November 16, 2005 -

OTTAWA, CANADA -- Over a three-year period beginning in January 2006, three teaching musicians in Alberta will lead music classes for students in Grades 4-6, as well as clinics for elementary school teachers, thanks to the National Arts Centre’s new Music Ambassador Program.

The new music education program will target a total of 300 elementary schools in mainly rural areas in both Alberta and Saskatchewan over the next three years. Three other teaching musicians in Saskatchewan will run the program in that province.

 “This program is about the NAC’s long-term commitment to supporting music education in Canadian schools,” said Claire Speed, the NAC’s director of music education. “The teaching musicians are all superb orchestral players and enthusiastic educators who are so looking forward to making classical music accessible to young people in schools throughout Alberta and Saskatchewan.”

The teaching musicians will use a teacher resource kit called Vivaldi and the Four Seasons that the NAC developed with curriculum experts and distributed to every elementary school in Alberta and Saskatchewan. The NAC also distributed instructional resource units designed by University of Alberta’s Dr. Robert de Frece, a professor of music and music education, and Janie Fries, a teacher who has been actively involved with the recent renewal of Saskatchewan’s arts education curriculum.

All three Alberta teaching musicians have strong ties to the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, ensuring the Music Ambassador Program will have strong links with those orchestras and their music education programs. Each musician will meet with orchestra management to hear directly about how they might connect the orchestras in their teaching.

Rosemarie Siever, one of three teaching musicians hired for the Music Ambassador Program in Calgary, thanked the NAC for encouraging children to take an interest in their local orchestras and music in general.

“Whether or not the students are contemplating becoming musicians, it’s just so important to allow children to be creative and to express themselves through music” she said.             

The Alberta teaching musicians, who each have an impressive range of musical and educational experience, are:

• Jan Amsel, first violin in the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra. Amsel teaches violin at Mount Royal College Conservatory, is the creator of the “Saturday Morning at the Symphony” program for the CPO, and is a long-time member of the CPO’s outreach and education committee.

• Samantha Whelan, second trumpet in the Red Deer Symphony and extra musician with the CPO. Whelan teaches with Arts Smarts and CAPES, both artist residency programs in Calgary schools, teaches privately in Alberta, has been an artist-in- residence at The Banff Centre and writes children’s stories that are set to music.

• Rosemarie Siever, an Edmonton saxophonist. Siever is an extra musician with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, plays and sings back-up vocals with the Retrofitz (soul/disco music at www.retrofitz.ca), performs with the 'studio b quartet,' teaches privately and in schools, and has taught at Augustana University College and MusiCamrose summer camp. Siever has recorded with the CBC and is fluent in French.

The National Arts Centre plays a national role in education and community outreach, and in the use of new technology to reach Canadians from coast to coast. The NAC Orchestra’s performance and education tour of Alberta and Saskatchewan, taking place from Nov. 7-19, includes over 90 educational events.

The tour will see orchestra members visit Regina, Melville, Prince Albert, Humboldt and Saskatoon, SK. Alberta events include stops in Grande Prairie, Medicine Hat, Calgary, Edmonton, Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, Banff, Red Deer and Lethbridge.

The National Arts Centre gratefully acknowledges the generous support of Agrium, EPCOR, Marjorie Goodrich, Barbara and John Poole, RBC Financial Group and contributors to the National Youth and Education Trust for making the Music Ambassador Programme possible.

The NAC Orchestra Alberta-Saskatchewan Tour is supported by Alberta Presenting Sponsor EPCOR and Saskatchewan Presenting Sponsor CN, with additional Major Support in Alberta from CN.  Bell is the Technology Sponsor in Alberta. The Tour’s Education Sponsors are ConocoPhillips in Alberta and SaskEnergy in Saskatchewan. True Energy Inc. is the Saskatchewan Community Sponsor. Special funding for the Tour’s education programs is provided by Education Donor CIBC, National Arts Centre Friends – Alberta and donors to the NAC’s National Youth and Education Trust. The National Post is the Tour’s National Media Partner.

Special thanks to the Interdepartmental Partnership with the Official-Language Communities, St. John’s Music Ltd., Yamaha Canada Music Ltd. and supporters of the National Youth and Education Trust.

Follow the tour online at www.artsalive.ca.

For more information, contact:
Mary Gordon
Communications Advisor
National Arts Centre
Cell. (613) 614-3877

Jane Morris
Communications Officer (on tour)
National Arts Centre Orchestra
Cell. (613) 302-0727