Ariel Shetzen (B.Mus., Hons. B.A., B.Ed) is an award-winning vocalist and music educator, originally from Toronto, ON. With a decade of experience teaching music, Ariel has coached hundreds of students, with a focus on helping singers find their unique sound while utilizing healthy vocal technique.

Ariel received her Bachelor of Music degree in Jazz Voice Performance from the University of Toronto, where she studied with acclaimed musicians including Alex Samaras and Mike Murley. Ariel also holds her Honours Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from York University and Bachelor of Education from Western University, where she received the Don Wright Faculty of Education Music award for her dedication to music education.

As a Jazz musician, Ariel has performed extensively with her quartet and developed workshops on improvisation for both high school music students and adult musicians. Through her work as a faculty member of Lakefield Music Camp, Ariel has taught courses on Vocal Phrasing and Technique, Sight Singing and Jazz Improvisation. She is passionate about integrating the foundations of classical vocal technique with the language and freedom of jazz improvisation.

A certified teacher in both Ontario and British Columbia, Ariel has worked with many high school arts and music students, leading choral ensembles and supporting musical theatre productions. Most recently, Ariel led the JAMME ensemble at Etobicoke School of the Arts, where she taught advanced SATBB jazz repertoire and conducted the ensemble at the Ontario Vocal Jazz Festival.

As a choir director, she is known for creating a joyful culture of singing while striving for musical excellence. Ariel believes in building community through song and has led both the Miles Nadal JCC Choir (2021/22 season) and the DJC Choir in Toronto since 2018.

Dean is a Vancouver-based pianist, composer, and educator originally from Sylvan Lake, Alberta. His Bachelor’s Degree in Jazz Composition was completed after a unique educational trajectory that included Red Deer College, Berklee College of Music, and Capilano University. Currently, Dean enjoys a busy career gigging and collaborating within the local Vancouver jazz and improvised music scenes, wedding events, musical theater productions, choral groups, and dance groups as well as teaching at the Sarah McLachlan School Of Music. Besides playing piano, Dean is an accomplished composer and arranger. His arrangements for horn and string ensembles can be heard on a number of his peers’ recordings and performances including recent performances by the Hard Rubber Orchestra and the Sister Jazz Orchestra. His small ensemble and 15-piece jazz orchestra under the shared name of ‘STRANGER FRIENDS’ are his creative outlets that explore his unique compositional and improvisational styles. Both these ensembles have been featured in the Vancouver International Jazz Festival in recent years. His newest releases ‘Stranger Friends Orchestra Live at the Fox Cabaret’ and ‘Thank You, Friend’ feature these two projects as Dean continues to become an established and respected pianist, composer, and bandleader.

Dr. Dijana Ihas is Professor of Music Education at the University of Oregon. A nationally and internationally recognized string educator, conductor, clinician, and violist, she has dedicated her career to advancing excellence in school orchestra programs and preparing future string teachers.

For more than two decades, Dr. Ihas has worked extensively with public school orchestras at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Her ensembles have earned state and national recognition, and she is a frequent guest conductor, clinician, adjudicator, and festival director throughout the United States. A passionate advocate for professional development, she has presented for over twenty years at state, regional, national, and international conferences, helping school orchestra teachers apply sound string pedagogy and research-based practices to classroom instruction and ensemble performance.

Dr. Ihas's research, editorial work, and publications focus on string pedagogy, music teacher education, and expanding access to high-quality music learning opportunities. She is lead author of Teaching Violin, Viola, Cello, Double Bass: Historical and Modern Pedagogical Practices (Routledge, 2023), a landmark volume that bridges historical traditions and contemporary approaches to string teaching and has become an important resource for string educators and teacher educators internationally. She holds multiple graduate degrees, including a Ph.D. in Music Education from the University of Pretoria, and has pursued additional postgraduate study in string pedagogy and music education in the United States and Europe.

Juno-nominated saxophonist Ryan Oliver honed his craft living on Canada’s west coast, and in Amsterdam, Toronto and New York. He is one of Canada’s most in-demand saxophonists, recently releasing Strive!, featuring jazz legend Victor Lewis. Over the last 15 years, Ryan has toured the world with legendary Canadian group, The Shuffle Demons. He is a member of Juno-award-winning Aboriginal rock performer Derek Miller’s band, and appears on Miller’s most recent recording, featuring Stevie Ray Vaughn’s rhythm section Double Trouble and Willie Nelson. Ryan is also a member of the house band for Miller’s television series, airing on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. The Cookers, a group he co-leads, has toured extensively throughout Canada, appearing on numerous recordings and broadcasts including live video broadcasts for CBC. He has received numerous Canada and Ontario Arts Council grants for touring, recording and education and was nominated for the 2013 Prix De Jazz at the Montreal Jazz Festival. Ryan holds a Masters degree in music from Rutgers University, where he led the undergraduate big band, and has taught saxophone and ensemble clinics at universities and schools throughout the world for over 20 years. He currently teaches at the jazz program at Vancouver Island University and runs the jazz and concert bands at Christ Church Cathedral School in Victoria. He has worked as an adjudicator for the Fraser MacPherson Scholarship and the Victoria, West Coast and Powell River Jazz Festivals. In 2017, Oliver took over as the Executive Director for the Comox Valley Youth Music Centre (CYMC).

Dr. Scott MacLennan is an active music director, adjudicator, clinician, and guest conductor who frequently works with ensembles, schools, honour groups, and festivals in Canada. He has been the Music Director of the Symphonic Wind Ensemble in the School of Music at the University of British Columbia, Music Director of the Kwantlen Polytechnic University Wind Ensemble, and Music Director at the Byng Arts Academy in the Performing and Visual Arts in Vancouver, B.C. Presently, he is an Adjunct Professor in Music Education at UBC. For over 30 years, he taught bands and orchestras at all levels from elementary to post-secondary and conducted his award-winning ensembles in various locations throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, China, the United States, and Canada. His ensembles have performed in such notable venues as Carnegie Hall, New York, USA, and Santa Maria della Pieta (Vivaldi’s Church) in Venice, Italy. He guest conducted the Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra on two separate occasions and worked with honour groups in BC and Saskatchewan. As a champion of new wind band repertoire, Dr. MacLennan conducted the Canadian premieres of compositions by such notable composers as Johan de Meji and Frank Ticheli.
He holds a Bachelor of Music (1988) and a Bachelor of Education (1990) from UBC, a Master of Music (2010) in Conducting (Wind Band) from Sam Houston State University, Texas, and a Ph.D. (2015) from UBC. He studied conducting with Ken Hsieh, Morihiro Okabe, and Wayne Toews and participated in numerous conducting master classes given by Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Anthony Maiello, Ralph Hultgren, and Robert Ponto.
As an active music educator, “Dr. Mac” worked for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra to draft and edit curriculum for their VSO Connects (Secondary) program, chaired the BC Music Educator’s Association’s Conference Pulse 2006, and currently sits as a board member of the Chamber Music in the Schools Society. He has presented at various conferences and has articles published in the Canadian Music Educator Journal and Bandworld Magazine. Recently, he contributed to the new GIA publication Winds of the North, A Survey of the Canadian Wind Band Tradition and Repertoire. Dr. MacLennan is a recipient of the BC Music Educators’ Association’s Outstanding Professional Music Educator’s Award in recognition of exemplary commitment, talent, and leadership for music education in British Columbia.