Ambrose students, community to benefit from new music academy

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

This fall, the Ambrose University College Music Department will unveil a new program that offers community education in a streamlined format.

The Ambrose Music Academy will provide a strengthened relationship between the school and its surrounding community in Calgary, Alberta, by offering private music instruction in piano, voice, guitar, flute, trumpet, and percussion. Lessons will benefit Calgary-area students by being offered at reasonable rates and times that fit around community school schedules.

The lessons will also benefit Ambrose music students.

Program Chair Don Quantz explained that the Ambrose Music Academy "allows community musicians to take lessons from a qualified instructor who is continuing to develop his or her teaching skills and musical knowledge as a music student and has the support and guidance of the music program faculty. It also allows students opportunities to develop their teaching skills even further. They will receive experience teaching within a supportive, encouraging, professional environment. This will no doubt make them better prepared for future teaching roles."

Music professor Brad Mahon will serve as the academy coordinator, mentoring music students in the art of teaching and connecting their teaching experiences with their own undergraduate classes. He will meet with the student–teachers biweekly, offering "pedagogical instruction and discussing the successes and challenges which arise in the lessons."

Quantz explained the goal of the program.

"The academy will compliment a number of other areas which help to prepare students for careers in performance and teaching, such as piano pedagogy classes, vocal and guitar labs, weekly performance labs, and conducting classes," he said. With Mahon regularly mentoring the student-teachers and Quantz providing administrative support, "the community has the assurance that with the music program as sponsor, the program will insure quality lessons." 

The Ambrose Music Department will add the academy to its community collaboration program, which includes the Jazz Band, Community Singers, and Chamber Orchestra groups.
--Ambrose University College

 

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