2023 Clinicians

Senior/Intermediate Piano – Dr. Leanne Regehr
Junior/Beginner Piano – Christine Donkin
Strings – Clayton Leung
Brass/Winds – David Hoyt
Voice – Eva Bostrand
Creative Music – Christine Donkin
Guitar – Mitch Zorich

Senior/Intermediate Piano – Dr. Leanne Regehr

Leanne Regehr is a versatile and sensitive pianist who is widely recognized for her intuitive ability to collaborate with other musicians across an extensive range of repertoire. She is the featured soloist in a live recording of Victor Davies’ Mennonite Piano Concerto with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, and is currently based in Edmonton where she serves on the faculties of the University of Alberta and The King’s University.

Leanne’s reputation in opera has grown through engagements as a répétiteur with Shreveport Opera, Mercury Opera, and Edmonton Opera. Her dedication to the development of young singers has been shown through her work as a faculty member with Opera NUOVA, as a Coaching Fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and most recently with the Ukrainian Art Song Project’s Summer Institute in Toronto. She is a keyboardist with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, and has performed with the Chamber Orchestra of Edmonton, the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra, Pro Coro Canada, Da Camera Singers, Luminous Voices, and the Academy Concert Series in Toronto.

Leanne completed her Doctor of Music in Piano Performance at Northwestern University and explored further studies at the Banff School of Fine Arts, the Universitat Mozarteum in Salzburg and the Aspen Music Festival. She has enjoyed playing the masterworks of the choral repertoire during her twenty seasons as accompanist with the Richard Eaton Singers, and freelances as a soloist, vocal coach, recital partner, and adjudicator.

Junior Piano & Creative Music  – Christine Donkin

Christine Donkin’s compositions have been performed by (among others) Symphony New Brunswick, Symphony Nova Scotia, The Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Canadian Guitar Quartet, the DaCapo Chamber Choir, Cantus (the Norwegian choir featured in the soundtrack of Frozen), the Meeks Duo, and esteemed Canadian pianist Dr. Elaine Keillor; and at (among others) the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival; Music & Beyond (Ottawa); The Village Trip Festival (New York City); Podium (Canada); the American Choral Directors’ Association Convention; and The Big Sing (New Zealand). She has initiated various collaborations, commissioning poets (George Elliott Clarke, Lozan Yamolky, and Connie Braun) and fellow composers (Chan Ka Nin, Hussein Janmohamed, Marie-Claire Saindon, Clark Winslow Ross, Sherryl Sewapagaham, and Airat Ichmouratov), and working with Peterborough-based Indigenous vocal-percussion ensemble Unity in two projects commissioned by the Peterborough Symphony Orchestra. Christine owes a debt of gratitude to the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the SOCAN Foundation for the funding to make these projects possible.

As an educator, Christine is constantly witness to the process through which musicians must go in order to acquire the skills that they need as professionals, and for this reason, she also prioritizes the creation of music for students of all levels. Her pedagogical compositions and arrangements for piano, violin, and other instruments are featured in the publications of several music exam organizations, including the largest in Canada (the Royal Conservatory of Music) as well as two of the largest in the world (the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music and Trinity College London); and as such are used by music students and teachers in more than one hundred countries. The 2021 RCM violin syllabus includes 36 of her compositions and arrangements (23 of which appear in the printed books); and the 2022 RCM piano syllabus includes 32 of her compositions (with 10 of those in the printed books), making Christine one of the best represented composers in both series. 

As well as composing, Christine engages students in creative music activities through short-term non-competitive projects such as Creativity Out Loud (hosted by Pacific Opera Victoria and Kaleidoscope Theatre), in which students have five days to create a short musical theatre production from scratch. She also teaches theory and harmony at the Victoria Conservatory of Music.
 
Strings – Clayton Leung

After joining the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra in 2013, Clayton Leung has immersed himself in the local arts scene; making appearances at the Alberta Baroque Society, C’mon Festival, Early Music Alberta, Edmonton Chamber Music Society, Edmonton Recital Society, Candlelight concerts, with the Chamber Orchestra of Edmonton. and has performed nationally and internationally with Kent Sangster’s jazz ensemble, Obsessions Octet. Additionally, Clayton is a proud member of the Health Arts Society of Alberta and teaches at the MacEwan Conservatory. Before moving to Edmonton, Clayton was the principal violist with the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra and violist of the Atlantic String Quartet and regularly performed with the Victoria and Vancouver Island Symphonies.

