2024 ADJUDICATION PANEL
Joel Denton
Mr. Joel L. Denton served as Director of Bands at Ooltewah High School for thirty-seven years. Mr. Denton is a graduate of the University of Tennessee and has completed graduate studies at UT-Chattanooga. Mr. Denton currently serves as an Adjunct Professor of Instrumental Music Education and Conductor of the Wind Ensemble at Lee University. Prior to his retirement in 2018, he was recognized as a CMA Music Teacher of Excellence. At the 2015 Midwest Clinic, Mr. Denton was awarded the John Phillip Sousa Foundation Legion of Honor for his contributions to band. Under his direction, the Ooltewah Band achieved a national reputation for musical excellence including performances in the 2017 Tournament of Roses Parade, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2013 and 2007, and as the only band in the 2011 Disney Christmas Parade on ABC. The Ooltewah Marching Band was a consistent finalist at Bands of America Regional Championships being awarded multiple class championships and placements, and was a national semi-finalist on multiple occasions with several class placements. The Ooltewah Concert Bands performed at the Music for All Southeast Regional Concert Festival in 2016, the TMEA (TN) State Music Conference in 2014 and 2010, the Smoky Mountain Music Festival in 2011(Grand Concert Division Champions), and multiple other states, regional and national events through the years. He served as Chairman of Fine Arts at Ooltewah from 1982 until his retirement and was selected five times as the Ooltewah Teacher of the Year. The Tennessee Governor’s School for the Arts has thrice honored him. His professional affiliations include National Association for Music Education, Tennessee Music Education Association, East Tennessee School Band and Orchestra Association, Phi Beta Mu, National Band Association, American School Band Director Association, and Tennessee Bandmasters Association. Mr. Denton currently serves as the Tennessee State Chair for the National Band Association and is a Past President of the East Tennessee Band and Orchestra Association and the Tennessee Bandmasters Association. He has served as the State Legislative Delegate and Advocacy Chair for Tennessee Music Education Association and served as a member of the Tennessee Department of Education’s Fine Arts Student Growth Committee. He is active as an adjudicator, clinician, and consultant working with Music for All/Bands of America, Drum Corps International, several universities and state organizations, as well as, many high school bands across the nation. Through his corporation Leading the Way, Inc., Mr. Denton presents professional development sessions across the nation and also works with band programs and other organizations on developing leadership and teambuilding skills. Mr. Denton and Kerry, his wife of thirty-nine years, reside in Chattanooga and have two adult children, Alex and Caroline, who are both teachers.
Julie Galorenzo
Julie is an actor and acting/voice coach based in northern New Jersey! She graduated from the prestigious acting program at Marymount Manhattan College in 2005 and lived in NYC for 10 years where she performed in new musicals, readings festivals and, of course, in shows all over the city. A lifelong performer, Julie has been seen on stage everywhere from DC to New Hampshire to all the way out to Idaho and Arizona. If you work for AT&T you may recognize her from your video training materials! Julie runs a premiere College Audition Prep Program helping students all over the world excel in their auditions for Acting & Musical Theatre degree programs.
Ian Parker
Magnetic, easy-going, and delightfully articulate, Canadian pianist/conductor Ian Parker captivates audiences wherever he goes. As a pianist, he has appeared with top Canadian orchestras including the symphonies of Toronto, Quebec, Vancouver, Victoria, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Orchestre Métropolitain, and the Calgary Philharmonic. In the U.S., orchestral highlights include the San Francisco, Cincinnati, National, Santa Barbara, Richmond, and Honolulu symphonies as well as the Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom, to name just a few. During the 2019/20 season, Mr. Parker will make his debuts with the Savannah and Bakersfield symphonies, and will return to the Pensacola and Okanagan symphonies, among others.
