2026 Adjudicators
Tina Alexander-Luna- Choral & Vocal
Canadian Mezzo-soprano, Dr. Tina Alexander-Luna is a singer and teaching-artist known for her versatility. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Voice Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on the art songs of Canadian composer, Violet Archer, and the important role Archer played as a female composer in Canada during the twentieth century.
Equally at home in Opera, Concert, Contemporary Commercial Music (CCM), and Choral settings, Dr. Alexander-Luna has performed extensively across Canada in these realms.
As a musician with a passion for community, Dr. Alexander-Luna most recently taught as a tenured faculty member at Northwestern Polytechnic, where she had a thriving voice studio and was co-founder and artistic director of the Peace Region Music Series, a concert series aimed at making professional live classical music more accessible in and around Northern Alberta. Dr. Alexander-Luna is also the Vocal Director at the Adirondack Performing Arts Fellowship summer music program in Upstate New York.
Dr. Alexander-Luna will be featured as a presenter at the 2025 International Congress of Voice Teachers (ICVT) in Toronto, Ontario, and is Assistant Professor of Voice at the University of Regina. In demand as a clinician, adjudicator, and guest soloist, Dr. Alexander-Luna is excited to be back in Grande Prairie to adjudicate!
Michele Wheatley-Brown – Intermediate Piano
Michèle Wheatley-Brown is a dedicated music professional: an accomplished pianist, teacher, RCM examiner, and adjudicator. Her passion is helping students of all levels experience the joy of making music.
As one of Canada’s first Licensed Body Mapping Educators, Michèle is part of an international group dedicated to improving musician wellness and performance.
She regularly uses her expertise to teach masterclasses and workshops, helping musicians avoid pain and injury by applying anatomical and biomechanical principles to their performance. She shares her Body Mapping expertise with all musical disciplines, including teaching at the University of Calgary, Calgary Opera, and as a faculty member for the Kelowna Opera summer program. She has presented at numerous universities and conferences, and her articles have been published in professional journals.
Michèle continues to teach advanced piano students in High River, Alberta where she also created a highly successful community concert and music outreach program.
Michèle holds a Master of Arts (Music) and Graduate Certificate in Piano Pedagogy from the University of Ottawa. She is a member of the RCM College of Examiners and a Licensed Body Mapping Educator and Mentor.
A devoted adjudicator, Michèle takes particular pleasure in this role and has enjoyed participating in numerous festivals throughout Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, and the Yukon.
Chris McIntyre – Guitar
Chris McIntyre is a performer, composer, audio engineer, and guitar teacher from Brandon,
Manitoba, now residing in Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada. He studied classical guitar
while earning his Bachelor of Music at Brandon University, but performs regularly in a
wide variety of genres as a solo act, in his own group, or as a hired freelance player for
other artists. During his time at Brandon University he also studied courses in audio
engineering, which led to the creation of his own studio, CDM Audio/Video production
Tom Spila – Band, Woodwinds and Brass
Tom Spila, a graduate of the University of Alberta, recently retired after having taught music at the Elementary, Jr., & Sr. High School levels for a total of 44 years. The last 39 of those were spent at Camrose Composite High School where the music program consisted of concert and jazz bands, mixed chorus, chamber choir and vocal jazz, as well as beginner and advanced guitar. Student groups under his direction have been recognized at regional, provincial, and national levels. He has been the director of the Camrose & District Community Band since its inception in 1983, is a past recipient of the Tommy Banks Award from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, was presented with the Vondis Miller Legacy Award in 2004, and is a member of the International Bandmasters Fraternity: Phi Beta Mu – Mu Alpha Chapter. He has been recognized for his work by Alberta Education, the University of Alberta (Augustana Faculty), the Alberta Band Association, the Alberta Choral Federation, the city of Camrose, the Alberta Government, and the Governor General of Canada. In 2017 and 2024, he directed the Southern Alberta Jr. High School Honour Band for the Alberta Band Association. Mr. Spila has been active as an adjudicator, guest conductor, workshop clinician, and has served on the boards of the Alberta Band Association and Choir Alberta. Most recently he was recognized by the Alberta Band Association with an Honorary Lifetime Member Award. He is honoured to have been invited to be an adjudicator for this year’s Grande Prairie Music Festival and looks forward to working with everyone.
