucto Road location or finding yet another new home. With a firm decision by the Board to make the Chebucto Road school a permanent home, the future will hold a great many tasks that will tap Walter’s academic and professional experience to help move the Conservatory into the new directions held in its future.

In April 2016, Walter resigned as an elected member of the Board of Governors to become the Conservatory’s Executive Director. Walter appreciates the support, enthusiasm, and commitment of the Conservatory Staff, Faculty, Board, and, most importantly, the community, and he looks forward to working behind the scenes to support the home for the stellar programming spearheaded by the Deans of both Music and Dance.

MCPA Association Annual General Meeting We invite you to join us in the Judith Grant Room at the Conservatory at 3 pm on September 25, 2016 for the Association’s AGM. As usual there will be a brief business meeting, the election of new Board members, a performance by one or more students to whom the Association has provided support, and a wine and cheese reception.

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Suzuki Programme at MCPA Shinichi Suzuki (1898-1998) was a Japanese violinist and teacher who wrestled with the question of how to introduce music into the lives of children who had lived through the horrors of war. Struggling to learn a new language, he was struck by the ease with which young children not only learn their own language but others as well. If, Suzuki reasoned, children can learn a second language at an early age, they can also become skilled players of musical instruments.

Suzuki “pioneered the idea that preschool age children could learn to play the violin [or other stringed instrument] if the learning steps were small enough and the instrument was scaled down to fit their body.” He believed that, with good teaching, every child can learn to play a musical instrument well. However Suzuki’s goal was not to create musical prodigies but rather to raise children with "noble hearts".

Under the direction of Christy Hodder, the Suzuki programme at the Conservatory is strong and growing rapidly. This past spring, the NS Suzuki Ensemble (NSSE) presented two big concerts. In late May, at the Bella Rose Theatre, the Ensemble presented over 130 violin players in the grand opening number to a packed audience. Special guests were Dalhousie violin graduate Julie LeBlanc, some of the sea creatures from Quick as a Wink’s production of The Little Mermaid, and dancers from the MCPA professional dance programme.

Early in June the NSSE and the NS Suzuki Youth Ambassadors (the performance group from the NSSE) performed with three-time Canadian Fiddle Champion and North American Fiddle Champion Shane Cook. The concert featured Gaelic song, Celtic fiddle, Highland and step dancing, Gaelic singing, and this year a new addition—Scottish Country Dancing by members of the NSSE. The show began with over 50 players fiddling and dancing at the same time! It was quite a show. In thanking the young players, special guest Sean Cook exclaimed that he had never seen such a group before in all of his travels across North America, saying that he wished he lived in Halifax so that his young son could be part of the programme.

Next year the Youth Ambassadors group has been invited to do an exchange trip with a performance group from New Mexico. The Suzuki programme at the Conservatory will also continue to expand, with cello and flute divisions added. In addition to the four current teachers—Christy Hodder, Megan Boyko, Andre Pretzel, and Carrie VanSlyje—there will be two new cello teachers, Maia Cook and Lyndon Kirkley, and a flute instructor Bebel Ribiero.

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Barbara Dearborn, Dean of Dance I am grateful and honoured to be part of the Conservatory’s School of Dance over the past 32 joyful years. When I joined, Delores D’Entremont was here with a handful of ballroom students. I brought five ballet students, but we were not the trailblazers. The school of dance began in 1947 with the Gotshalks Ballet School that expanded to include ballroom with Gunter Buchta, founder of The Buchta Dancers of Don Messer’s Jubilee. My cousin Sally Brayley Bliss was in the ballet company started by the Gotshalks that eventually joined the emerging National Ballet of Canada. Madame Dambergs with David Latoff, Janice Merritt, and Clair Bader kept the ballet school alive through to my arrival in the early 1980s.

Conservatory director Klaro Mizerit gave me free reign to develop the program. Enrolment increased, we added classes and eventually had sufficient dancers to mount recitals, organize exams, and hire more teachers. Ballroom gave way to modern dance and jazz and, when the wonderful Elena Labartkava from Ukraine joined us, we added a unique character dance program. Eventually she established our conservatory’s fantastic Souvenir Dancers.

