Wayne Toews was born in
Winnipeg, MB, Canada where he began to
study the violin at the age of 4. His
early musical experience included
singing with the Westmount Boys Choir
and serving as concertmaster of the
Saskatoon Youth Orchestra. He was active
on the school student council, in
Scouting and in DeMolay. He studied
violin and composition with Dr. Murray
Adaskin at the University of
Saskatchewan where he received B.A. and
B.Ed. degrees. He played for nine
seasons in the Saskatoon Symphony, first
on violin and later on viola. He
performed on double bass and percussion
in the U of S Wind Orchestra under
Dwaine Nelson. He was a member of the
Saskatchewan Jubilee Orchestra under
Arthur Fiedler and played in the
orchestras for the touring shows of Tom
Jones, Englebert Humperdinck, Ray Price
and André Gagnon.
Mr. Toews taught music
in Saskatoon schools from 1969. He
started the band program at City Park
Collegiate and neighbourhood schools and
in 1976 began a twenty-five year career
at Aden Bowman Collegiate where he
taught band, orchestra, choir, general
music and jazz band. Groups under his
direction earned more than 50 first
place awards. On two occasions his jazz
groups won first place awards at
national festivals. He has served as
president and board member of several
professional organizations. He helped to
found and was board member of the
Saskatchewan Orchestral Association for
35 years.
From
1983 until 2009 he was director of the
Saskatoon Youth Orchestra in
association with George Charpentier.
The orchestra represented Saskatchewan
at two conventions of the Canadian
Music Educators Association. He led
the orchestra in the 1988, 1990 and
1992 Canadian Festivals of Youth
Orchestras, the 1996 and 1998 Banff
International Festival of Youth
Orchestras and the 1999 and 2001
festivals of Quebec Youth Orchestras
(AOJQ). The orchestra under his
direction was awarded the Christopher
Gledhill national orchestra
performance award by the Canadian
Music Educators' Association award six
successive times in 1993, 1995, 1997,
1999, 2002 and 2003.
He
organized the Jack Johnson Memorial
Music Fund through the Saskatoon
Community Foundation to provide annual
grants in support of young Saskatoon
orchestral musicians.
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Mr.
Toews began to study the Saito
Conducting method in 1974 at the
Courtenay Youth Music Camp with
Professor Morihiro Okabe and Maestro
Kazuyoshi Akiyama. In 1983 he
continued his studies with Prof. Okabe
at the Toho Gakuen School of Music,
Tokyo. He prepared the English edition
of the Saito
Conducting Method text
that was completed with the assistance
of Fumihiko Torigai, Morihiro Okabe
and Kazuyoshi Akiyama and published in
Tokyo in 1988. His articles about the
method have been published in the NSOA
Bulletin, the Instrumentalist,
the BCMEA Newsletter, The
Music Scene and SMEA's Cadenza.
He organized four international
conducting workshops with Prof. Okabe
at Canadian universities. He has been
guest presenter at Conductors Guild
convention in New York, at the 1994
Midwest International Band and
Orchestra clinic, at McGill and
Northwestern Universities, at the
Canadian Festivals of Youth Orchestras
in Banff, and at conventions of the
Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario,
Saskatchewan and Canadian Music
Educators Associations. He
gave workshops for NEOJIBA in
Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, at Rivers
Conservatory in Boston, McGill
University in Montreal, PQ and at the
Universities of Memphis, TN and Alaska
in Fairbanks. Since 2006 he has
been the organizer and principal
instructor of the International Saito
Conducting Workshop in Saskatoon.
Since 2010 the workshop has been a
project of the Saskatchewan Orchestral
Association.
Among his published
works are an elementary music theory
booklet, a clarinet resource book, a
bass guitar book and several
curriculum guides. He has created
several computer programs including Subjective
Tones and An Introduction
to the Saito Conducting Method.
Mr. Toews served as
guest conductor of honour groups and
professional orchestras and has
conducted the premieres of
contemporary works by Canadian
composers Jack Johnson, David Kaplan,
Monte Keene Pishny-Floyd, Susan Bond
Hurka, Piotr Grella-Mozejko, Linda
Purves, Gareth Cook and David Scott as
well as his own works.
In the fall of 2004
he became founding director of the
University of Saskatchewan Chamber
Orchestra.
He received the
"Outstanding Achievement Award" from
the Saskatchewan Music Educators'
Association in 1987, the 1990 " Golden
Wheel Award for Excellence in Arts and
Education" from the Rotary Clubs of
Saskatoon, the 2001 Orchestral
Development award from the
Saskatchewan Orchestral Association,
the 2009 Distinguished Band Director
award from the Saskatchewan Band
Association and the "Honourary Life
Membership Award" from the
Saskatchewan Music Educators'
Association in 2013. He is a Life
Member of the Canadian Federation of
Musicians, Local #553.
From 2008 to 2018 he
was Orchestra division chair for
MusicFest Canada. In that role
he created the Canadian String
Orchestra, an auditioned group of
young Canadian string players.
It became known as the
Thomastik-Infeld Canadian String
Orchestra after that organization
became sponsor and the orchestra grew
and thrived.
Mr. Toews holds a
Masters in Music Education degree and
a certificate in educational
technology from Northwestern
University where he developed a
multimedia computer program to
demonstrate the Saito conducting
method.
He retired from
teaching for the Saskatoon Public
Board of Education in June 2001. He
remains active as a composer,
arranger, adjudicator, clinician and
guest conductor.
Wayne Toews
1610 Morgan Avenue,
Saskatoon, SK.,
Canada, S7H 2S1
Telephone: (306)
373-6408
Click
HERE to E-mail
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