In addition to his work at the keyboard, Ian Parker is currently in his second season as music director and principal conductor of the VAM Symphony Orchestra at the Vancouver Academy of Music. Working with some of Canada’s most promising young orchestral players, Mr. Parker programs and conducts four concerts per season in Vancouver’s historic Orpheum Theatre. In July 2020 he will lead the orchestra in a 50th anniversary tour throughout China. He is also artistic director of the Resonate chamber music series at the Kay Meek Centre in North Vancouver.
An enthusiastic recitalist, Mr. Parker has performed across the United States, Europe, Israel, and throughout Canada on tours with Debut Atlantic, Jeunesses Musicales du Canada, and Piano Six. Recital highlights include the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, UCLA, the University of British Columbia, and collaborative performances at the Hawaii International Music Festival and the Morgan Library in New York City.
Mr. Parker’s recordings include a CD with the London Symphony conducted by Michael Francis featuring three piano concertos: Ravel Concerto in G, Stravinsky Capriccio, and Gershwin Concerto in F, released by ATMA Classique, and an all-fantasy solo CD including fantasies of Chopin, Schumann, and Beethoven on Azica Records. Additionally, CBC Records released a recording of three Mozart concertos for one piano (K. 467), two pianos (K. 365), and three pianos (K. 242) featuring Mr. Parker and his two cousins, Jon Kimura Parker and Jamie Parker, with the CBC Radio Orchestra and Mario Bernardi on the podium.
First Prize winner at the 2001 CBC National Radio Competition, Ian Parker has also won the Grand Prize at the Canadian National Music Festival, the Corpus Christie International Competition and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra Competition. At The Juilliard School, he received the 2002 William Petschek Piano Debut Award and, on two occasions, was the winner of the Gina Bachauer Piano Scholarship Competition. Heard regularly on CBC Radio, he has also performed live on WQXR (hosted by Robert Sherman) in New York.
Born in Vancouver to a family of pianists, Mr. Parker began his piano studies at age three with his father, Edward Parker. He holds both the Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from The Juilliard School, where he was a student of Yoheved Kaplinsky. While at Juilliard, he was awarded the Sylva Gelber Career Grant by the Canada Council for the Arts, presented annually to the “most talented Canadian artist.”
“It was a show-stopping performance from Parker and the LPO …”
TIMES-PICAYUNE (New Orleans)
Carol Wong
CAROL WONG enjoys a flourishing career following performances at Carnegie’s Zankel and Weill Halls, the Wednesday at One Series at Alice Tully Hall (New York), the Kennedy Center, the Kreeger Museum (Washington, DC), the California Center for the Arts (San Diego), the Krannert Center (Illinois), the Pro Arte Musical (Puerto Rico), the Gardner Museum (Boston) and live broadcasts on WXQR in NYC, K-Mozart in Los Angeles and on NPR’s Performance Today. Highlights from previous seasons included California’s Herbst Theater (San Francisco), the Lobero Theatre (Santa Barbara), the Annenberg Theater (Palm Springs), the Kravis Center (West Palm Beach) and a special performance for the U.S. Members of Congress under the auspices of Sony Music in Puerto Rico.
Ms. Wong has taught master classes at Orvieto Musica, a music festival in Italy. She was also invited to perform and teach for an underserved community in Hilo, Hawaii. Carol was personally invited by Marilyn Horne to perform in a tour celebrating the famed mezzo-soprano’s 75th birthday. The tour included performances in Italy, Croatia, Greece, and Turkey.
Ms. Wong was awarded the Sing for Hope Grant, an organization that maintains a roster of world-class artists who donate time and talent to the humanitarian causes that inspire them. Carol produced the concert “Songs of Words Left Unsaid”, which was hosted by renowned soprano Susan Graham and featured Metropolitan Opera performers such as soprano Susanna Philips, mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, tenor Joseph Kaiser and baritone Luca Pisaroni. Ms. Wong was one of only 50 people invited to the Arctic Expedition for Climate Action, sponsored by National Geographic, and made into a documentary. Guests included President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalyn; Ted Turner; Madeline Albright; Chevy Chase; Google founder Larry Page. Her tour also included concerts in Leipzig, Germany, Oslo, Norway, Istanbul, Turkey and in Lima, Peru.
