At Community Supper last Wednesday, Grebel marked the end of Asian Heritage month with guest speaker, Susan Matsuo, sharing about the internment of Japanese Canadians during WWII.
Conrad Grebel University College is home to the University of Waterloo Music program. Tucked into spacious facilities on the lower level of the College “across the creek” from the sprawling campus of the University, the Department of Music welcomes a diverse student body to learn about and to make music. Over decades, hundreds of students have graduated from Waterloo with degrees in Music, and tens of thousands more have taken courses or participated in music ensembles. The Department of Music is large enough to create a vibrant and creative community of music-making and learning yet small enough that students get to know faculty, staff, and each other, personally.
Students choose to integrate music into their university life for various purposes—to pursue their musical passion, be part of something bigger than themselves, or to build meaningful friendships. We asked a group of students from all faculties at the University of Waterloo to tell us how Music connects with their other academic pursuits. Their answers reveal that Music has contributed to a stimulating interdisciplinary environment, revealing surprising partnerships between different fields of study.
Grebel aims to be a space for conversation and connection among people of diverse backgrounds and academic disciplines. Because Grebel administers the University of Waterloo’s Music program, the College naturally attracts musically talented students from every faculty at Waterloo. Some Grebel alumni have gone on to have remarkable careers in music performance, composition, conducting, and teaching. Others have chosen to combine their love of music with other passions in complementary fields.
“I don’t have much of a singing voice anymore,” is something I often heard when I first started inviting people to hymn sings. No wonder. In their 90s, without many people to talk to, let alone sing with, over the past few years of masking, our voices have deteriorated. And mine wasn’t great to start with.
In 2002, students Kirk Schmidt and Leigh McClymont had an idea that Grebel students could produce a full-scale Broadway musical. It was an ambitious and seemingly unrealistic dream. But they wrote a business case and pitched it to Student Council. One year later, Grebel’s production of Godspell opened for a four-night run. Asked about that first production, Kirk reflected that “When we sold out three out of the four nights, we knew we had tapped into something within the Grebel zeitgeist.”
Vocal music students at Grebel and UWaterloo are now supported by a new scholarship open to students enrolled in Music Studio in voice and in Music Department choirs. The “Lichti Voice Studies Scholarship Award” was graciously established by Daniel Lichti, an Associate Professor Emeritus of the Faculty of Music at Wilfrid Laurier University (1998-2017).
Toronto Mennonite Theological Centre (TMTC) will end its operations this spring, following a decision of the Conrad Grebel University College Board of Governors at its February meeting.