UTNMF | Thursdays at Noon: “Made in Manitoba”: Jana Starling, clarinet and Allison Wiebe, piano

Norbert Palej, festival coordinator

Livestream available on the Faculty of Music YouTube channel.

The moon glows on the vagrant waters
Far away the sea sounds and resounds
The moon turns in its clockwork dream
In the dark pines of the brutal wind…

BIOGRAPHY

Jana Starling, an internationally recognized clarinet performer and teacher, is the co-founder/faculty of the Lift Clarinet Academy (USA), performs E-flat clarinet in Ironwood Trio (commissioning literature for the Eb/Bb/bass clarinet trio) and B-flat clarinet in LightBreak (a multimedia clarinet duo stretching recital stage boundaries). Starling has 2 solo CD's, “Inflexion” (2006) and “Mythos” (2011), with premiere recordings of notable works. Reviewed in The Clarinet journal, Starling is hailed as “a wonderful player…musically sensitive …you will not be disappointed!” She is an Associate Professor in the Don Wright Faculty of Music at Western University and a Buffet-Crampon and Gonzalez Reed artist. Educated at Brandon University (MB) and Arizona State University, her primary teachers have been Ron Goddard, Connie Gitlin and Robert Spring. 

Allison Wiebe, a leading interpreter of contemporary music, is currently on the piano performance faculty at Western University in London, Ontario and active with a performing, adjudicating and teaching career. As a collaborative musician Allison performs on piano, keyboards, and melodica with the ContaQt ensemble in Toronto. Her programming has been described by the Globe and Mail as “thought-provoking” and “highly entertaining,” and her performances praised by the New York Times as “methodical and mesmerizing.” Allison holds a Masters of Music in Piano Literature and Performance from Western University under James Anagnoson and John Hess. She completed her Bachelor of Music (Honors) at Brandon University in Manitoba studying with Donald Henry and David Rogosin. She studied with Boris Lysenko and Boyanna Toyich at The Royal Conservatory in Toronto, and participated in multiple master-class summer programs across North America.