Reese has been accepted to participate in the 2016 Edmonton International Academy of Music. Meeting during the summer at the University of Alberta, the Academy is an opportunity for young professionals to exchange artistic experiences, widen the repertoire, and participate in unique concerts.
This year's faculty includes:
Marie-Bernadette Charrier
Curious and impassioned by all the musical currents of today, Marie-Bernadette Charrier carries out an international career (France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Slovenia, Estonia, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, Australia, Tasmania, Canada, USA, Japan, China, Peru, Mexico, Thailand, Chile, Venezuela, Brazil) as a soloist and in chamber music with the ensemble Proxima Centauri of which she is the Artistic Director.
She currently teaches the saxophone and chamber music at the PESMD (Pôle d’Enseignement Supérieur de Musique et de Danse) Bordeaux Aquitaine and the Conservatoire of Bordeaux, where she created in 1993 a class of interpretation of contemporary music for all instruments, and she has been training generations of interpreters to the open practice of music of today.
Marie-Bernadette Charrier is vice-president of the French Association of Saxophonists.
She has premiered over one hundred original works for saxophone written for her and has recorded ten CDs.
Marie-Chantal Leclair
As a founding member and artistic director of the Quasar saxophone quartet, which has been active since 1994, she has given numerous concerts in Montreal, throughout Canada, in the United States and in many European countries. She was involved in the creation of more than 100 works and organized many projects dealing with various aspects of musical creation. In 2010, Marie-Chantal Leclair was co-composer and performer in Les Cinq Orients, a concert which won an Opus prize in the 'Concert of the year: musique actuelle, electroacoustic' category.
Marie-Chantal Leclair is a vice-president at Le Vivier, a community initiative that regroups more than twenty ensembles and organizations devoted to new music. In 2015 she was recently appointed professor of saxophone at McGill University.
Dr. Allison Balcetis
Internationally recognized as an ambitious contemporary saxophonist, Dr. Allison Balcetis has studied and collaborated with artists from around the world. Her international performance career includes concerts in Brazil, Italy, France, Thailand, Taiwan, Slovenia, and North America. Most recent collaborations include working with Brazilian musicians to create a yearly workshop of young composers’ pieces, performing them in a professional context.
As a faculty member of the University of Alberta since 2009, teaching Saxophone, Chamber Music, Aural Skills, and Woodwind Techniques, Dr. Balcetis trains the next generation of thoughtful, artistic musicians. Outside of the university, Dr. Balcetis helps develop the new music community as past Executive Member and Production Manager of New Music Edmonton and board member of the Borealis Electro Acoustic Music Society.
In 2007 Dr. Balcetis co-founded Anubis Quartet, a Chicago-based ensemble with more than 30 commissions and premieres by emerging and established composers, performing with them until 2014. During her undergraduate degree, Dr. Balcetis won first place in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition in 2005. Her recent chamber activities include performing with pianist Sandra Joy Friesen as the Bent Note duo, the improvisation ensemble The Damn Magpies, the Edmonton Saxophone Quartet, New Music Edmonton’s in-house ensemble Violet Collective, and work with Edmontonian musicians and dance companies such as the Jen Mesch Dance Conspiracy and Mile Zero Dance.
While earning her Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Alberta under the direction of Dr. William Street, Dr. Balcetis produced her first solo recording, Zeniths and Nadirs. She also holds degrees from Bowling Green State University where she studied with Dr. John Sampen, and is the first – and only – saxophonist to earn a joint degree from the Université de Bordeaux and the Conservatoire National de Région de Bordeaux where she studied with Marie-Bernadette Charrier.