Kindersley’s Vanessa Klassen joined us on Friday January 27th for our final installment of the local artist spotlight. Her most recent accomplishment was receiving a Doctoral of Musical Arts from Ohio State University. She attended the school for about five years, including grad school and just graduated in May 2022.
We asked all of our local musicians how it all began and for Vanessa it was at school. She credited her band teacher Mr. Mealey for being a big influence. “Steven Mealey was a huge influence in my life and he taught me Grade 5 band. I took private lessons from him throughout high school and he was just a huge inspiration to me.”
She went from Kindersley Composite to Brandon University. She earned an undergrad degree while in Brandon, Manitoba. She auditioned for her Master's degree at Ohio State and ended up getting a scholarship.
She’s currently teaching private lessons and has been substitute teaching at Elizabeth Middle School. Klassen said "I've been teaching Grade 7 band since September.”
Hear her performance from Friday Jan 27th. The tune was called Blue Dixie, by Canadian composer Elizabeth Raum - an active composer in Regina for quite some time. This is the 3rd movement of the piece that she wrote for Clarinet and Band.