Renowned composer, educator Dr. Andrew Staniland named 2015 Distinguished Alumnus of the Year

trevor.kenney — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 16:16:50 +0000

Renowned as a rising star in both the worlds of music and academia, ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge alumnus Dr. Andrew Staniland (BMus ’00) has been named the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Alumni Association’s 2015 Distinguished Alumnus of the Year.

Dr. Andrew Staniland, currently a professor of music at Memorial ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Newfoundland (MUN), has been on the fast track of Canada’s music scene from the day he graduated from the U of L.

“We’re thrilled to be able to recognize the impact that Andrew has made on the music world and as an educator with the Distinguished Alumnus of the Year award,” says Randy Kobbert (BMgt ’86), president of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Alumni Association. “In just a few short years since graduating from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, he has carved out a very impressive career and is sought after as one of Canada’s truly elite composers. That he found his passion here at the U of L and it served as a launching pad for his professional aspirations speaks to his educational experience and the opportunities it allowed him to pursue.”

Staniland, currently a professor of music at Memorial ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Newfoundland (MUN), has been on the fast track of Canada’s music scene from the day he graduated from the U of L. During his master’s studies at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Toronto, his compositions were already attracting attention and requests for commissions began to pile up.

His compositions have received numerous awards and accolades. In 2009, he won the National Grand Prize of the CBC Composers Competition. In 2014, he received the Harry Freedman Recording Award and was elected to the inaugural cohort of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists Royal Society of Canada.

“I’m in the enviable position of being able to pick and choose projects that interest me,” says Staniland, who has been booked solid with commissions since 2002.

Unlike many contemporary Canadian composers whose works are performed once and then languish in obscurity, Staniland has amassed more than 100 national and international performances of his work and been chosen to represent Canada at prestigious festivals in Poland, France and Hong Kong. The fact that his works, whether electronic, chamber, vocal or orchestral, have received multiple performances and broadcasts is a true testament to the musicality and broad appeal of his compositions.

“In my experience, love and passion for creativity are totally contagious, as is the pursuit of musical mastery,” he says. “I was moved and inspired by my teachers who had these traits, and I now have the privilege of inspiring others the same way, through my music and my teaching.”

A well-respected professor of music at MUN, Staniland’s creative activities earned him the President’s Award for Outstanding Research in 2014.

Staniland is currently working on a song cycle for the Brooklyn Art Song Society, which will premiere in New York next year and tour across Canada in 2016 and 2017.

Andrew Staniland will be recognized for his outstanding professional accomplishments at the Fall 2015 Convocation ceremony on Saturday, October 17, 2015. A concert featuring a selection of Dr. Staniland’s work will be performed by faculty from the U of L’s Department of Music on Friday, October 16 at 7 p.m. Tickets are free and can be reserved through the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Box Office online at ulethbridge.ca/tickets or by phone at 403-329-2616.

Campus Kudos

trevor.kenney — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:08:34 +0000

Dr. Ed Jurkowski (Music) and Dr. Deanna Oye (Music) co-presented a paper in July entitled, Interpreting the Music of György Kurtág, at the annual meeting of the International Musicological Society in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Dr. David Townsend (Education) and Dr. Pamela Adams (Education) released their book, The Essential Equation, A Handbook for School Improvement. Through case studies, research and best-practice information, the book is designed to help educators learn more about school improvement and the challenges facing educators today.

David Barrus has been accepted as the first MFA Dramatic Arts student and is specializing in scenic design for theatre, which also makes him the first recipient of the John Farwell Memorial Award.

Don Gill (Art) and dancer Sarah Williams (formerly of La La La Human Steps) are featured in a collaborative video-installation exhibition, The New Flâneurs: Contemporary Urban Practice and the Picturesque, running Sept. 5 through Dec. 13 in the RBC New Works Gallery in the Art Gallery of Alberta in Edmonton.

Soprano Audrina Poepping-Steciw (BMus '09) placed first in the Provincial National Voice Class in the Kiwanis Music Festival in Edmonton this spring and represented Alberta in the National Class at the competition in Saskatoon in August.

Dr. Arlan Schultz (Music) returned from a summer residency at the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts at UC San Diego in La Jolla, California. Schultz was engaged in research at CRCA's large-speaker array audio spatialization lab.

James Graham's (New Media) installation, Unforgivable, used many commonly available commercial products – and specifically those of the French cosmetic giant L'Oreal – to draw connections back to their French fascist and anti-Semitic origins. Displayed in the SAAG storefront gallery during August, the exhibition examined the troubled history of Vichy, France.

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge will receive a 2009 Allied Arts Council Award for Excellence (AACE) at the Mayor's Luncheon for Business and the Arts on Sept. 10.

Michael Campbell's (Art) exhibition, Field Recordings of Icebergs Melting, toured over the summer to the Tom Thomson Art Gallery in Owen Sound, Ont. and then to the Esplanade Gallery in Medicine Hat. A version of this exhibition appeared at the Nanaimo Art Gallery in June.

Dana Inkster (New Media) has received generous support from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts for her new production, Ladies of the Saturday Night, a short documentary about lives lived in the sex trade in Alberta boomtowns. The production is slated for completion by fall 2010.

The Contemporary Works Jazz Orchestra, directed by Dr. David Renter (Music) and including ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ and community musicians performed at the first incarnation of the Medicine Hat Jazz Festival in Lethbridge in June. ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ musicians included student Brad Brouwer, Ryan Heseltine (BMus/Ed '04), Don Robb (former U of L Jazz Ensemble conductor), Nick Sullivan (Music) and Ed Wasiak (Music Education)

Bobbi-Lee Copeland (BA '05), who has been working as an adult literacy instructor for the Lillooet Area Library Association, has been accepted to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Saskatchewan Indigenous Education Master's Program.

Dr. David Renter (Music) has been invited to participate in the 2009 Chiayi City International Band Festival in Chiayi City, Taiwan in December 2009. Renter will perform with an Afro-Cuban Jazz group from Indianapolis, Indiana.

Andrew Staniland (BMus '00, Great Distinction) who completed his PhD in composition at ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Toronto in 2008, went on to win the grand prize in CBC's National Evolution Composers Competition in March 2009. Staniland has accepted a tenure-track appointment in composition at Memorial ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Newfoundland, starting in January 2010.

UNews - Memorial ��Ѹ�����Դ���߿�Ƭ of Newfoundland

Renowned composer, educator Dr. Andrew Staniland named 2015 Distinguished Alumnus of the Year

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