Ms. Wong is frequently invited to prestigious music festivals such as the Ravinia Festival where she debuted the premiere Jake Heggie’s “Here and Gone”, the Aspen Music Festival, the Sarasota Music Festival, the Banff Festival, the Vancouver Piano Sessions, the Britten-Pears Festival in England and the Beaux Arts Festival in Fontainebleau, France, where she won the Distinction Award in Piano. A committed teacher, Carol was a senior examiner at the Royal Conservatory of Musicin Toronto and taught at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Ms. Wong grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia and made her concerto debut at age 11 with the Vancouver Philharmonic. She earned her Master of Music degree in Piano Performance from Indiana University under the tutelage of Menahem Pressler. Ms. Wong was granted her Doctor of Music Arts degree in Piano Performance at Rutgers University, and she completed the prestigious Artist Diploma program at The Juilliard School
Sarah Fraser-Raff
Sarah Fraser Raff Sarah is a violinist of the JUNO-nominated Cryptid Ensemble (Classical Album of the Year) and a founding member of the Madawaska String Quartet and Ensemble, established in 2001. She also became the principal violinist of CONTACT Contemporary Music in 2002 and founded the Elmwood String Trio in 2018. Her groups have collaborated with sopranos Adrianne Pieczonka and Measha Brueggergosman, Quatuor Bozzini, clarinetist James Campbell, and pianist Jan Lisiecki and has appeared in Festival of the Sound, Guelph Music Fest, Elora Festival, Toronto International Chamber Music Festival, Open Ears Festival, Ottawa Chamberfest, Toronto Symphony’s New Creations, K-W Chamber Music Society, and 21C at Koerner Hall. Her international appearances include Festival Ibero Americano (Puerto Rico), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Huddersfield New Music Festival (UK), Bang on a Can (New York), Museum of Modern Art, Experimental Media and Performing Arts Centre (EMPAC), Massachusetts Museum of Modern Art (MassMoCA) LOUD weekend, and Ecstatic Music Festival at Columbia University (New York), and has collaborated in numerous recordings including the Juno-winning classical composition of the year Bestiary I & II by Bekah Simms and soundtrack for a film by Atom Egoyan. Madawaska Quartet has premiered over 30 works and presented workshops for composers at University of Toronto, York University, Music Gallery, Array New Music Centre, Canadian Music Centre, Canadian Contemporary Music Workshop, and Guild of Canadian Film Composers. Sarah received her formative musical training in Japan. Studying under the founding member of the internationally acclaimed Tokyo String Quartet Koichiro Harada, she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Music Performance from the prestigious Toho Gakuen Music School in Tokyo. She moved to Toronto to continue her studies with the late Lorand Fenyves. She went on to attain a Master of Music in Performance from University of Toronto and an Artist Diploma from the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory. Upon graduation, Sarah joined the Royal Conservatory violin faculty. Her students have been accepted into Interlochen Centre for the Arts Summer Music Program (U.S.), Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra, University of Toronto Music Performance, Wilfrid Laurier University, York University. Her students also participate in all levels of the Royal Conservatory Certificate Program, successfully completing examinations, including gold and silver medal winners. Sarah also coaches chamber music at The Phil and Eli Taylor Performance Academy for Young Artists and was a chamber coach for University of Toronto Scarborough, Kinkardine and Port Milford summer schools. As a freelancer, she has performed with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Canadian Opera Company, National Ballet of Canada, Tapestry New Opera, Arraymusic, Soundstreams Canada, Esprit Orchestra, and various stage musical productions. She has shared the stage with Jay-Z, Mary J Blige, Rod Stewart, Sarah Slean, and Seal. She has also appeared in music videos for K-OS and Blue Rodeo.
