{"id":6328,"date":"2017-02-21T11:20:37","date_gmt":"2017-02-21T17:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/?p=6328"},"modified":"2017-03-09T15:34:17","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T21:34:17","slug":"sense-of-camaraderie-marks-2017-verna-mae-janzen-music-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/2017\/sense-of-camaraderie-marks-2017-verna-mae-janzen-music-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"Sense of camaraderie marks 2017 Verna Mae Janzen Music Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018We\u2019re all proud of each other,\u2019 first place winner says<\/i><\/span><\/h3>\n

A pianist hailing from southern Ontario is the winner of the 12th annual Verna Mae Janzen Music Competition at Canadian Mennonite University. Anneli Loepp Thiessen\u2019s performance, which included a piece by classical Austrian composer Joseph Haydn that she learned just one week before the competition, earned her first place and the $700 prize that comes with it on Wednesday, February 15. \u201cIt was very exciting,\u201d said Loepp Thiessen, who grew up in Kitchener-Waterloo. \u201cI still feel like I\u2019m a little bit in shock.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Verna
Verna Mae Janzen Music Competition winner Anneli Loepp Thiessen (center) with second place winner Emma Heinrichs and third place winner Nolan Kehler.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A gifted musician who has played her instrument for 16 years, Loepp Thiessen is in her fourth year of a music degree, with a double major in piano performance and music ministry. This was her third time participating in the competition. Part of what made this year\u2019s competition so much fun is the sense of camaraderie among the finalists, she said. \u201cThere\u2019s a sense that we\u2019re all proud of each other, which is a good feeling,\u201d Loepp Thiessen said. \u201cWe really had each other\u2019s backs.\u201d \u201cWe\u2019re all technically proficient at our instruments, so making the music come alive was the goal,\u201d she added. \u201cI don\u2019t know how the judges made their decision, because everyone of us was communicating so well.\u201d Emma Heinrichs, a pianist in her second year of a Bachelor of Music, placed second and received $500. Third place and its $300 prize went to tenor singer Nolan Kehler, who is completing his Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance this April. Alexander Milevic (piano), Elowen Braunstein-Black (soprano), and Alyssa Hildebrand (soprano) also competed in the finals, advancing from a group of 19 competitors. \u201cI\u2019m always very pleased to see how students rise to the occasion when it comes time to perform,\u201d said Dr. Janet Brenneman, Dean of the School of Music at CMU. \u201cThe entire evening was a strong showcase of what our students can do.\u201d Margery Koop, a performer, choral conductor, and teacher known for her work with singers of all musical genres, and Darryl Friesen, an acclaimed soloist and collaborative artist who has performed around the world, served as adjudicators for the finals. Brenneman was thrilled to see so many members of the community attend the event. \u201cThis event has a following of audience members that attend every year, who are excited to hear the finalists and witness the outcome of the competition,\u201d Brenneman said. The competition possible\u00a0made possible by thegenerous\u00a0donations of\u00a0Peter Janzen of Deep River, ON. The event\u00a0is named in memory of his wife, Verna Mae, who died of cancer in 1989 at age 53. \u201cWe are very grateful to Dr. Janzen, whose generosity and strong commitment to music at CMU makes this event possible,\u201d Brenneman said. For Janzen, sponsoring the event is a way to contribute toward the success of CMU. He wanted to support CMU via a music competition because he and Verna met through their interest in choral singing. \u201cI always dreamed of someday dedicating a memorial to my wife\u2014a wonderful, loving, sensitive, intelligent, and happy companion,\u201d Janzen said in 2007. \u201cThrough the Verna Mae Janzen Music Competition at CMU, I can keep her memory alive.\u201d [ photo gallery<\/a> ]<\/strong> [ videos<\/a> ]<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n

About CMU <\/strong>A Christian university in the Anabaptist tradition, CMU\u2019s Shaftesbury campus offers undergraduate degrees in arts, business, humanities, music, sciences, and social sciences, as well as\u00a0graduate degrees in theology,\u00a0ministry, peacebuilding and collaborative development, and an MBA. CMU has over 800 full-time equivalent\u00a0students, including those enrolled in degree programs at the Shaftesbury and Menno Simons College campuses and in its Outtatown certificate program. <\/em><\/p>\n

For information about CMU visit www.cmu.ca<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n

For additional information, please contact: <\/em>
\nKevin Kilbrei, Director of Communications & Marketing <\/em>
\nkkilbrei@cmu.ca; 204.487.3300 Ext. 621 <\/em>
\nCanadian Mennonite University <\/em>
\n500 Shaftesbury Blvd., Winnipeg, MB\u00a0 R3P 2N2<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018We\u2019re all proud of each other,\u2019 first place winner says A pianist hailing from southern Ontario is the winner of the 12th annual Verna Mae Janzen Music Competition at Canadian Mennonite University. Anneli Loepp Thiessen\u2019s performance, which included a piece by classical Austrian composer Joseph Haydn that she learned just one week before the competition, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6331,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20,5],"tags":[845,846,589,590,742,847,216],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6328"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6328"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6366,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6328\/revisions\/6366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}