Cariboo Festival 2015 has almost 90 entries in the various piano sections that will be adjudicated this Thursday and Friday by Rita Attrot.
Attrot has been teaching piano students of all ages and levels for 30 years. She received her early training at the Victoria Conservatory, where she took her diploma in teacher training with Winifred Scott Wood.
Attrot went on to complete her Bachelor of Music at the University of Victoria with Bruce Vogt and followed with a Master of Music degree in performance from the University of Western Ontario where she studied with Dr. Damjana Bratuz and Ronald Turini.
As a graduate student and post graduation, Attrot specialized in accompanying and chamber music.
Attrot held the position of staff accompanist at Acadian University in Nova Scotia for nine years, worked as a free-lance accompanist for instrumentalists and singers in Toronto, and served as a coach and repetiteur at the University of Toronto Opera School.
She has collaborated with violinist Mishan Han, releasing a CD from a live performance at the Glenn Gould Studio, pianist Lynn Johnson, performing piano duo and two piano recitals in the Maritime provinces, the Appassionata Trio and the Erato Ensemble, serving as principal pianist in concerts throughout Vancouver, Victoria and the Lower Mainland.
Above all, Attrot is passionate about working with vocalists and can be heard in recital performing innovative programs of great song literature with frequent collaborator, soprano Catherine Laub.
Attrot is head of the piano department at the B.C. Conservatory of Music in Burnaby where she has many private students and teaches the piano pedagogy course. She is also a member of the piano faculty at the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra School. As a church musician, Attrot has held many posts as organist and choir director. She is presently the music director at St. Thomas’ Anglican Church in Vancouver.
Piano adjudications are Thursday, April 16 and Friday, April 17 at Calvary Church on Carson Drive.