Valdine Mishkin
Canadian Cellist Valdine Ritchie Mishkin is a diverse musician, recognized as a gifted cello teacher and an avid solo, chamber, and orchestral musician. Valdine champions contemporary music with Third Angle, Fear No Music, and March Modern, as featured live on All-Classical FM Portland’s Club Mod and Thursdays at Three. A chamber music enthusiast, she performs Latin-American music as Duo Apaixionado with Peruvian guitarist Alfredo Muro, performs “the classics” with the passionate Crescendo Project, and collaborates in faculty recitals at Willamette University and with pianists Maria Garcia and Steve Lewis. She recently launched the Valley View Chamber Concerts series that hosts soloists and chamber ensembles in intimate salon-style house recitals paired with themed food and wine. Valdine is a regular extra cellist with the Oregon Symphony, sectional coach with the Portland Youth Philharmonic, and formerly performed with the Houston Grand Opera and Mercury Baroque Ensemble. Debuting at age 10 as a soloist with the Winnipeg Symphony, Valdine has since performed concerti with the Mercury Ensemble, Chehalem Symphony, Chamber Camp of Portland, McGill Symphony, the Winnipeg Youth Symphony, and with the Sunnyside Symphony.
Equally dedicated to teaching the youngest students in early education as well as training advanced cellists, Valdine serves on the faculty at Reed College (previously at Willamette University and George Fox University), teaches a bustling studio of cellists in West Linn, and as faculty at the Walla Walla Suzuki Institute. Her students are frequent solo competition winners and scholarship recipients, earn distinction awards in ABRSM exams, sit principal in area youth orchestras, and attend nationally-recognized summer programs such as BUTI at Tanglewood and Center Stage. Committed to reaching the next generation of musicians, she presents at conferences, adjudicates regional and national festivals, and serves on the boards of Third Angle New Music and the Portland Boychoir.
Valdine holds a Doctorate and Masters in Music from Rice University as a student of Lynn Harrell and Norman Fischer, a Bachelor of Music from McGill University (Montreal, Canada) as a student of Antonio Lysy, and holds both performance diplomas (A.R.C.T.) and teaching certificates in cello and piano from the Royal Conservatory of Toronto as a student of Julie Banton and Ann Lugsdin (Winnipeg). Performing across Canada, U.S.A. and Europe, Valdine’s development was shaped by such festivals as Tanglewood, Orford, Banff Centre for the Arts, Canada’s National Music Competition Festival (3rd prize winner), and Schleswig-Holstein Orchestra Academy, by masterclasses with Janos Starker, Aldo Parisot, Zara Nelsova, David Finckel, the Juilliard Quartet, and Arnold Steinhardt, and under the baton of Seiji Ozawa, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Larry Rachleff and Timothy Vernon.
John Meehan
John Meehan currently works for the Calgary Stampede Foundation, where he is the Director of the Stampede Showband, as well as oversees the Stampede Showriders (a group of 10-14 young equestrians) and the Band of Outriders (an all-age musical group). John is also actively involved in the Bands of Calgary, acting as a consultant for the Calgary Round-Up Band, and as the wind arranger for the Calgary Stetson Show Band.
John is also on the design staff of the Blue Devils Drum & Bugle Corps, where he works with Dave Glyde designing the Blue Devils show and is the brass arranger for the B & C Corps. Previously, John had held several other positions spanning over 3 decades with BD Performing Arts, most recently as Director of Community Arts Programs and Composer in Residence/Associate Conductor for the Diablo Wind Symphony.
John has been composing and arranging for marching bands around the world since 1992, and is a world-renowned clinician on brass pedagogy, ensemble technique, and performance excellence. John’s current and past clients can be found in Canada, the United States, Brazil, China, England, Ireland, and Japan.
Some of John’s “non-pageantry” writing includes composing for “The Music of WYLAND” CD, scoring scenes for several student and independent films, composing two spots for Kaiser Permanente, and being commissioned to write several wind ensemble pieces.
