Yellowknife composer Carmen Braden will lead three workshops on composition for music students.
- Limit of 10 participants,
- Age 5+, with minimum 1 year musical experience
- Geared to piano / violin, but any instrument welcome
- **Not a songwriting workshop, but singers are welcome.**

Sunday February 16, 3:00 - 4:00

Sunday February 23, 3:00 - 4:00

Saturday May 16 (yes in springtime May!!), 10:00 - 11:30 - joined by special guest performers Amy Hillis and Megan Milatz (Prairie Debut / NACC Season performers - see info about their May 16th concert here)

The first two sessions (Feb 16, 23) will be creation-workshops where participants start composing by drawing their composition ideas (not music notation). Depending on their experience with written music notation, they will develop their ideas into a more polished piece of music by adding ideas about:

  • Melody - theme, variations

  • Harmony - traditional or expanded

  • Contrast 

  • Repetition

  • Dynamics

  • Form 

  • Articulation  

  • Other notation ideas

The final goal is to have a piece of music that the student composed and could play themselves, AND that they can give to someone else to perform!

Activities will include structured exercises like call-and-response, listening, drawing, fill-in-the-blanks, group work. Then they will expand to more self-directed exercises that will allow each student to be comfortable using their existing musical knowledge + experience. A “homework” assignment will be given between each session. Carmen will give supportive critique and encouragement to challenge each student to make their piece awesome. 

The final session (May 16th) will be a composer-performer interaction where each students’ composition will be played by NACC/Prairie Debut guest artists Amy Hillis (violin) and/or Megan Milatz (piano). This will be in advance of Amy and Megan’s feature performance as part of the Northern Arts and Cultural Centre’s 2019/2020 series. This will give the students an idea of the relationship between composer and performer. Feedback and encouragement from these professional musicians will be the final portion of the three workshops.