Wendy Grasdahl is well known across Canada as a conductor, adjudicator/clinician, educator/teacher, and trumpeter. She has appeared as a trumpet soloist and in professional ensembles across Canada, Wendy is a founding member of the brass quintet “Five of a Kind”, and has played Solo Cornet with the Mill Creek Colliery Brass Band.
Wendy is the founder, Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of Festival City Winds Music Society (a comprehensive adult community band program which is comprised of four Concert Bands plus a growing series of classes and workshops). She is Director of Bands and Trumpet Instructor at Concordia University College of Alberta. Wendy regularly adjudicates bands and brass at the Provincial and National levels, and is a clinician for Yamaha Canada.
Wendy has been awarded the Alberta Provincial Outstanding Achievement Award in Music, the Faculty Association Excellence in Teaching Award from the University of P.E.I., and the Distinguished Service Award for conducting and promoting band in North America from the International Music Camp at the Peace Garden in MB/ND.
Clarence Samuelson (B.Mus., B.Ed., U of A) has been a music educator for 24 years. During his years of teaching, his concert bands and jazz ensembles have regularly won awards and superior ratings at local, provincial and national festivals. He plays trumpet and is a founding member of the brass quintet "Five of a Kind." Clarence is a proud recipient of the Prime Minister's award for excellence in teaching and the Alberta Band Association's Tommy Banks Award. Clarence is responsible for the band programs at John Maland High School, and Riverview Middle School in Devon, AB.
Eila Peterson conducts the Novice Band with Festival City Winds, and is director of the Edmonton Sackbone Express, a sackbut and serpent ensemble specializing in early music. Eila has earned a PhD in Music Education from Northwestern University, and is currently sole proprietor of Audigraph Music, an outlet for her compositions, arrangements, and instructional materials. She also runs a private music studio in Edmonton, teaching clarinet, flute, trombone, percussion and music theory.
David Wiley is a tuba player with the Royal Canadian Artillery Band at Garrison Edmonton. He is a native of Edmonton, receiving a BMus from the University of Alberta in 1982. He has studied with John Leonard, David Otto, Dennis Miller and Daniel Perantoni. He joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1991 and has been stationed in Winnipeg and Edmonton.
Laura Snyder completed a B. Mus. Ed. degree at Ithaca College, then studied music theory and horn at Indiana University before finding her career path as a music librarian. She has held various positions at places such as St. Olaf College, Oberlin College and Conservatory, the Eastman School of Music, and the University of Houston. In 2006 she and her partner decided they would like to move to "someplace colder than Houston" and found their way to Edmonton. Her current day job is Music Librarian and Public Services Manager for the Humanities and Social Sciences Library at the University of Alberta. In addition to Five of a Kind, she also plays horn with Horns-a-plenty, and sings with Robertson-Wesley Sanctuary Choir. She's grateful to the guys at home who put up with all of the practicing, though the cat does stomp out of the room as soon as the horn comes out of the case!