In order to give our ballet students the opportunity to participate in the process of creation and performance, I choreographed original children’s ballets that we staged for the community. Working in a professional atmosphere, we mounted outstanding productions and have added several titles to our repertoire. Some of them remain — Sister of the Birds, Sylva Ballet, Alice the Ballet and, most recently, The Happy Prince, which will be presented again on Sunday, November 6 with the MCPA Association as a sponsor.

During my time here I was named Head of the School and eventually Dean of Dance. Our talented students were progressing. They also wanted to continue to work and teach ballet and dance, for which they needed training, but there was none east of Montreal. So we established a post- secondary curriculum that offers the paedagogical knowledge required to teach children safely and effectively. Today our graduates do that throughout Nova Scotia and across Canada.

Traditionally in Nova Scotia our students who dreamed of becoming professional dancers had to live in ballet school in faraway cities, far from their families, friends, and support communities, during their most formative years — junior and senior high school. So in 2001 we initiated a professional ballet program now widely recognized for its excellent training of students in ballet. An extraordinary team of teachers, including Diana Rutherford, Rachael Dyer, Helen Labartkava, and Vino Wijeratne have helped me build this program over the past years. I am profoundly grateful and am sure the students and parents of the program feel the same way.

We have come a long way since 1982 when our school of dance consisted of two teachers, a handful of ballroom dancers, and five ballet students. Our ballet section is strong and deep, but it is only a part of it. There is modern dance, jazz, character, and early childhood movement too. Our teachers and programs provide a rich opportunity for students to explore, experience, and excel in dance—the joyous art form—as we take a leap of faith into an exciting future.

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What Happens at the Conservatory in the Summer? In earlier years, activity at the Conservatory followed the school year; once Convocation was over in June, teachers and students both settled into the “lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.” Change is sometimes good, and things are certainly no longer the same at MCPA. Now there is a full range of summer dance and music instructional programming, and the pace can sometimes verge on the frenetic. All four Conservatory Divisions are running late spring/summer programming in 2016.In May and June, for example, the growing Kindermusik program, headed by Megan Boyko who is also a cello instructor, held a series of classes for children from birth to age 7, with the goal of “a more alive, creative, and able child.”

The Dance Faculty, under the leadership of Dean Barbara Dearborn, is offering a diverse range of summer programs. For the very young, there are two Early Childhood Movement Camps for 3 and 4 year olds who will enjoy a mixture of dance classes and crafts. For slightly older children, four Children’s Dance Camps created to promote a love of dance are scheduled throughout July. And there are also evening ballet classes for teens and adults of various levels—beginner, intermediate, and advanced. In the latter half of August, the Dance Faculty has scheduled the Conservatory Summer Dance Intensive “designed to give serious dance students the opportunity to explore a full program incorporating complimentary dance forms and the finest teachers in those forms.”

The Faculty of Music, with instruction offered by a wide range of teachers including Dean Jennifer Farrell, is also offering a range of programs this summer. For singers aged 16-24 there is an intensive voice workshop. Six to eight year olds can learn to play the mini-clarinet in small group settings. And again this summer MCPA is offering two summer musical theatre workshops for junior and more advanced singing actors “who are serious about developing and refining their audition and performance skills.” For students in junior and senior high school, there is also a Contemporary Vocal Program designed to “help singers build performance confidence while finding their own unique voice.” At the end of the summer a week-long workshop is scheduled in brass instrumental performance for students 8-18 who already have at least one year of experience on their instrument.

Finally, MCPA’s burgeoning Suzuki program, whose Head Teacher is Christy Hodder, is planning a Nova Scotia Summer Suzuki Institute in August. This camp is designed to provide a week of intensive study for families whose children are currently studying violin through the Suzuki method. Unlike most arts programs, parents will be attending classes with their children!

No longer a quiet oasis in July and August, with the major activity a leisurely planning for the fall and winter terms, the summer months at MCPA are now a time of student exuberance and teacher focus. Who could deny that there is such a thing as progress?

