2026 Regina Music Festival Program

Amy Boyes is a piano and theory teacher from Warman, Saskatchewan. A national council member for the Canadian Music Festival Adjudicators' Association, Amy has adjudicated music festivals from Prince Edward Island to Alberta. Amy is also a Royal Conservatory examiner (piano and music history) and has examined in Canada, the US and online.

As a speaker, Amy has presented on topics as such studio management, strong interpersonal relationships with students and diversifying students’ repertoire.

Amy’s writing has been featured by CBC, The Globe and Mail, Piano Professional, Music Teacher Magazine, Frances Clark Center’s Piano Magazine, and others.

Currently, Amy is the Public Relations and Marketing Chair for the Canadian Federation of Music Teachers' Associations (CFMTA) and Vice President of the Saskatchewan Registered Music Teachers' Association (SRMTA).

Amy holds Associate Diplomas in Performance (ARCT) and Teaching (ARCT) from the Royal Conservatory, a Licentiate in Performance from Trinity College (UK), a Bachelor of Music (Applied Piano) from Brandon University and a Master of Music (Performance and Pedagogy) from the University of Alberta.

Heather Godden Waldner teaches in her private studio in Warman, Saskatchewan, is currently a member of SRMTA and has been a member of CFTMA since 1978. For over fifty years, she has maintained private studios in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario, teaching piano at all levels from beginners to ARCT, to students age four to adult. She also teaches trombone, composition and all theoretical subjects including pedagogy.

While studying with Dr. Lyell Gustin in Saskatoon, Heather achieved both ARCT (Royal Conservatory) and LTCL (Trinity College, London) in piano performance. She completed further studies with Dr. Lorne Watson in Winnipeg with an emphasis on E-Gré piano technique.

Ms Waldner is a senior practical examiner with RCME and has conducted numerous theory and practical workshops for them. She has also presented workshops across Canada, including "The Art of Practicing: Repertoire and Technique", "Festival and Exam Preparation", and "The Published Music of Heather Godden Laliberte".

An adjudicator with the Saskatchewan Music Festival Association, Heather has adjudicated piano competitions as well as brass and woodwinds, ensembles, bands, and piano classes in music festivals across Canada.

Heather Godden Laliberte is the composing name of Heather Waldner. Her piano and vocal compositions are published and distributed through her publishing company, Godden Publications.

She has accompanied numerous instrumental and vocal soloists, played piano for ballet classes and exams and for thirty years held positions as organist and church music director. Heather plays trombone in the Saskatoon Concert Band and the 'Toon Town Big Band.

Erin Bardua is a soprano, voice teacher, and stage director. Her artistic practice encompasses new compositions, early music, and the work of historically overlooked creators, in a range of styles from Western classical to commercial.

Ms. Bardua is co-Artistic Director of Essential Opera, a collective producing operas on film, disc (are there still discs?), and stage since 2011. The album Some of My Stories: Operas by Monica Pearce is out now on the Leaf Music label, featuring Erin’s soprano voice as Emily Post in Etiquette, Julia in December, and Dream Lucy in April. Other project highlights include the upcoming staged premiere of In Her Hands: The Tragedy of Lady Macbeth by Fiona Ryan, with Erin singing the role of Lady M.

As a director and acting coach, Erin has worked with COSA (Centre for Opera Studies 2023-24); Halifax Summer Opera Festival (Carmen, L'incoronazione di Poppea, Alcina); Victoria Baroque Intensive (2022-24); Mount Allison University's Music Department (Opera Workshop) and Drama Department (Godspell). Recently, she directed the world premiere of Caroline’s Sweeper.

On the operatic stage, soprano Chelsea Mahan has been praised for her panache of character (La Presse, 2015), while her comedic work “creates some of the most memorable, [and] funny moments” (Star Phoenix, 2016). Her rich yet ethereal tone is complemented by the warmth and passion that she weaves into every phrase. Equally at home performing concert repertoire for large audiences, in intimate recital settings, or in studio recording, Ms. Mahan enjoys a vast career that specializes in up-close and personal performances in found spaces such as warehouses and abandoned churches. The depth of her interpretations and her ability to bring meaning to every work has brought success with every venture.

Ms. Mahan has made appearances with La Compagnie Baroque Mont-Royal, Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra, Regina Symphony Orchestra, Saskatoon Opera, Souris Valley Theatre, Little Opera on the Prairie, Strata Festival of New Music, and SUM Theatre. In March 2020, she made her SSO Main Stage Series debut as the soprano soloist for the highly anticipated North American premiere of Rebecca Dale’s Materna Requiem. Ever evolving in her art, 2025 saw her composer’s debut with two song cycles for Soprano and Cello premiered at Remai Modern’s annual fundraiser LUGO.

Off stage she works with singers, teachers, and speakers using her high level of technicality, intuitive and trained ear, expressive language and innate knowledge of the vocal mechanism to achieve the goal of optimal vocal health. She does this at both her private home studio and previously as a Sessional Lecturer at the University of Saskatchewan. As a highly sought after adjudicator of voice, music theatre, choral and speech arts in Saskatchewan, in 2022 Ms. Mahan was awarded the Excellence in Adjudicating Award from the Saskatchewan Music Festival Association. Ms. Mahan holds her B.Mus/B.Ed from the University of Saskatchewan and her M.Mus in Opera and Voice Performance from McGill University.

Outside the music world, Ms. Mahan is the mother of three children who provide inspiration for every aspect of her life. She has also been known to dabble in the art of clown and when she can, contributes her voice (musical and otherwise) to the visual art and theatre scenes in Saskatoon.

