Distinguished Alumni Awards honour Carrie Tennant, Dennis Gupa & Ivy Martin

by | Mar 5, 2024 | Alumni, Award, climate, indigenous, School of Music, Theatre

UVic announced the recipients of the 2024 Distinguished Alumni Awards on March 4 and Fine Arts was once again proud to see three of our outstanding graduates included among the 18 recipients being recognized across the three categories: Presidents’ Alumni Award recipient Carrie Tennant (Music), Emerging Alumni Award recipient Dennis Gupa (Theatre) and Indigenous Community Alumni Award recipient Ivy Martin (CRM). You can view all the awardees and read about them on the alumni awards webpage.

“This diverse group of graduates contribute their skills, passions and leadership to many different fields, including the arts, education, law, science, engineering and business,” says UVic President Kevin Hall. “Advocacy, community building and climate action are common threads woven through their work. In that sense, they shine a light on the values and priorities that define and unite us at UVic.”

Once again, the awards show the calibre of UVic alumni and their impact across the world—but it’s also a great reminder of the potential future impact of the work we do every day to create positive student experiences.

Carrie Tennant, Presidents’ Alumni Award

Presented by UVic’s President and the President of the UVic Alumni Association, this award recognizes the outstanding lifetime accomplishments of alumni who have either earned national or international regard, or had a significant local impact as a result of their outstanding professional achievements and/or service to society.

For the past 20 years, the Vancouver-based Carrie Tennant has worked with young singers, developing their leadership and artistry. Holder of a Bachelor of Music in Music Education (1999) and a Teaching Certificate from Faculty of Education (2000), she is currently the founder and artistic director of the Vancouver Youth Choir.

Carrie’s choirs have won several awards and have performed at international events in Istanbul and New York City. She is also an affiliate conductor with the Vancouver Chamber Choir, and a frequent clinician, adjudicator and guest conductor across North America and around the world. She is the editor and curator for two choral series: the Vancouver Youth Choir Choral Series (Cypress Publishing), which promotes diverse Canadian voices on the international stage, and the brand new Carrie Tennant Choral Series (Hal Leonard). She received the 2023 YWCA Women of Distinction Award for Arts and Culture, and in a past life she toured, performed and recorded with her husband as a member of Vancouver-based indie-pop group the Salteens.

When asked for her favourite memory of attending UVic, Carrie points to playing in the ensembles with retired Music Ed and Wind Symphony director Gerald King and singing in UVic Chamber Singers with Bruce More. “I went to Korea and Thailand and China with him and the choir,” she recalls. “Bruce was an incredible mentor and a fantastic role model, and he let me conduct in Korea. That gave me the conducting bug. It was really a transformative experience for me.”

You can hear Carrie and the Chamber Singers in action at a special 50th Anniversary concert at Vancouver’s Pacific Spirit Church on April 21, which will also feature an alumni reception before the concert.

One aspect of her UVic training that really helped shape Carrie was what she describes as the “spirit of thinking outside the box, which I really have carried forward with me.” But she also credits our “incredible” music education program: “I walked out of that program ready to be a successful teacher in the public system, and I didn’t realize at the time that that was not the norm until I connected with other first-year teachers from other post-secondary programs who were overwhelmed and treading water and couldn’t handle it,” she says. “Even though I’m not a teacher in the traditional sense now, I think a lot of the foundational principles and methodology comes from that strong background of music ed from UVic.”

Read more of the interview with Carrie here—including her thoughts on community building, her own personal motivations, the best advice she ever received, her go-to karaoke song (spoiler: it’s Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5”) and her secret talent.

Dennis Gupa, Emerging Alumni Awards

Recognizing the outstanding professional achievements and/or contributions of recent alumni (graduated within the last 10 years) to the community, one of this year’s Emerging Alumni Awards goes to the now Philippines-born but now Winnipeg-based Dennis Gupa (Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Theatre, 2021).

Dennis is a theatre director, performance maker/researcher, applied-theatre practitioner and an assistant professor at the Department of Theatre and Film at the University of Winnipeg. He has an MFA in Theatre (Directing) from UBC, an MA in Theatre Arts from the University of the Philippines and completed his PhD in Applied Theatre at the University of Victoria as a Vanier Scholar; his dissertation centred on climate change and Indigenous ecological knowledge, which was amplified with his role as UVic’s Ocean Networks Canada Artist in Residence during the pandemic.