Kim Mattice-Wanat – Musical Theatre
KIM MATTICE WANAT is a performer, teacher, author and director. She holds a Bachelor of Education degree and a Master of Fine Arts specializing in directing from the University of Alberta. She has received an ARCT performance diploma in classical voice from the Royal Conservatory of Music and pedagogy certification in CCM (contemporary commercial music) voice techniques from Shenandoah University. She specializes in training actors to sing, teaching in the Bachelor of Fine Arts professional acting program at the University of Alberta.
Performance experience includes roles in musical theatre, oratorio and operatic productions. For 10 years, she toured “Backstage Broadway” a musical revue with Henri Loiselle and then toured with Wind Women and Song, a quartet of two sopranos, piano and French horn. In 2002, Wind Women and Song released a CD entitled La Dolce Vita.
Kim Mattice Wanat is the founder of NUOVA Vocal Arts, a nationally acclaimed opera/Music Theatre program dedicated to the advanced training of emerging artists. She has produced and directed 93 NUOVA productions over the past 27 years. Last year Ms Mattice Wanat directed and produced a new opera commission “Silence” with librettist Darren Hagen and composer Leslie Uyeda.
She has directed and musically directed projects for the Citadel Theatre, Edmonton Opera, The Walterdale Theatre, Fringe Theatre Adventures, Studio Theatre (UofA), and the University of Ottawa.
In 2002 she published a vocal pedagogy book entitled, Unleashing the Expressive Resonant Voice. She offers vocal pedagogy workshops, sharing her expertise with music educators throughout Canada and adjudicates local, provincial and national music festivals.
Ronelle Schaufele – Orchestra / Strings
Canadian violist Ronelle Schaufele is an active solo, chamber, and orchestral musician who performs frequently throughout Western Canada as well as performances in Cuba, Brazil, United States, New Zealand, and Europe. As an avid lover of new music Ms. Schaufele has been delighted to play works composed for her and looks forward to upcoming collaborations. In addition to performing music being created today, Ronelle greatly enjoys performing on period instruments and exploring the rich baroque tradition. She is a founding member of Rosa Barocca, an ensemble that specialises in baroque repertoire performed on period instruments. In 2022 Rosa Barocca recorded the Early Italian Cello Concertos, a collaboration with Elinor Frey, which received the 2023 Juno Award for Classical Album of the Year (small ensemble). Other solo performances include concerts at the Arts & Letters Club of Toronto, Euro Festival in Leipzig Germany, and the Music by the Sea Festival. As a chamber musician Ms. Schaufele’s performances include Neworks Calgary, Ensemble Resonance, Rubbing Stone Ensemble, the Millennium Music Foundation Series, the Fort Macleod International Festival, which was recorded for CBC and was a founding member of the Sage String Quartet. In addition, she is currently assistant principal violist in the Red Deer Symphony Orchestra. Her education includes a Music Performance Diploma from Mount Royal College with William van der Sloot, a Bachelor of Music with distinction from the University of Calgary, with Nicholas Pulos and an Artist Diploma at The Glenn Gould School studying with Steven Dann. Ronelle also completed an Artist in Residency program at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity which remains a very special place for her, like so many other musicians who have been positively impacted by their time at this extraordinary institution. An active instructor, Ronelle is currently on faculty at the Amici String Program and in 2012 Ms. Schaufele founded the Banff String Academy of Music which offers gifted young students in the Banff area advanced musical training. Ronelle is delighted to be the Artistic Advisor for the Youth Quartet Program in cooperation with the Banff International String Quartet Competition for her fourth year in the role.
Ronelle loves living in the mountains in Banff, Alberta with her husband Nigel, children Theodore and Frederica and dog Molly
Jani Parsons – Senior Piano
raised for her “combination of tenderness and vivacious energy” (San Francisco Chronical) and “sheer virtuosity” (LA Splash), Canadian pianist Jani Parsons has established herself as a musician of warmth, brilliance, versatility, and vivid expression. An active soloist and chamber musician, Jani is the founding pianist of Latitude 49, a mixed chamber ensemble recently in residence at Princeton University and the co-artistic director of the Sound Atlas Festival. Jani joined the faculty at the University of Calgary School of Creative and Performing Arts as the newly appointed Associate Professor of Piano and head of the piano program in 2021.
