The Manitoba connection

Banff Centre alumni are leaders in communities across Manitoba and around the world. Our alumni play prominent roles on the stages and in concert halls throughout Manitoba - both as members of ensembles, companies, and troupes, and as featured soloists and principals.

Over 50 per cent of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet are Banff Centre alumni

• Company alumni include principal dancer Tara Birtwhistle who attended Banff Centre dance programs from 1993 – 2003.
• First soloists Emily Grizzell, Sarah Murphy-Dyson, Cindy Marie Small, Cindy Winsor, Alexander Gamayunov, and Johnny Wright are alumni of the Centre.
• Artistic director Andre Lewis is an alumnus of the Centre, attending Dance programs in 1999.
• Music director and conductor Earl Stafford attended numerous Dance and Music programs at the Centre, between 1986 and 1993.
• Artistic director emeritus Arnold Spohr is a Banff Centre alumnus (1958) and faculty member (1980-81). Mr. Spohr is a Companion of the Order of Canada, and a recipient of a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award (1998), the Royal Bank Award, the Molson Prize, and three honorary degrees.
• Betty Farrally and Gweneth Lloyd, founders of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, were instrumental in launching The Banff Centre’s ballet program.
• Former principal dance Evelyn Hart, an internationally renowned and award-winning ballerina, is a Centre alumna.
• In 2002, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet premiered Brian MacDonald’s critically acclaimed ballet Requiem 9/11, in Banff.

35 per cent of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra are Banff Centre alumni

• Concertmaster and first violinist Gwen Hoebig has been both a student and a faculty member at The Banff Centre.
• Additional orchestra alumni include associate concertmaster and first violinist Karl Stobbe, principal second violinist Darryl Strain, principal violist Daniel Scholz, principal cellist Yuri Hooker, principal flutist Jan Kocman, principal bassoonist Vincent Ellin, principal horn Patricia Evans, principal trumpet Brian Sykora, principal trombonist John Helmer, and principal harpist Richard Turner.

Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra

• Nearly 40 per cent of the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra are alumni of the Centre’s Music & Sound department’s jazz programs.
• Richard Gillis and Sasha Boychouk, founders of the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra, are both alumni of the Centre.

A profound impact on the Manitoba art scene Banff Centre alumni and faculty include:

• Tracy Dahl, critically acclaimed Winnipeg soprano, featured performer with the Metropolitan Opera Company, the San Francisco Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Washington Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and New York Philharmonic.
• Loreena McKennitt, vocalist and native of Morden, Manitoba, Juno award winner for her 1991 album, The Visit.
• Violinist Kerry DuWors, recipient of the Felix Galimir Award for Chamber Music Excellence, the Yo-Yo Ma Fellowship for Strings, and first prize in the Eckhardt-Gramatte National Music Competition (2003), currently professor of violin and chamber music at Brandon University.
• Cellist Paul Marleyn, president and artistic director of Winnipeg’s Agassiz Summer Chamber Music Festival, University of Manitoba professor of cello and chamber music from 1997 to 2004.
• Judy Kehler Siebert, pianist, chamber musician, University of Manitoba music faculty, featured soloist at Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s New Music Festivals.
• Mark Godden, Winnipeg choreographer and former soloist with the Royal Winnipeg ballet, recipient of numerous international awards for his creative contemporary ballets, including the Clifford E. Lee Choreography Award (1989).
• Grace Mickel, prominent Manitoba ceramist, winner of the 2nd International Ceramics Competition ’89 in Mino, Japan, and a Judge’s Special Award in the prestigious Sixth Taiwan Golden Ceramics Awards competition.
• Duncan Thornton, fiction writer (Kalifax, The Star-Glass, and Captain Jenny & the Sea of Wonder) short listed for the 2000 Governor General’s and Mr. Christie’s Awards.
• Eleanor Bond, highly regarded Winnipeg born artist/painter, whose solo exhibitions have appeared at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Museu de Arte Moderna de Sao Paulo, Brazil, and many others.
• Writer Carol Shields (1935 – 2003), 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and Governor General’s Award winner for The Stone Diaries. Orange Prize winner for Larry’s Party and recipient of the Order of Canada.
• Miriam Toews, winner of the 2005 Governor General’s Award for Fiction for A Complicated Kindness.

Published: Summer 2007.