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MCPA Association Laing-Porter Founders Scholarship Each year the Association awards about 20 prizes and scholarships to MCPA students, among them the MCPA Association Scholarship. Available to a student in dance or music, this scholarship has long been among the Association’s larger awards.

The Association’s Student Awards Committee periodically reviews our awards program to see if there are adjustments that should be made. This year we considered whether there were individuals important in the history of the Conservatory who have not yet been memorialized by student awards named in their honour. There are many people who deserve such recognition—Portia White, is a prime example—and in time, as finances permit, we look forward to creating new awards in their names. But the most glaring omission is that of the two men who were instrumental in the founding of the Halifax Conservatory, The Rev. Robert Laing and Mr. Charles Henry Porter.

To recognize the historical importance of these two individuals, the MCPA Association Scholarship has been renamed the MCPA Association Laing-Porter Founders Scholarship, and its value has been increased substantially. In the next issue of The Scope, some details of the life and contribution to the Conservatory of the first Director Charles Porter and the first Principal Robert Laing will be featured.

The inaugural winner of the renamed award was exceptionally talented Andrew Son, a piano student of MCPA Faculty member Betty Ro. Andrew, a Halifax Grammar School student, also studies violin with Dalhousie professor Philippe Djokic and is Concertmaster of the Nova Scotia Youth Orchestra. Andrew has also been awarded the Lieutenant Governor's Respectful Citizenship Award.

MCPA Junior Orchestras: The MCPA junior orchestras have grown to over 70 players this year and have started performing in the community with their show Music from Around the

World. Under the direction of Christy Hodder, this group of young players recently played at the Halifax Library as well as the Halifax Commons park this past spring. Their show concluded with a surprise finale number, "Pirates of the Caribbean" thrilling the audiences with two cameo guest appearances by duelling pirates Jeffrey Hale from the MCPA office and the new Executive Director Walter Toth.

The Honourable Lieutenant Governor J.J. Grant and Andrew Son

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Honouree Nominations Sought A lot of effort is required to make the Conservatory the success that it is. The Faculty, Administrative Staff, and members of the MCPA Board all work hard on its behalf. Working beside them for almost a century has been the MCPA Association. Many of our current members have been striving actively for decades on behalf of the Conservatory.

The MCPA Association, in recognition of the exemplary service of its members to the Conservatory has instituted an Honorary Life Membership designation. Honorary members will have normally been active in the work of the Association for at least ten years, and they will have contributed through financial support, service on the Board of the Association, or by providing assistance at Association events.

Each year a call for nominations is issued to Association members to nominate individuals whom they believe are worthy of being acknowledged in this way. Making a nomination is simple: just send a note by September 1st to the President outlining briefly your nominee’s contributions to the Association and the Conservatory, 6199 Chebucto Road, Halifax, NS, B3L 1K7.

In addition to their names being added in perpetuity to the Roll of Honorary Life Members, those selected will be honoured at an Association event such as a dinner or the AGM, will have their names engraved on the Honouree Trophy that is displayed permanently at the Conservatory, and will have a student prize awarded in their name.

Roll of MCPA Association Honorary Life Members Judith Grant (2004), Shirley Blois Lindsay (2004), Carolyn Mossman (2015), Hazel Paul (2004), Lilian Piercey (2004), Carl Potter (2004), Katherine Pye (2012), Marie Himmelman Smyth (2015), Hugh Vincent (2004).

MCPA Association Board of DirectorsExecutive Committee Members-at-LargeDr. Gary Brooks, President Carolyn BirdChantal Williams, Vice-President Margaretta BrownJoan Cunningham, Past President Bill ChaddockVaila Mowat, Recording Secretary Daryl ChaddockCarol von Syberg, Corresponding Secretary June CookAngus Campbell, Treasurer Barbara DearbornMichelle LeClaire, Membership Coordinator Edie Hancock

Mary Ann MercerPatricia Walsh MacNeilFrances RoyleWayne Thompson

Honouree Trophy