Kim Dang-Robichaud – Junior Piano

After studying music throughout her childhood at the Notre-Dame-d’Acadie School of Music, Ms. Dang-Robichaud continued her studies in music at the Université de Moncton where she obtained her Bachelor in Classical Music.

She has since acquired valued experience and an enviable reputation as an accomplished pianist.  She has accompanied many classical concerts, including the opera workshops of the Université de Moncton, as well as percussion, voice and violin concerts and competitions. She has also accompanied various choirs, such as the Greater Moncton Choral and the Jeunes chanteurs d’Acadie.  Ms. Dang-Robichaud is well-versed in contemporary music and she regularly accompanies many known artists from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Quebec.  In 2014, she received two Eloizes nominations with the group M.I.A.M. for the world premiere and recording of the original work Porté Disparu. M.I.A.M. is a Moncton-based musical collective that blends modern and improvised music.  Ms. Dang-Robichaud is also known for being the keyboardist of the popular Moncton band Angry Candy that finished second on the televised competition of Canada’s Got Talent in 2012.

Not only does Ms. Dang-Robichaud devote her musical talents in honour of her numerous performances, she also shares her passion with students by offering private lessons. She resides and works in Dieppe, New Brunswick.

Edmund Dawe – Intermediate and Senior Piano

“Sensitive, engaging and virtuoso.” (La Scena Musicale)

In a career spanning over three decades, Edmund Dawe is highly respected as a teacher, performer, and university administrator, and has adjudicated numerous music festivals from Whitehorse, YK,  to St. John’s, NL.

Praised for his impressive artistry, he has performed as a soloist and collaborative pianist internationally and has been twice nominated for an East Coast Music Award (Best Classical). Recent concert highlights include performances of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in the same concert with the Wieniawski Philharmonic Orchestra in Lublin, Poland, and Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in a Gala Concert at Carnegie Hall. In May, Edmund will be a featured lecturer and performer at the World Piano Conference in Novi Sad, Serbia.

Edmund’s academic career includes 17 years at Mount Allison University. From 2007-2018, he served as Dean of the Desautels Faculty of Music at the University of Manitoba. Edmund led the Faculty through a period of growth, including construction of the most modern university music facilities in Canada combining a restored historic building with new state-of-the-art rehearsal and recording/multimedia spaces. In 2018, Edmund retired from the University of Manitoba and was appointed Dean Emeritus.

In 2021, Edmund launched his podcast, For Piano Teachers, which now has listeners in 118 countries and territories. As a performer, he is represented by Vida Art Management in Switzerland.

Edmund is looking forward to hearing the many talented students in the 2026 Fredericton Music Festival.

Christine Gale Harrison – Strings

Christine enjoys an eclectic career as a musician. After studies with Leo Wigdorchik in Toronto, she spent two seasons with the Regina Symphony before moving back to Ontario. Her freelance career runs the gamut from symphonic, opera, and chamber music to theatre and popular music performance. String quartet playing is a particular passion, which led her to spend a year with the Saint John String Quartet and later to establish the highly acclaimed “Basically Quartets” courses held annually in Wales.
Although Christine is an ensemble player at heart, some of her most rewarding performances have been solo violin concerts that she has curated specifically for people living with dementia.

Early on in her performance career, an overuse injury sidelined Christine for five years but with the help of physiotherapist Barbara Paull, she made a full return to professional playing. She and Barbara went on to help other injured musicians, co-authoring “The Athletic Musician – a guide to playing
without pain” and lecturing internationally on the subject of musicians’ injuries.

Performing has always gone hand in hand with Christine’s love of teaching. She maintains an active and successful studio and is much in demand as a clinician, coach and adjudicator. An examiner for the Royal Conservatory of Music for over 20 years, she was co-author/co-editor of the 2013 RCM Violin syllabus and Violin Series.

Christine has composed 25 pedagogical violin études, four of which appear in the 2025 RCM Violin Series, with the remainder being prepared for publication. Her latest musical adventure is playing the viola, having finally succumbed to the charms of the “dark side”.

Patrick Maubert – Junior Voice and Musical Theatre

Patrick Maubert (he/they) is a musical theatre practitioner and social worker. Patrick has a Master’s Degree in Musical Theatre Creative Practice from ArtsEd: City University of London, where Andrew Lloyd Webber is a Patron and Mentor. He studied Musical Theatre Performance at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy of New York City. They graduated with a Bachelor of Social Work Degree and are working on a Masters at Dalhousie University in Kjipuktuk (Halifax).

As a performer, Maubert has been a member of the 12 Tenors, touring internationally over the span of seven years. He has worked with such companies as Musicals Tonight Off-Broadway NYC, Toronto Centre for the Arts, Tokyo Disneyland, Canada’s Wonderland, South Holland Centre UK, Halifax Fringe Festival, Eastern Front Theatre, Neptune Theatre Chrysalis Project and Theatre New Brunswick. Most recently, Maubert played the roles of King Agnarr and Oaken in the first Canadian Regional Production of Disney’s Frozen at Neptune Theatre.

Patrick is the former staging director of the acclaimed London Gay Men’s Chorus and was the Associate Artistic Director of Toronto’s No Strings Theatre and London’s A Friend of a Friend Productions, where he directed such shows as Little Women, The Drowsy Chaperone, Little Shop of Horrors and the world premiere of Liam: the musical. Patrick most recently directed Mozart & Sondheim: The Dal Fountain School of Performing Arts Opera Program and is currently directing Newsies at Neptune Theatre YPCO.