A native of Fort Langley BC, he began violin lessons at the Langley Community Music School. He continued his studies at the University of Victoria, and then pursued the viola at the University of Minnesota and the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Brass/Winds – David Hoyt

David Hoyt studied piano with Boris Roubakine, Karl Engel, and Alexandra Munn; French horn with Philip Farkas, Pierre del Vescovo, and Eugene Rittich; and conducting with Franco Maninno, Kurt Sanderling, and Pierre Boulez. 

He joined the Edmonton Symphony while a student at the University of Alberta, becoming principal horn in 1975. He also played horn with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet Orchestra, the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra, the Chuck Mangione Band, the Hamilton Philharmonic, the Toronto Symphony as Principal horn for several months, and with l’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal in Carnegie Hall.

David Hoyt began conducting professionally in 1982, becoming Assistant Conductor of the Edmonton Symphony in 1985 and of the Canadian Opera Company in 1991. He has been guest conductor with the Atlantic Symphony, Orchestra London, the Winnipeg Symphony, the Regina Symphony, the Saskatoon Symphony, the Calgary Philharmonic, the Edmonton Opera Company, Opera Nuova, the Alberta Baroque Ensemble, the Kamloops Orchestra, the Vancouver Island Orchestra (Nanaimo), and the Vancouver Symphony.

Hoyt’s long-standing association with The Banff Centre began in 1972, when he was a member of the summer festival orchestra. Since 1978, Hoyt has returned to the Centre annually as a visiting artist and faculty in the summer, fall, and winter sessions. David Hoyt spent ten years teaching horn at the University of Alberta, and has taught across the country at Festival Five Hundred (St. John’s), Scotia Festival (Halifax), Domaine Forget (Quebec), Les Concerts Bell (Montreal), International Music Camp (Toronto), Festival of the Sound, (Parry Sound), MusiCamrose (Alberta), Courtney Music (British Columbia), and others.

As the head of Education and Outreach at the Edmonton Symphony, David expanded the Symphony for Kids, Education Concerts, and Pops Series, and he founded the On the Edge Series and the very popular Symphony Under the Sky Festival. He was Artistic Director/Executive Director of Music & Sound at The Banff Centre in 2004-2005.

Voice – Eva Bostrand

Eva Bostrand, M Mus., began her musical training and performing in Stockholm, Sweden, where she attended Musikhögskolan, University of Stockholm, and Stockholms Musikpedagogiska Institut. Throughout her training, she performed as soloist and ensemble singer with professional and semiprofessional vocal groups. She was a member of the Swedish Radio Chamber Choir under the direction of Eric Ericson, one of her mentors, and toured, performed, and recorded extensively with the choir. Bostrand sang under conductors Anders Öhrwall, Riccardo Muti, Sir David Wilcox, James DePriest, and Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

Since coming to Canada, Bostrand has appeared in solo and chamber music recitals and performed with symphony orchestras.

Bostrand teaches voice from her own music studio, storefrontstudio, in Edmonton. She has a passion for voice education and leads workshops for voice teachers, music teachers, choirs, and voice students of all levels. In 2004 she founded A Joyful Noise, the choir for people who believe that they can not sing. In 2006 she founded Sing for Life, a society that supports a performing arts program at Edmonton Institution for Women.

Bostrand believes strongly in the many well documented social, psychological and medical benefits of singing. But mostly, she says, “It’s just fun.”

Guitar – Mitch Zorich

Mitch is an Edmonton based Guitarist and Instructor. He’s a graduate of the Red Deer College Music Program (Electric Guitar) where he also studied Classical Guitar, later receiving Royal Conservatory of Music Gold Medals for Levels 7, 8, and 9. Mitch’s interest in learning different musical styles also motivated him to complete a DipLCM in Jazz Performance from the London College of Music.

Mitch has been teaching a variety of Guitar styles and methods since 2002, and is part of the Music Faculty at Suzuki Charter School, The Conservatory of Music at Alberta College, Long & McQuade and Prime School of Music.

Mitch regularly performs Pop instrumentals as a soloist and with Pepperland, a Beatles cover band. Mitch has previously performed with the Metallica tribute act Disposable Heroes and Red Hot Chili Peppers tribute act Scar Tissue.