Sunday, June 7th, 2026, 7:30 PM
Theatre Auditorium, Wilfrid Laurier University
Cynthia Johnston Turner, Artistic Director & Conductor
Odds were against Cynthia Johnston Turner becoming a musician let alone a professor of music and conducting in higher education. Born in a small town in Ontario, Canada, no one in her family played an instrument or sang, although there were rumors that her great paternal grandfather was an accomplished mandolinist. Cynthia asked for a piano for Christmas when she was 8 years old, and because it was all her parents could afford, she received a toy electric keyboard from which she was pretty much inseparable until she started the ukulele in grade school. When she picked up the clarinet and saxophone in middle school, a love affair and a career were born. The first in her family to attend university, Cynthia received her Bachelor of Music and Bachelor of Education from Queen’s University, a Master of Education at the University of Victoria, and a Doctor of Musical Arts (Conducting) from the Eastman School of Music. She has received numerous teaching, research, and leadership awards in Canada and the United States.
Cynthia was appointed Dean—Faculty of Music at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario July 1, 2021. She leads a school of approximately 400 undergraduate and graduate music majors with programs in traditional conservatory programming coupled with innovative programs such as the Bachelors, Masters, and PhD in Community Music, and Artist Diplomas in Opera Performance, Chamber Music, and the soon to be launched, Master of Music in Collaboration, Creation and Curation (MMC3). She also oversees the Laurier Academy of Music and the Arts, a community-based school serving hundreds of children and their families in the region.
Before her appointment as Dean, Cynthia was Director of Bands, Professor of Music, and Artistic Director of the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble at the Hodgson School of Music, University of Georgia where she conducted the Hodgson Wind Ensemble, led the Master and Doctoral programs in conducting, provided strategic leadership in diversity, equity, and inclusivity initiatives as well as innovative curriculum, and oversaw the entire band program including the 400+ member Redcoat Marching Band. The Hodgson Wind Ensemble performed at the College Band Directors National Association National Convention in 2017. Prior to UGA, Cynthia was Director of Wind Ensembles at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. She was recently appointed as Artistic Director and Conductor of Festival Winds of “Summer Music at Saugeen Shores.”
Cynthia has guest conducted bands, new music ensembles, and orchestras professionally, at several universities and conservatories, and state honor bands in the United States and abroad. She continues to actively promote commissions by today’s leading and emerging composers around the world with a focus on underrepresented voices. She has been invited to present her research with teaching and technology, innovative rehearsal techniques, and service-learning and music performance at numerous conferences nationally and internationally. She is published in such journals as Interdisciplinary Humanities, International Journal of the Humanities, Music Educators Journal, National Association for Music Education “Teaching Music,” NewMusicUSA.org, Journal of the World Association of Bands and Ensembles, Fanfare Magazine, and Canadian Winds, and has recorded CDs with the Innova and Albany labels.
Cynthia has served as a board member with the World Association of Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE) and is an active member of College Band Directors National Association (CBDNA), Conductor’s Guild, College Music Society, Humanities Education and Research Association, the National Association for Music Education, and the American Bandmasters Association. She currently serves on the board of the Western International Band Clinic (WIBC) and is faculty at WIBC University. She serves on the advisory boards of the Institute for Composer Diversity (composerdiversity.com), Lift Music Fund (liftmusicfund.org), and United Sound Music (unitedsoundmusic.org). She is an honorary member of Kappa Kappa Psi and a National Arts Associate member of Sigma Alpha Iota. Cynthia is a sponsored clinician with Conn-Selmer.