Maubert is the former Head of the Voice Faculty at the Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts and has been a private singing, musical theatre & drama teacher at such institutions as the Fountain School of Performing Arts at Dalhousie University, Stagecoach Academy International, Neptune Theatre School, Ross Creek Centre for the Arts, No Strings Theatre School, Northwood, YouthNet, and Theatre New Brunswick Theatre School. He has been an adjudicator at music and drama festivals across Canada. Patrick is the Program Director at the Brunswick Street Mission. Patrick Maubert is an educator and creative practitioner passionate about creating community art that is accessible and meaningful for all. They are thrilled to be adjudicating in his home town.

Paula Rockwell – Senior Voice and Choirs

Mezzo-soprano, Paula Rockwell, has been steeped in musical projects, performances and music festivals in her home province Nova Scotia, Canada, and the United States. She teaches Applied Voice, Diction for Singers, Scene Studies and History of Musical Theatre at her alma mater, Acadia University, and created productions for Acadia’s School of Music Singing Theatre Production Ensemble.  She has been featured on several recordings and co-produced her debut CD entitled Fleeting Melodies, a collection of 20^th century art songs and arias.

Paula has taken on several operatic roles since graduating from University of Toronto and has performed with symphony orchestras across the country and the United States. As a community contributor, she has performed for many fundraisers, including Music for Haiti, Women Only at Pier 21 and the annual Opera Nova Scotia’s Opera Valentine. Paula is heard every summer giving masterclasses, vocal warm-up sessions and a recital in Lyman, New Hampshire at The Ogontz Choral Symposium. She adjudicates music festivals on the Provincial and National level and gives clinics/masterclasses on the topic of vocal pedagogy, interpretation, and stage craft. Acadia’s School of Music Lecture & Concert Series premiered Paula’s sabbatical project entitled Letters from Home, based on letters from her great grandmother to her maternal grandmother (circa 1941-1961) for which she created the script, photo projections and original music. Other projects include a CD of original works entitled Unwrapped…finally surfacing and a music video, I’m on My Way Home, released on Vimeo in November 2020.

She directed a Chamber Music Workshop class of the Canadian/Acadian musical odyssey Pélagie, written by Canadian composer Allen Cole, which was performed at Acadia’s Denton Auditorium. In 2019, she performed the role of Lucy, the Beggar Woman, in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd and in 2021 as Signora Nacarelli in Adam Guettel’s Light in the Piazza with the Wolfville Theatre Collective at the Al Whittle Theatre, Wolfville, NS. She made her debut as music director and the role of Yente with Stage Prophets Theatre Company’s production of Fidder on the Roof in May 2019 and relived the role in November 2019 at Halifax’s Spatz Theatre. She was the music director for Stage Prophet’s 20^th Anniversary Revue in June 2022, Jesus Christ Superstar in June 2023, Music Man in May 2024 and The Wizard of Oz 2025 where she also played the role of one of the Cawquettes. Paula performed in Open Waters Music Festival in Halifax in Sandy Moore’s song cycle Vox Humana poetry by Nova Scotian writer Alex Pierce and was the vocalist for Operation Goosepool (WW2 songs & stories) with the Bridgewater Fire Department Band.

She performed her Letters from Home one-woman show for Opera Nova Scotia’s May 25, 2024, production, as well as at The Whittle Theatre in Wolfville, NS and the Yarmouth Historical Society. This year she will be part of Stage Prophets’ creative team with their production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. Paula will be one of seven performers in The Wolfville Theatre Collective’s show, Solely Sondheim – a revue of some of Stephen Sondheim’s best loved songs, duets, trios and ensembles.

Nicole Strum – Bands, Winds and Brass

A multifaceted musician and educator, saxophonist Nicole Strum is equally at home interpreting new works and collaborating with composers, teaching courses in music theory and aural skills, directing ensembles and facilitating chamber music workshops, and coaching woodwind players. As a performer, she has been praised for her expressive voice and the intensity of her interpretations; as a studio teacher, her commitment to guiding students to discover their unique musical identity is noted by her colleagues.

Nicole is a member of two duos whose focus is contemporary music: with flautist Liesel Deppe she formed Feldsperling Duo and premiered commissioned works at Arrayspace in Toronto and on the Canadian East Coast. Following their debut at Halifax’s Open Waters New Music Festival, the Strum-De Borba duo (with saxophonist Tristan De Borba) capped a 2019 mini-series of performances with a faculty residency at the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance for its inaugural Saxophone Academy.

Other performance highlights include appearances at the North American Saxophone Alliance’s Regional and Biennial conferences, the World Saxophone Congress, the Society for Composers Inc. Region 10 Conference, the UNCG New Music Festival, Mount Allison University’s Recital Series, the Transitio_MX Festival Internacional de Artes Electrónicas in Mexico City, and as concerto soloist with the UPEI Wind Symphony.

Nicole is currently Assistant Professor at the University of Prince Edward Island where she teaches music theory and applied saxophone and assists with the UPEI Wind Symphony. In 2022 she was Visiting Assistant Professor of Single Reeds and Conducting at Mount Allison University and held the position of Woodwind Specialist for Halifax Regional Arts in Nova Scotia the year prior. She adjudicates at local and national music festivals, leads workshops and clinics, and directs UPEI Summer Studios, a week-long chamber music workshop for advanced young musicians. Nicole holds a performance diploma from the Bordeaux Conservatory, where she studied with renowned French saxophonist Marie-Bernadette Charrier, and a DMA and Certificate in Music Theory Pedagogy from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.