Success Stories

PRO MUSICA

The Queen, The Bear and the Bumblebee - Family Presentation

GLENBOW MUSEUM

GRANT UPDATE! 2011

The Empress Theatre in Fort Macleod is sending three Blackfoot guests to London, England in March 2011 to give a presentation sponsored by Trinity College of Music.  The guests will perform "Siksika" by English composer Ben Ellin, celebrating the history and culture of the Blackfoot people, and it will be performed at 7:30pm at St. Georges, Bloomsbury on March 15, 2011.

Empress reported that when meeting with the three Blackfoot performers, Treffrey Deerfoot, Quinton and Ramona Big Head, they mentioned how moved they were by the Blackfoot Shirts display at the Glenbow Museum.  They also mentioned that they knew the Rozsa Foundation had supported this exhibit.

A video of this London performance will be shown at the Fort Macleod International Festival from May 25-30, 2011.  Get more information here!

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In 2010 The Rozsa Foundation funded the Glenbow Museum's Blackfoot Shirts Exhibition by approving a grant for the display cabinets that would house the shirts.

This exhibition was viewed by more than 8,400 visitors, but the greatest impact was seen in the students who came from miles around to view the historical shirts.

Laura Peers, Project Lead from Pitt Rivers Museum, reflected:

In late March 2010, some 200 Blackfoot people—elders, ceremonialists, teachers, high school students, and artists—were able to gently touch and learn from five Blackfoot shirts collected in 1841. The shirts, on loan to Glenbow from the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, England, were collected by Edward Hopkins, secretary to Sir George Simpson of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Blackfoot people have not seen such early shirts for at least a century; there are no examples from this period in Alberta.

For the academic year 2009-10, Blackfoot students in art classes at the Kainai High School on the Blood Reserve have been learning to tan hides in the old way, and to do porcupine quillwork. As one of their teachers said,  ‘We’ve been working on preparing for the arrival of these shirts.’  The school secured a grant from the Alberta Arts Council to teach these traditional skills (now seldom-practised) to students, and hired one of the few quillworkers in the community to work with them. For the study sessions with the Blackfoot shirts, this class drove 3 hours each way to Glenbow. The girls brought their work: beaded and quilled pouches using brain-tanned hide they had made. When we later visited their class and asked them to try to explain what the shirts mean to them as Blackfoot youth, one of the students instantly responded: ‘Belonging. They’re about belonging and being Blackfoot.’

This sense of connection between contemporary Blackfoot identity and the shirts was expressed over and over again by all of the Blackfoot people who came to Glenbow to visit the shirts and learn from them.

One Blackfoot student from a Calgary high school, touched one of the shirts gently and asked: “Am I one of the first Blackfoot to touch these in over 100 years?”  A Blackfoot teacher from the Siksika School Board  said, ‘bringing the shirts back is like there’s a connection with who we are. … there’s a connection between objects, history, identity.’ Another Blackfoot teacher said, ‘I’m emotional seeing these today. These are my people who fought for me to be here. …The kids I teach are into rap, hip hop, all trying to find something to make them feel good about themselves. These shirts would make them feel good. They show that each person had a role in society, teachers can talk about that with the shirts.’

We worked in the conservation lab at Glenbow, and are grateful to Glenbow staff for permitting us the use of this space, and for helping in every way possible. Clarence Wolfleg, a Siksika elder and military veteran who works for Glenbow delivering educational programs, worked with us on many days and provided deeply meaningful interpretations of the shirt with painted war honours, as well as an extraordinary ability to captivate the attention of otherwise distracted teenagers. Dr Gerry Conaty, Director of Indigenous Studies at Glenbow, attended many of the workshops, provided feedback, and lent his long-established relations with Blackfoot people to the project, and we are grateful for his support.

THE CALGARY STAMPEDE SHOWBAND

"The score has become a popular selection among the world's leading wind ensembles."

2009: Following on the success of our initial grant, and realizing the importance of creating and playing distinctly Showband music, the Foundation is working with the Stampede to develop a library of original compositions. Our mutual goal is the recording of a cd by the Showband or release in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the Stampede in 2012.

In 2006, the Stampede Showband was ready for the next step in its development: the commissioning of its first piece of original music. They contacted Steven Bryant, graduate of the Julliard School of Music, to create a composition that is uniquely Calgary and uniquely Stampede.

The Rozsa Foundation saw a tremendous educational opportunity in this collaboration. Working with Dan Finley, then Stampede Showband Music Director, a series of feedback forms were designed to help band members assess what they were learning and understand the composition process more fully. This monitoring was new to the organization.

The Foundation was also concerned about the music itself, and the impact of its production. The finished work, entitled Stampede, received the highest musical rating according to industry guidelines, and is a significant addition to wind band literature. Says Finley, Stampede is extremely difficult to play, but it captures the Stampede's essence, and it really shows how far the Showband has progressed in a concert setting". The music was premiered at the Alberta International Band Festival, and was played at the Nova Scotia International Tattoo and the Calgary Stampede. Subsequently, Stampede was performed by the Tokyo Kosei Orchestra December 17, 2005, and can now be heard on the University of North Texas Wind Symphony's newest recording project " Poetics". The score has become a popular selection among the world's leading wind ensembles.

In addition to a $8000 grant, the Foundation also helped the Showband build a new community partnership by introducing them to the CEO and Program Director of the Glenbow Museum. The initial result of this collaboration saw the Showband playing Stampede at the opening of the Museum's exhibit: Capturing Western Legends: Russell and Remington's Canadian Frontier.

A CAREER IN OPERA

Peak Performance ...the journey of one artist...

2009: Andrea Hill is a member of the Paris Opera Company. This is how she reached this career goal...

The Canadian Federation of Music Teachers had a dream to revive a national voice competition at their annual piano competition and conference in 2005. With the help of the Foundation, and a multi-year grant of $15,000, this dream was realized.

Foundation monies were used to leverage other inaugural sponsors, and to fund the provincial competition at the Rozsa Centre- a trial run for the national event. The Rozsa Voice Competition was an overwhelming success: it fostered education and competition in all provinces; brought together an outstanding jury to adjudicate talented emerging artists, and encouraged collaboration among major arts organizations in Calgary. The winner of the competition was a Calgarian: Ms. Andrea Hill who studies with Ms. Elaine Case.

In 2006, Calgary Opera initiated their Emerging Artist program under the leadership of Mr. Mel Kirby. The Rozsa Foundation was the first sponsor of this program. How fitting it is that one of the six students in this program, is none other than Andrea Hill.

This grant illustrates the impact of helping both an arts organization and an individual artist, as the Foundation strives to promote arts education and expression, accessible by all in the community.