A Jubilant Overture
Alfred Reed
Deciduous
Viet Cuong
Paganini Fantasy for Piano and Winds
Michael Barry
Anya Alexeyev, soloist
(World Premiere)
~ INTERMISSION ~
Evergreen
Viet Cuong
Moth
Viet Cuong
PICCOLO
Greg Stroh
FLUTE
Tawnya Convoy
Jennifer Pigott
Raven Revelle
Greg Stroh
James Warrington
OBOE/ENGLISH HORN
Zakariya Elmasri
Katrina Keeler
Davis Po
BASSOON
Shelly Merce
Ginny Scarfino
Joe Schwarz
CONTRABASSOON
Shelly Mercer
CLARINET
Cathy Baer
Jacob Blais
Anita Brooks Kirkland
Bailey Deziel
Larry Moser
Allison Nelson
Cait Nishimura
Alex Zan
ALTO CLARINET
Allison Nelson
BASS CLARINET
Bea Gratton
CONTRABASS CLARINET
Barb Pauzé
SAXOPHONE
Tracey Frank
Paula Kokot
Nathaniel Nahrgang
Erin Probst
Tamia Royer
TRUMPET
Gus Bolton
Eric Dettweiler
Angela Taborda
Julia Vaughan
Stephanie Warrington
FRENCH HORN
Scott Clark
Brian Donohue
Christine Donohue
Jeffrey Goodwin
Debbie Lowes
TROMBONE
Carolyn Culp
Susan Follows
John Monkhouse
Dean Yeats
EUPHONIUM
Chris Phillis
Anne Zhou
TUBA
Daniel Montaseri
Ethan Monterroza
Eric Probst
STRING BASS
George Greer
HARP
Daniella Kistemaker
PERCUSSION
Graeme McMath
Marlee MacDougall
Easton Page
Becca Selman
Man-Yee Sun
Todd Sweezey
|Scott Vernon
PIANO
Sonia Kagolovskaya
A Jubilant Overture (1970)
Alfred Reed (1921-2005)
A celebration of joy. Cast in traditional three-part (ABA’) overture form, A Jubilant Overture begins with a fanfare using an upward sweeping motive that is developed throughout the work. The middle, slower section is broader and more reflective but still based on the opening motive. Then we transition back to the opening tempo (or maybe we’ll go a tad faster!) and joyful mood.
Alfred Reed published over 250 works for band, orchestra, chorus and chamber ensembles and remains one of the band world most celebrated and performed composers.
Deciduous (2023)
Viet Cuong (b. 1990)
For a long time after my father passed away, I felt like I had “lost my leaves.” In the ways that leaves harness light to create energy for trees and plants, I felt like I had so little left to harness creatively. Many days I feared those leaves would never grow back. After struggling for months to write, I finally found some healing while creating Deciduous. This involved revisiting chord progressions that brought me solace as a child and activating them in textures that I have enjoyed exploring as an adult. The piece cycles through these chord progressions, building to a moment where it’s stripped of everything and must find a way to renew itself…I have come to understand that healing is not as much of a linear process as it is a cyclical journey, where, without fail, every leafless winter is followed by a spring.
(Program notes by composer)
Paganini Fantasy for Piano and Winds (2025)
Michael Barry (b. 1981)
Many great composers have written variations to Niccolo Paganini’s Caprice in A minor. I first composed a work of this title in 2002. Twenty-three years later, I have revised it, keeping about a quarter of the work as it once was and writing new material for the remaining three quarters. Part of the reason for doing this was the fact that the original parts and complete score have been lost to me. I possess a pdf of the middle few pages, but none of the original music.
While writing this work I played a little game with myself. Could I compose a variation to someone else’s theme in someone else’s voice? While much of the work is original, you may be able to pick out a Liszt, Mussorgsky, Shostakovich, or even a John Williams variation. There are other musical “easter eggs” to be found, for I share a deep love for classical music literature.
(Program notes by composer)
Evergreen (2024)
Viet Cuong (b. 1990)
A few years ago, I wrote Deciduous, born from a period of loss following my father’s passing. He was the first close family member I had lost, and it felt natural, even inevitable, to dwell on all that was missing. But in the years since, as I have cycled through ups and downs of healing, certain constants in my life have helped me find strength and meaning again–especially the people closest to me and, of course, music.
Evergreen is a wistful yet exuberant tribute to these constants in our lives, the steadfast forces from which we draw love, energy, and resilience. In this sense, it serves as a companion piece or foil to Deciduous. While loss may lead us to initially fixate on what is gone, remembering what remains–what has always been there, and what will continue to be–helps us move forward.
(Program notes by composer)
Moth (2013)
Viet Cuong (b. 1990)
The “moth to the flame” narrative is a familiar one. We have all seen moths in the glow of flames or stadium lights. Scientists call this phenomena “phototaxis,” but I prefer to think of this attraction in much more romantic terms. The dusty moth, though destined to live in shadow, has an insatiable craving for the brightness of day. Drab, but elegant; nervous, but swift; his taste for the glow of the flame or the filament is dire. Perhaps he dances in the light because it holds the promise that he might be as beautiful as his favored kin, the butterfly. For only there, in its ecstatic warmth, may he spend the last of his fleeting life, and believe himself to be.
Moth seeks inspiration from the dualities between light and dark, beautiful and grotesque, reality and fantasy, and the ultimate decision to sacrifice sensibility for grace.
(Program notes by composer)