Raised in North Battleford Saskatchewan, Composer, Performer, and Educator Paul Suchan graduated with a B.Mus/B.Mus Ed (2007) from the University of Saskatchewan and M.Mus in Composition (2012) from the Université de Montréal where he studied with composer Alan Belkin. He is currently based in Saskatoon with his wife Naomi, daughter Evelyn and son Isaac. His body of work includes over 85 commissions that have been performed across Canada, the United States and Europe by leading university ensembles, symphony orchestras, community groups,

choirs, small ensembles and others. He is frequently commissioned by groups across Canada of various sizes and abilities.

Notable performances include Mr. Suchan’s piece Wake the Grain, performed at the National Arts Center in Ottawa in 2014 and led by Duane Wolfe, conductor of the Chicago Symphony Chorus. In 2019 he was commissioned for the Chief Poundmaker exoneration ceremony held at Poundmaker Reserve with many dignitaries present, including the Prime Minister of Canada. In 2011, his first opera, The Beast in the Jungle, based on a short story by Henry James, was premiered in Montreal, QC with full orchestra under the baton of the composer. His piece for and

The Colors and Contrasts of Grief has received over 100 performances throughout North America and has been professionally recorded three times. His band music is published with Eighth Note publication, and he is a member of SOCAN. He has had the opportunity to collaborate with some of Canada’s leading performers including the Gyphon Trio, the Proteus Saxophone Quartet, and an album recording project with Julie Nesrallah and the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra.

Violinist Nova Wong is the first violin of the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra, and a regular musician in the chamber orchestra Prairie Virtuosi. She was appointed the Principle Second Violinist position of the Quinte Symphony, and a member of the Kingston Symphony Orchestra in Ontario, Canada. She has performed frequently in the United States and Hong Kong with the Columbus Philharmonic, the Terra Haute Symphony Orchestra, the Hong Kong City

Chamber Orchestra, and the Hong Kong Sinfonietta where Ms. Wong’s playing can be heard on their album This is Classical Music on the Decca Records label.

Ms. Wong has appeared in concerts at Banff Festival, Orford Arts Center, and Milwaukee Chamber Music Festival. Her chamber music skill was recognized by the Berrisford Memorial Scholarship awarded by the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts for the best quartet in 2004.

Renée Brad teaches voice and a variety of courses in the BFA Musical Theatre Performance Program at MacEwan University and has been a guest instructor in the Voice Department at the University of Alberta as well as at Opera Nuova’s Summer Intensive Program. An acclaimed mezzo-soprano, Renée has performed in opera, oratorio, musical theatre, chamber music, and solo recitals throughout Canada and in New York. She appeared with Edmonton Opera, delighting audiences as Cousin Hebe in their Sterling Award winning production of HMS Pinafore. Also for Edmonton Opera, she sang Kate in Pirates of Penzance, Annina in La Traviata, Berta in Il Barbiere di Siviglia and the Dama/Hexe in Macbeth. She appeared as The Mother in Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors and The Witch in Hansel and Gretel with Opera Nuova. Roles for Opera Saskatchewan include Tisbe in La Cenerentola, Kate Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, and Berta in Il Barbiere di Siviglia. She sang Mercedes in Carmen with Saskatoon Opera, Popova in Walton’s The Bear, and Kate in Elizabeth Raum’s The Dream of Nicholas Flood Davin with the Regina Centenary Project. Favorite theatre roles include Rose in The Secret Garden, Meg Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Katisha in The Mikado, Amy in Company, and Ella in Bells are Ringing.

A frequent soloist with orchestras, Renée has performed Karl Jenkin's Stabat Mater, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass and Paukenmesse, Schubert’s Mass in E-flat, Bruckner’s Te Deum, Mozart’s Coronation Mass and Requiem, Bach’s Weihnachts Oratorium and Johannes Passion, Vivaldi’s Magnificat and Gloria, Handel’s Messiah, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Renée's recording of Elizabeth Raum's How Bodies Leave Ecstatic Marks with the Contrasts Trio for the CMC Centrediscs label won a 2008 Western Canadian Music Award. Renée created and premiered the cabaret Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession for the Golden Apple Theatre Company and collaborated in the creation of the Songs in the Key of Life for Opera Nuova and Mezzo Madness at the University of Alberta.

Glen Gillis, a native of Saskatchewan, is Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of Saskatchewan, and remains active as an educator, performer, conductor, composer, and adjudicator. Dr. Gillis has matriculated many elementary and high school, and university students who have excelled in the realms of music education, performance, composition, and conducting.

His teaching career of 45 years first began with the Saskatoon Public Schools for 11 years where his concert and jazz ensembles received numerous awards for their advanced musical performances. At the university level, Dr. Gillis’ career continued in Missouri and Oklahoma where he taught music and music education courses, applied woodwinds, and conducted concert and jazz bands, chamber ensembles, and the Lawton Philharmonic Orchestra. Upon returning to Canada in 2001 to teach at the University of Saskatchewan, he directed the Wind Orchestra and Concert Band and released three commercial albums during his tenure. While at the U of S he worked with graduate students, directed many chamber ensembles, taught classes in music education, conducting, applied saxophone, and also guest conducted the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra on several occasions. In 2006, the Wind Orchestra performed at the Texas Music Educators Conference. In 2004, he created and conducted the annual High School Select Wind Orchestra, and the North Saskatchewan Wind Symphony in 2005.