WOODSTOCK ROTARY FESTIVAL OF MUSIC
Joanne Bender
Preparatory A & B
Level 1 & 2 Piano
Joanne (Elligsen) Bender was born and raised on a farm near Stratford, where her church choir, school band and community dances, along with her music-loving family, helped to shape her musical career.
While studying science at University of Waterloo, she kept up her private piano studies with Erhard Schlenker and completed her ARCT in piano performance, along with B.Sc and M.Sc. degrees in Biology. Her musical journey took her to Vienna where she studied with Vienna Academy teacher, Dieter Weber. Years later, after moving to the USA with her husband John to pursue his naturopathic studies and raising four children, Joanne followed her love of music and completed her B.Mus. in composition at Wilfrid Laurier University and her M.Mus in composition at University of Toronto. She has taught hundreds of very successful piano students and has composed many pieces, some of which appear in the Royal Conservatory of Music Piano series. Joanne is a member of Red Leaf Pianoworks and an active supporter of the KW Kiwanis Music Festival and the KW Symphony. She enjoys grandparenting and travelling along with performing as piano soloist and chamber musician. www.joannebender.com
Joanne Bender M.Mus., B.Mus., ARCT, M.Sc., B.Sc.
Joanne (Elligsen) Bender has been playing piano since the age of 7. She grew up near Stratford and participated in the Stratford Kiwanis Music Festival. Being part of a musical family gave Joanne plenty of experience performing as soloist and collaborative artist in school, community and church events.
At University of Waterloo from 1969-74, Joanne studied science in preparation for a teaching career. During this time she continued piano lessons privately with Erhard Schlenker in Kitchener. She completed her ARCT in Piano Performance as well as her B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees. She was a frequent award winner at the KW Kiwanis Festival, a well-known pianist at U. of Waterloo, and appeared as soloist with the KW Junior Symphony conducted by Raffi Armenian. In 1974 she studied piano privately in Vienna, Austria with Dieter Weber, a teacher in the Vienna Academy. This was a life-changing experience for Joanne. Vienna, the city of music, became an inspiration to pursue a musical career.
Following her marriage to John Bender, and while raising their four children, Joanne expanded her piano teaching studio. In order to strengthen her musical education, she did a B. Mus. degree at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo and completed her M. Mus. at U. of Toronto in composition. Her teachers included Glenn Buhr, Peter Hatch, Christos Hatzis, Gary Kulesha and Chan Ka Nin.
Joanne is passionate about music. She is a full-time private teacher of piano, rudiments and composition in her Waterloo studio, with many talented students from beginners to advanced. Her students are frequent award winners at local and provincial competitions. She is involved in KW Kiwanis Music Festival, KW Symphony Love of Music Marathon, and KW ORMTA. She performs as a chamber musician in local concerts, and is a volunteer church musician. Her compositions for piano appear in the RCM Piano Odyssey series and CNCM Northern Lights series. She has also composed children’s musicals, a chamber opera, a cantata and several piano trios. Joanne is a winner of the NUMUS composition competition, the John Weinzweig composition scholarship and the CFMTA Call for Compositions 2010.
Nicky McGrath
Musical Theatre
Nicky McGrath (MMusS, BCI) is a vocal pedagogue and performer specialising in popular musics and musical theatre with a passion for barbershop harmony. Nicky holds a Master of Music Studies (Vocal Pedagogy) with distinction from the Queensland Conservatorium (Australia), a Bachelor of Entertainment Industries (QUT, Australia), is a certified NLP Practitioner, vocal health specialist, and NATS Intern 2022 alumnus. Her teaching philosophy is equal parts joy and science, grounded in free, efficient, sustainable voice use. Nicky works with healthy and injured voices in her private voice studio, is a Professor of Voice with Sheridan College (Canada) as part of their industry-leading musical theatre degree, and is the founder of The Singers' Circle, an online community for passionate singers to further their voice education. In the barbershop world, Nicky is a sought-after coach, learning track producer, and Dean of the Voice College for Harmony University.
Charlene Pauls
Vocal & Choirs
DR. CHARLENE PAULS has enjoyed a long and varied musical career, as a choral conductor, vocal soloist, clinician, adjudicator, arts administrator, academic, and pedagogue. Drawing on this extensive experience and training, Dr. Pauls’ approach focuses on developing a beautiful and well-crafted choral sound through a deep understanding of healthy vocal technique.
Dr. Pauls has appeared as a Soprano soloist on concert stages across Canada and internationally in Germany, England, France and Spain, under the baton of conductors such as Robert Shaw, Bramwell Tovey, and Helmuth Rilling. Drawing inspiration from these and many others, she has developed a collaborative leadership approach which she has further honed conducting community, university, youth, and church choirs. Successful performances at national and international conferences and competitions, including recent appearances at “Podium” and the World Choir Games, are a testament to the effectiveness of her approach.
This life-long commitment to learning gives Dr. Pauls capacity and capability across a broad swath of the musical canon. Although her formal training includes concentrations in Early Music and a dissertation on Bach, she is well-versed in opera, oratorio, song repertoire as well as musical theatre. Dr. Pauls has also been a proponent of contemporary compositions, and has been involved in numerous commissions focusing on Canadian composers.
Dr. Pauls has long been an advocate of building community music, with church programs (currently as Music Director at the Church of the Incarnation in Oakville, Ontario) and also youth choirs (currently as Associate Director of the Oakville Choir for Children and Youth). A recent initiative called the Mosaic Music Collective was established to use music to create connections between recent newcomers and their new communities.
