Adjudicators for the 2023 SPG Festival:
- Yvette Rowledge, BC
- Ildiko Skeldon, BC
- Chris Foley, ON
Yvette Rowledge - Elementary & Junior Classes
Yvette Rowledge adjudicates at many local and provincial music festivals throughout Canada and is a member of the Canadian Music Festival Adjudicators’ Association. She has taught all levels of music for over 40 years.
She graduated with distinction from the University of Victoria School of Music and holds diplomas from the Royal Conservatory of Music (ARCT,
Performance), the Victoria Conservatory of Music (AVCM, Performance and Pedagogy), and Camosun College (Associate of Arts Diploma in music).
Yvette is a former faculty member of the Langley Community Music School, the Victoria Conservatory and the Douglas College Community Music
School. Her mentors have included Dr. Robin Wood, Winifred Scott Wood, Dr. Gordana Lazarevich and Bruce Vogt.
She has examined senior piano levels for The London College of Music and Media (England), and is a member of the BC Registered Music Teachers’
Association.
Ildiko Skeldon - Intermediate Classes
Ildiko Skeldon is a Senior RCM Examiner with over 30 years of examining experience in both Canada and the USA. Certified teacher with the Royal Conservatory in both Piano and Theory, for Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced levels.
She is also a member of the Canadian Music Festivals Adjudicators Association and has adjudicated extensively throughout the provinces of B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba encompassing Junior to Senior levels.
Ms. Skeldon’s influential teachers have been Audrey Mallinson, Kum-Sing Lee, Dale Reubart, Robert Rogers, Robert Silverman, Pawel Checinski, Ivan Moravec, and Anton Kuerti. She also had summer studies through the 1970’s at the prestigious Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary.
Ms. Skeldon runs a successful studio in Richmond, B.C., where for over 40 years she has focused on nurturing and inspiring musical growth in all ages and levels of students.
Chris Foley - Senior Classes
Christopher Foley is a pianist dedicated to the fields of pedagogy, opera, contemporary music, art song, and chamber music. At the Eastman School of Music, he received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in 1994, majoring in Piano Accompanying and Chamber Music as a student of Jean Barr and David Burge. He is on the faculty of the Royal Conservatory of Music and serves as Senior Examiner for the RCM's Certificate Program. He spent fourteen summers as Resident Accompanist at the Bowdoin International Music Festival in Brunswick, Maine. In 1989 at the Eckhardt-Grammaté Competition for the Performance of Contemporary Music, he won first prize for the performance of the commissioned work and third prize overall. In 1991, he won first prize in piano at the Kneisel Competition for the Performance of German Lieder in Rochester, New York.
Dr. Foley is highly active as a clinician, with recent webinar appearances at The National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy, The Frances Clark Center for Keyboard Pedagogy, The Aspen Music Festival, Collabfest, Tom Lee Music Canada, Trinity Western University, and Millionaire Musician. As author of the Collaborative Piano Blog, he writes about issues of importance to the collaborative pianist, as well as current musical events in Toronto and elsewhere. Recent projects include Foley Music and Arts, a blog about productive creativity in the arts, as well as The Suleika Project, an art song initiative with Edmonton-based mezzo soprano Aliya Amad.
As pianist and repetiteur for Tapestry New Opera, he has been involved with numerous productions, as well as being on the creative team for Tapestry's unique Composer/Librettist and Director/Musical Director laboratories. In 2010 he was the first Leadership Legacy Intern at Tapestry, where he created the Tapestry Songbook program, a workshop and recital program aimed at educating emerging singers and pianists in the new opera development process. Some of the many venues at which he has recently performed include the Eastman School of Music Faculty Concert Series, the University of Western Ontario, Cleveland State Composers’ Forum, Vancouver International New Music Festival, April in Santa Cruz, Sonic Boom, Toronto Arts Week, Word on the Street, Canadian Contemporary Music Workshop, Toronto Dance Theatre, Algoma Fall Festival, and the Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music.