Dennis has directed and devised performances in Southeast Asia and North America. He received the 2023 inaugural Green Award (Individual Artist Runner-Up) from the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (PACT) and Boca del Lupo and RBC Foundation’s 2023 SLaM (Successor, Leadership and Mentorship) Program. He is a Dwight Conquergood Laureate of the Performance Studies International (PSi) and The Ada Slaight Drama in Education Awardee of Toronto’s Young People’s Theatre. Dennis is mentioned in the Cultural Centre of the Philippines’ Encyclopedia of Philippine Arts for his contribution to the contemporary theatrical heritage of the Philippines.

He describes his experiences at UVic as “life transforming,” noting that he’s the only person in his family who received both an international education and a PhD.

“But having such an achievement is empty when you are not connected to the purpose of the work that you’re doing,” he says. “UVic taught me to have an attentiveness to one’s purpose—a kind of an attention to the things that I wish to contribute to the world. It made me reflexive, value collaboration and to have the courage to constantly interrogate and question the work I create, communicate and circulate. My academic and artistic experiences at UVic made me realize that I have to constantly evolve with my own craft as a scholar, teacher and artist to become a better human being.”

Read more about Dennis here—including the one essential trait for his continuing work (humility), a good piece of advice, his favourite way of relaxing, one food he can’t resist (Filipino adobo) and who (or what) he’d like to play him in the movie of his life.

Ivy Martin, Indigenous Community Alumni Award

Long before obtaining her Diploma in Cultural Resource Management in 2023, Tofino-based (but Port Alberni-born) Ivy Martin played a key role in caretaking, documenting and promoting the traditional knowledge and cultural treasures of the Tlaoquiaht First Nation.

She has successfully repatriated several ancestral treasures to the community and helped build a custom space with temperature and humidity control to secure their long time use and preservation. Ivy works with Tlaoquiaht’s Tribal Parks department and archaeologists on cultural surveys to ensure cultural sites and treasures are handled with the proper traditional protocols of the Tlaoquiaht First Nation, and to establish a repository for artifacts found within the traditional territory. She records, documents and shares cultural knowledge, and is currently building an online database and learning resources as part of the nation’s efforts to revitalize the endangered Tlaoquiaht language.

When asked for a favourite memory of her time at UVic, Ivy recalled the cultural regalia that went missing from her family years before. “My mother’s the eldest daughter of my grandfather, who was chief,” she explains. “I was in my 20s when I started collecting, documenting culture and our history, because it was intriguing to me . . . and [my grandfather] shared his wish for me to find this regalia and to bring the regalia home.”

So when one of her CRM assignments was to do a repatriation request, Ivy  already knew what her family wanted. “Now we have a room that is a designated chief’s regalia space. That’s come from part of my course work with UVic. It’s helped me to see how it can be a reality for my community. It’s been an awesome journey, very culturally healing. My experience has made it such a personal thing, connected to that identity in my family, of having that regalia coming home.”

Read more about Ivy here, including key skills, underappreciated characteristics (“We don’t shine enough light on our abilities to push forward each day”), valuable advice, what she does to relax, and what brings her joy (“seeing my kids enjoy life”).  

“My education with UVic has helped me to create opportunities for my family to learn and experience things that are meaningful,” she concludes.

Nominate a Distinguished Alumni

You can read more about previous Fine Arts Distinguished Alumni Award winners.

Nominations for the 2025 Distinguished Alumni Awards are now open through October 18, 2024.

Chamber Singers mark 50 years at UVic Music

by | Mar 4, 2024 | Alumni, donor, Faculty, School of Music

Retired conductor Bruce More takes the stage with the Chamber Singers at the concert in March (Beth Bingham photo)

For 50 years, the UVic Chamber Singers have proven to be one of the most endearing — and enduring — ensembles in our School of Music. Over the years, the Chamber Singers have performed to enthusiastic audiences in 140 cities and 30 countries on 6 continents, and have been recorded for broadcast on the CBC, University of California Radio and NCRV Radio (Holland), as well as the national radio stations of China, Poland & Hungary. They have also been winners in the CBC choral competition and took part in a 2000 recording that won a Juno Award.

While their performances are primarily held in UVic’s Phillip T. Young Recital Hall, the Chamber Singers have transcended local boundaries by performing in venues around Vancouver Island, across BC, and, from 1987 to 2009, across the globe.