This life-long commitment to learning gives Dr. Pauls capacity and capability across a broad swath of the musical canon. Although her formal training includes concentrations in Early Music and a dissertation on Bach, she is well-versed in opera, oratorio, song repertoire as well as musical theatre. Dr. Pauls has also been a proponent of contemporary compositions, and has been involved in numerous commissions focusing on Canadian composers.
Dr. Pauls has long been an advocate of building community music, with church programs (currently as Music Director at the Church of the Incarnation in Oakville, Ontario) and also youth choirs (currently as Associate Director of the Oakville Choir for Children and Youth). A recent initiative called the Mosaic Music Collective was established to use music to create connections between recent newcomers and their new communities.​
In 2018, she was awarded the prestigious Leslie Bell Award, which "recognizes excellence in emerging conductors".​
Dr. Pauls has been the Artistic Director of the award-winning Guelph Chamber Choir since 2019. This organization has been a stalwart of the Canadian choral scene for more than forty years, presenting a four-concert main season including the highly-anticipated period performance of The Messiah each Christmas.
Francine Regaudie-McIsaac is a member of the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM) College of Examiners in both piano and theory. She’s been teaching for over 40 years (started as a teenager) and enjoys teaching students of all ages and levels.
Music is her passion and she tries to instill this love to her students. To her it’s not about producing concert pianists but developing a life-long love of playing the piano.
Francine has been a member of the The Royal Conservatory’s College of Examiners (piano and theory) since 1992 and of ORMTA Hamilton-Halton since 1989. A native of northern Ontario, she has been teaching in the Hamilton area since 1986 and has 40+ years of teaching experience.
She is a certified teacher with RCM in Advanced Piano, Advanced Harmony (includes Analysis) and Advanced History. She also teaches Piano Pedagogy.
She holds an Honours Bachelor of Music (McMaster) and a Master of Arts in Musicology (UBC). She enjoys teaching students of all ages, and is committed to promoting the benefits of music education.
Francine Regaudie-McIsaac
Junior/Intermediate/Senior Piano
Jeffrey Reynolds
Bands
Jeff Reynolds is an Associate Professor, teaching stream in Trumpet and Conducting. He served for 5 years as Co-ordinator of the Performance Division and Faculty Advisor for the Advanced Certificate programme. Over his 30 plus years at the Faculty of Music he has taught undergraduate courses in instrumental education, chamber music, jazz education and jazz history, and conducting the Wind Symphony for the past 20 years. He maintains a trumpet studio and has appeared as a trumpet player with various orchestras and chamber ensembles, and as a soloist. He has been a member of the Victoria Symphony, the Calgary Philharmonic, the Orchestra of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and the Hamilton Philharmonic. His trumpet studies were with Arnold Jacobs, Vincent Cichovicz, Boyd Hood and Ward Cole. Dr. Reynolds adjudicates at festivals across Canada, appears as a guest conductor and clinician and for many years was the instructor of trumpet at the National Music Camp of Canada. Recent publications include a pedagogy book in the Dummies series, Trumpet for Dummies, and The Royal Conservatory Repertoire Series for Trumpet, which he co-edited with Dr. Gillian MacKay. His articles appear in such journals as Canadian Winds, The Recorder, and the Journal of Aesthetic Education. After degrees in philosophy and music he received his doctorate from the University of Toronto in the philosophy of music education, with a focus on creativity in performance and pedagogy.
MARK Thompson
Winds
MARK THOMPSON is a passionate music educator dedicated to promoting growth in individual artistic endeavours. Achieving communication with performers and facilitating artistic growth in the individual are his lifelong goals. He is in demand throughout North America as a clinician and adjudicator, including the Glenn Gould Professional School.He has adjudicated woodwind,brass and chamber music at many festivals across Canada and the United States, including provincial finals in Ontario, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and British Columbia as well as the MTNA National finals in New York City. He has adjudicated over 75 music festivals the past 11 years. Mark Thompson studied at The University of Toronto, Indiana University, and The Mannes College of Music in New York. In 1994, he became the first Canadian clarinetist to win first prize in the Artists' International Competition subsequently giving his New York debut at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. Since then, he has enjoyed a diverse musical career spanning from recording for the CBC and BBC to being heard on various jingles and the Disney Channel. Since 1996, he has been Artistic Director of Clearly Classic Concerts in Dundas, Ontario in the capacity as conductor,performer and developer of numerous projects,including Nimmons 'n Braid, and Marjan Mozetichs' 'Angels in Flight'. The Clearly Classic Education programs that he founded have brought classical and jazz music to hundreds of children in the Greater Toronto area.He created one of the first joint music and art programs in the Toronto area recently.He has performed with many of Canada's orchestras, including the Toronto Symphony and has performed and toured with internationally known ensembles Quartetto Gelato and The Penderecki String Quartet. He has performed at the Arizona Music Festival and also performed as soloist with the Sioux City Iowa Symphony with conductor Ryan Haskins. His CD release 'Blue Skies' with pianist Susan Lee has been heard extensively on CBC and National Public Radio. As a teacher several of his students have become RCM Gold medal winners. As senior examiner for the Royal Conservatory he has been involved in conducting evaluations in both Canada and the United States. He has also served as a mentor to apprentice examiners. Recently he mentored apprentices and conducted evaluations in Los Angeles.