WEYBURN – The adjudicators for the piano, vocal and instrumental sections of the Weyburn Rotary Music Festival have been set.
The music festival will run from March 13-23, with the piano competition going from March 13-15 at the T.C. Douglas Centre.
The vocal competition will be held on March 19-21, and the band-instrumental portion will go on March 22-23, both at a number of venues around Weyburn.
The top performers and scholarships will be awarded at the Stars of the Festival on March 29 at 7 p.m. at the Cugnet Centre.
Adjudicating the piano competition will be Sarah Konecsni, a piano and theory teacher who holds an ARCT from the Royal Conservatory of Music, and a Licentiate diploma from Trinity College in London, England.
She has received several awards for piano performance provincially, and was the Young Artist for Western Canada, and performed concerts from B.C., Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
She had a grant in 2003 from the Saskatchewan Arts Board to present seven concerts, and was a winner of the “Call for Compositions” national competition for a piano piece for Canada Music Week in 2009.
The vocal adjudicator is Chris MacRae, who is part of the faculty of the University of Regina, and is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing.
He received a Doctor of Musical Arts in Vocal Performance in 2015, and holds additional degrees in music from McGill University and the University of Calgary.
He made his professional debut with the Calgary Opera in 2000, and has since appeared across Canada and the U.S. in a number of companies.
The instrumental adjudicator is Gilles Turcotte, who currently performs with the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra and other chamber groups, as well as groups like Saskatoon’s Clarinet Choir, North Saskatchewan Wind Orchestra and the newly-formed Saskatchewinds.
He recently retired from a 21-year career with the Saskatchewan Health Authority to devote more time and energy to performing music and instructing clarinetists of all ages.
He directed grade school bands and has served as an adjudicator for the SMFA for a number years, with extensive experience as a clinician and private instructor, offering his services for lessons, sectionals and master classes for the SBA Honour Band, SBA Summer Band Camps and several schools throughout the province.