Today, the Chamber Singers are led by Music professor Adam Con, but Professor Emeritus Bruce More was the ensemble’s longest-standing conductor with an impressive 37-year tenure leading the group. While More retired in 2008, he continues to host alumni reunions and foster connections that strengthen the long and prestigious history of the Chamber Singers.

This spring, the Chamber Singers are marking their 50th anniversary with a mini-tour that includes March 2 performances in Port Alberni (following a day-long workshop with Urbanstreet Choir and Barkley Sounds Choir) and Parksville, alongside UVic Music Education alumni Brent Kellas (choral director at Bellenas Secondary) and Crystal-Anne Howell (choral director at Kwalikum Secondary).

They will also be performing two concerts in Victoria: 2:30pm March 9 at UVic’s Phillip T Young Recital Hall, featuring the return of 40+ Chamber Singers alumni and conductor Bruce More performing Healey Willan’s “Rise Up My Fair One” (also available as a live stream), and 3:30pm March 10 at Broadview United alongside the University of Puget Sound Chamber Singers. Expect to hear a repertoire spanning 400 years of world and folk music, newly composed music, music of the Renaissance, Canadian composers and traditional African American spirituals.

Their 50th anniversary mini-tour will then conclude at a very special April 21 performance at Vancouver’s Pacific Spirit Church, alongside 2024 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient and Chamber Singers alumna Carrie Tennant, featuring a pre-concert reception open to all UVic alumni.

An exhilarating experience

For former Chamber Singers director Bruce More, the 50th anniversary offers both a chance to reconnect with former singers and to lead the group in song once more.

“I’ve been retired for 15 years and am well along the path of aging, so it is a wonderful reminder of the joys of working with gifted young musicians,” he says. “I expect it will be an exhilarating experience to be in front of Chamber Singers alumni again, although I’m not much older than some that I conducted in the 1970s!”

When asked for a favourite memory from his years leading the Chamber Singers, More singles out their touring years. “The desire to become a touring ensemble was greatly enhanced in 1981 during our first trip to California by the realization that several of the singers had never seen a palm tree before,” he recalls.

Bruce More (bottom right)

“Five years later, we were sailing down the Danube; 10 years later we were seeing long bread-lines in Leningrad; 15 years later we were singing with students in Soweto; 20 years later, singing in the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square; and 25 years later sharing a concert with a Cambodian school choir in the presence of a Cambodian prince.”  (Read about more touring adventures in More’s book, The Conductor is the One in Front: 37 Years with the UVic Chamber Singers.)

An education on multiple levels

Current Chamber Singers leader Adam Con echoes More’s enthusiasm. “The UVic Chamber Singers is that one place to practice the art of singing at the highest level with others who share that burning passion,” he says. “There’s something about having that very high-level experience that sparks a huge interest in composing, conducting and many other activities in music.”

Far from going out of fashion, choral presentations continue to be an essential part of public ceremonies internationally, ranging from coronations and presidential inaugurations to the Olympics. Con sees this as proof that singing together is a quintessential human endeavour. “Music is like food: why do we eat? To Live! Why do we sing? The same, to live,” he says.  “Worldwide, we see people make art, music and dance not only as a part of culture but also as part of simply being and passing down stories and experiences.”

Current conductor Adam Con with Bruce More (Beth Bingham photo)

But Con points out the Chamber Singers also fills an essential pedagogical role for music educators. “It’s important in the education of young musicians to experience all genres and all eras,” he says. “Our students must learn to use their voice in different ways to honour the respective singing traditions: this is part of a solid education in music and singing, and it practices the decolonized approach to choral music education.”

Con is already planning for the future of the Chamber Singers. “Next year we hope to do an international competition and more touring. Future years will include the CBC Choral Competition and expanding our horizons to embrace other communities of singing. We hope the larger community will come out to support our efforts to fundraise for these projects as well.”

Planning for the future

Indeed, a generous contribution from a Chamber Singers alumni in 2023 led to the establishment of the Bruce More Legacy Fund, aimed at supporting the Chamber Singers and their future tours.

“I am truly honoured to loan my name to the Legacy Fund, and I look forward to the future benefits provided by its growth over time,” says More. “Of course, I hope the Chamber Singers will continue forever—but, at the very least, I hope it will offer the opportunity to School of Music students to perform the best of the choral art and to experience the community that can come with it.”

We encourage all past and current Chamber Singers and their supporters to join in this vision to grow the Bruce More Legacy Fund through future gifts.