John was inducted into the Drum Corps International Hall of Fame in 2019, the World Drum Corps Hall of Fame in 2019, and the Buglers Hall of the Fame in 2016.
Notable career achievements include lead designer for both the System Blue and King marching brass instrument series, development and production for the Sample Logic and System Blue sound libraries (including Fanfare and V.E.T.), being a nationally recognized adjudicator for marching band circuits such as Bands of America, and as a performer on the movie soundtrack “Monsters University” as a percussionist.
John lives in Calgary, Alberta with his incredibly supportive wife Jackie, and they have 3 daughters, and two rescue dogs.
Erin Fung
Praised for her “liquid tone,… superb clarity” and “beautifully controlled” sound, Erin Fung has established herself as one of the most sought after clarinetists in North America, and has performed with the Cincinnati, Atlanta, Boston, Indianapolis, Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Victoria, and Winnipeg Symphony Orchestras, among others. Erin previously held tenured positions as Second/Bass Clarinetist of the Vancouver Opera, and Principal Clarinetist of the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra, and was the Acting Principal Clarinetist of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra from Janunary –June of 2023. Currently, she performs as Acting Principal of the Lexington Philharmonic in Kentucky, and freelances in the Midwest.
An avid chamber musician and soloist, Erin has performed with the Turning Point Ensemble on tour across Canada, in Japan with the WindRose Trio, and with the Project Muse ensemble touring throughout communities in Southern Alberta. She was also a member of the Prevailing Winds woodwind quintet in Calgary, and was a founding member of alta:nova, an innovative group focused on performing and commissioning new music, and shifting the paradigm of the classical music experience. She has premiered works by Thomas Ades, Nico Muhly, Shawn Okpebholo, Meilina Tsui, Alexina Louie, Anthony Tan, and Ana Sokolovic, among others. Erin is constantly searching for meaningful contexts for 21st century music, and finding ways to offer the emotional and compelling experience of music to new audiences.
Also a passionate advocate for music education, Erin maintains a private clarinet studio, and previously taught as the Adjunct Professor of Clarinet at Xavier University, and the University of Lethbridge. She has given masterclasses and taught at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, McGill University, Mount Royal University, and the University of Calgary. In addition, she served as Project Director for MusAid, a non-profit organization dedicated to collecting instrument donations and coordinating volunteer music teachers for youth in developing countries. In Calgary, Erin also volunteered teaching music classes to children at the Inn from the Cold shelter, and helped to launch and develop curriculum for the Calgary Philharmonic’s el sistema inspired music program, PhilharmoniKids, serving underprivileged children in the city. Through these experiences, Erin developed her core belief that sharing and learning through the arts brings great pleasure, deepens societal and personal development, and builds stronger, healthier communities.
Erin’s artistic projects have focused on racial justice, and center inclusion and diversity. Prior to leaving Alberta, Erin organized the first Holocaust Memorial Concert in Calgary in 2016, a fundraiser for the Dachau Concentration Camp Museum. More recently, her 2021 project, Isolation Commissions: The Past We Step Into, came as a response to the rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans following the COVID-19 pandemic, and was inspired by the Black Lives Matters movement and Amanda Gorman’s inaugural poem, The Hill We Climb. In 2022, she collaborated with Sahtu Dene videographer Tate Juniper to create a multidisciplinary installation project, Regeneration, featured at the Cincinnati Museum Center. This project, supported by an ArtsWave Truth and Reconciliation grant, addressed the link between climate change and ethane extraction in the Ohio River Valley, and its global impact extending to Northern regions of Canada, highlighting the systemic inequality and racism experienced by First Nations communities.
Erin’s teachers and mentors include Richie Hawley, Joaquin Valdepenas, Burt Hara, Ted Oien, and Michael Wayne. She holds a Master of Music degree from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music, and was a Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center, the National Repertory Orchestra, the Banff Centre, and 2nd/Eb Clarinet Fellow at the Aspen Music Festival. Erin’s work has been generously funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Alberta Arts Council, the Juno Microgrants, and ArtsWave.
