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Dr. Colleen Richardson is Coordinator of Bands and an Associate Professor of Music Education and Music Performance Studies in the Don Wright Faculty of Music at Western University. She was interviewed for Canadian Winds by Mark Hopkins. The following is an edited transcript of their in-person conversation.
CW: Where did you grow up?
CR: I grew up in the St. James region of Winnipeg, Manitoba.
CW: Do you come from a musical family?
CR: No, not really. My father didn't finish grade twelve. He was an entrepreneur. The business he built in Winnipeg is still up and running to this day. My mom was a stay-at-home mom. She finished high school and was working as a waitress until she married. Neither one of them had any musical training.
CW: Were school music programs were important to your musical development?
CR: Very much so. I attended Silver Heights Collegiate. At Silver Heights my music teacher was Jim Mackay. I was so lucky to go to this school. Jim ran a great music performance program. I went to Golden Gate Junior High, and I asked to play clarinet, but Miss Marks said, "No, your family owns a saxophone" (because my brother had a saxophone he played for a year before quitting). So when I hear teachers say, "I just give them the instrument they want to play because otherwise they will quit band," I say, "No, the wand chooses the wizard."
I went from Golden Gate to Silver Heights Collegiate, and I loved jazz band; I was all about the jazz band. Through my high school jazz band program I met Gordon Foote (then at St. Francis Xavier University) and Wayne Bowman. They both came in as guest artists to work with our jazz band. Wayne Bowman recruited me and I attended Brandon University. When I arrived at Brandon I had taken about three lessons, half-heartedly, because I didn't know any better. I quickly figured out I knew nothing. No theory, no music history, I just played. That was it. So, I had to retake my first year of music theory because I had never taken it before.
CW: What inspired you to enter music as a career? Was it Jim Mackay?
CR: The root of it...