As an avid performer and supporter of living composers, Jani has worked directly with many composers including Steve Reich, Christopher Cerrone, John Zorn, Stacy Garrop, Marc Mellits, Roshanne Etezady, Augusta Read Thomas, Jared Miller and Shulamit Ran and has premiered upwards of eighty new solo and chamber works. She is especially enthusiastic about featuring a wide array of “classics” and undiscovered masterpieces in her programming that spans from pre-Baroque to newly inked works.
A sought-after chamber musician, Jani has appeared with the Pittsburg New Music Ensemble, members of Bang on a Can All-Stars, Eighth Blackbird, and New Music Detroit as well as members of the Chicago and Detroit Symphony Orchestras. Performances across North America include the Chan Centre for the Arts (Vancouver, British Columbia), the Banff Centre for the Arts, Detroit Symphony Center, Detroit Institute of Arts, the Ravinia Festival and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago) and at various educational institutions including the New England Conservatory, Indiana University, and Northwestern University among others. Jani has appeared in 8 professionally released recordings and can be heard on the New Amsterdam label, Tzadik label and Çedille Records among others.
Jani studied in Canada with Wendy Guimont, Allen Reiser, and Lorraine Ambrose at the Vancouver Academy of Music and graduated from the University of Michigan under Arthur Greene and John Ellis. She has served on faculty at the Fresh Inc. Summer festival, the Interlochen Summer Arts Camp, the Piracicaba International Piano Festival in Brazil, and most recently at the Conero International Piano Festival in Italy. Prior to her appointment at the University of Calgary, Jani served on faculty at the Baylor University School of Music from 2017-2021 where she was recognized as an OVPR Rising Star for her potential for research and early-career development.
Lana Henchell – Junior Piano
Calgary native Lana Henchell is an award-winning pianist and educator whose commitment to classical music has taken her across Canada, the U.S., France, and Portugal. Her musical journey began at age 13, when she made her orchestral debut with the Calgary Civic Symphony. Since then, she has performed as a soloist with esteemed orchestras, including the Montreal Chamber Orchestra, Orquestra Classica do Centro in Portugal, the McGill Symphony, and the University of Calgary Orchestra. Lana has earned top prizes in prestigious competitions, such as the Eckhardt-Gramatté National Piano Competition and the Coimbra World Piano Competition, as well as prizes in the International Stepping Stone of the Canadian Music Competitions and the Stravinsky Awards International Piano Competition.
Alongside traditional Classical repertoire, Lana has a passion for contemporary music in new, engaging formats, demonstrated in projects like her recent large-scale collaboration project funded by the Canada Council and Calgary Arts Development Agency. Teaming up with her piano duo partner, Akiko Tominaga, she commissioned Supervillain Études for Piano Duo from Juno-nominated composer Vincent Ho. Together, they co-produced the music film Villainy and premiered it with a live performance of the études as the film’s soundtrack.
Lana’s dedication to contemporary music has also included performances at Calgary’s Sound Atlas, New Works and Happening New Music Festivals. Her collaboration with saxophonist Jeremy Brown, on the album Emergence, earned them the 2023 YYC Music Award for Best Classical Album.
In addition to performing, Lana is a dedicated educator. She teaches piano privately and at the University of Calgary’s School of Creative and Performing Arts, and she coaches chamber music for Mount Royal Conservatory’s Academy Program. Her work with students extends internationally, having coached students in the U.S., France, and Germany. As an active adjudicator, she has judged for various festivals and competitions, including the Honens ProAm Piano Competition, Steinway Piano Competition, Canadian Music Competitions, and, most recently, the preliminary round of the inaugural Sorel-Tracy International Piano Competition. In recognition of her students’ remarkable achievements at the Pacific Rim Music Festival, she was awarded the title of PRM Distinguished Teacher of 2023-24 for her student’s outstanding achievements.
Lana also leads the Soundboard Music Tour, an outreach initiative that brings young musicians into community settings to gain valuable performance experience through a series of concerts modeled after a professional tour. Through her teaching, adjudicating, and outreach work, Lana is committed to fostering a supportive community of aspiring musicians and music enthusiasts both locally and abroad.
Adele Loewen – Classroom Music
Throughout her career, Adele Lowen has worked as a classroom teacher, music specialist, mentorship coordinator, professional development facilitator, and a literacy coordinator. As a music specialist, Adele taught classroom music, recorders, drama, choir, and handbells for Grades K-9. Whether working with students or colleagues, Adele supports lifelong learning. Continually striving to do our best opens the door for our students to do their best.