As an artist, Erin is guided by the belief that the creation of new music and artistic experiences can bear witness to injustice, lay groundwork for empathy, and serve as a call to action. Erin acknowledges her home in Cincinnati rests on the stolen and unceded ancestral territories of the Hopewell, Adena, Miami, Shawnee, and Osage peoples, and is committed to collaborating with artists and musicians of all backgrounds.
Vicki Goodfellow-Duke
“I’m incredibly grateful to have the opportunity to adjudicate Speech and Drama classes at the Calgary Performing Arts Festival; the festival has been an important part of my life and my growth as a performer since the age of six. I am a firm believer in the life-changing lessons offered to young performers through the festival experience.”
Vicki is a former student of Dr. Leona Paterson. She began teaching at the MRU Conservatory where she witnessed the fruits of a Speech education in young performers. Through exploration of classical and contemporary literature, poetry, mime, voice work, acting and public speaking – students excelled not only in the art of oral communication, but in social skills, confidence and self-expression. The benefits were evident both for students pursuing an artistic path and those pursuing careers in STEM, law or other industries. Aware of the immense impact a Speech education could make, Vicki began teaching students of all ages to use their voices to make an impact on the world. Vicki is currently Assistant Professor and Speech Program Head in the School of Communications at Mount Royal University, Calgary. She is Director of Outspoken Communications: The Public Speaking Experts, a consulting firm – and has extensive experience in both corporate training and personal coaching. Vicki holds a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy, (UC) an Associate and a Licentiate in Speech Communications and a Fellow in Education Studies (Persuasive Communications) from Trinity-Guildhall, London, UK.
Vicki has given numerous workshops, adjudicated across Canada and the US and is a sought-after seminar leader and coach. Vicki is the recipient of numerous national and international awards for her writing and is the author of two public speaking textbooks: GAB LAB: the playbook of public speaking prowess through everyday conversation and Street-Smart Persuasion: A Speaker’s Guide to Socratic Design.
ANNA PIETRZAK
A multi-faceted musician, Anna is a versatile guitarist, recording artist, pedagogue, adjudicator, artistic director of GITAROMANIA – a Guitar Festival and Competition held in Poland, and now founder of the Vancouver Guitar Orchestra.
Anna is a laureate of over a dozen guitar competitions in Europe. She has performed in solo recitals and as soloist with chamber music ensembles and orchestras throughout Poland, Austria, China, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Spain, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, and Slovakia. In 2017 she made her Canadian debut with the Toronto Concert Orchestra under the baton of Kerry Stratton.
She received her PhD from the Academy of Music in Wroclaw in Poland, where she studied with Professor Piotr Zaleski. Anna’s musical education also includes a graduate degree from the Conservatory of Music in Piraeus, Greece, in the guitar program of Costas Cotsiolis.
She has released three albums, all of which received positive reviews from the press.
Anna Pietrzak teaches students of all ages, from beginner to university and postgraduate levels. Because of her vast experience and inspiration her students are laureates of national and international guitar competitions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvwVS_UtEfg
Elroy Friesen
Described as “innovative, expressive, and dynamic,” Dr. Elroy Friesen is Director of Choral Studies at the University of Manitoba, where he conducts numerous choirs and teaches graduate conducting.
His award-winning ensembles tour nationally and internationally and are frequently recorded and broadcasted by the CBC. The ensembles enjoy collaborating with many outstanding local and national arts organizations, including the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Canadian College of Organists, WSO New Music Festival, Soundstreams Canada, Groundswell, Vancouver Chamber Choir, Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, and the Canadian Chamber Choir. He has appeared as guest conductor with the Winnipeg Symphony and the National Arts Centre Orchestras.
Friesen is in demand as a clinician, adjudicator, and conductor throughout North America and Northern Europe. Having published his research on the choral music of Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara, Friesen continues to pursue his passion of study and performance of new Nordic repertoire – especially new Canadian works.