Office of the Dean

Dr. Allan Gilliland, Dean

Faculty of Fine Arts and Communications

One of Canada’s busiest composers, Allan Gilliland was born in Darvel, Scotland, in 1965 and immigrated to Canada in 1972. Based in Edmonton (Alberta), he has written music for solo instruments, orchestra, choir, brass quintet, wind ensemble, big band, film, television and theatre. His music has been performed and broadcast by ensembles around the world including the Edmonton Symphony, Boston Pops, Vancouver Symphony, Detroit Symphony, St. Lawrence String Quartet, Canadian Brass, Winnipeg Symphony, Alberta Baroque Ensemble, Camerata Romeau (Cuba), National Youth Choir and National Wind Band, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Zapp String Quartet (Holland), St. Petersburg State Capella Symphony Orchestra (Russia), Edinburgh String Quartet and the brass section of the New York Philharmonic. Many of these performances have been in the world’s major concert halls including Symphony Halls in Boston and Detroit, Tchaikovsky Hall in Russia, the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and twice at Carnegie Hall in 2012. Some of the soloists who have performed his music include James Campbell, Jens Lindemann, John Pattituci, Dean McNeill, William Eddins, Ronda Metzies, Wycliffe Gordon, Dave Young, Nora Bumanis and Julia Shaw, Mark Gould, and Martin Riseley. His music has been recorded on over 20 CD's including two—Collaborations and O Music—dedicated entirely to his music.

For five years (1999–2004) he was Composer-in-Residence with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, writing 11 works for the ESO including concerti for violin, trumpet, two harps, and clarinet. He has also been Composer-in-Residence at the Festival of the Sound in Parry Sound, the Colours of Music Festival in Barrie, Ontario, and the Strata New Music Festival in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Other highlights include: The Winspear Fanfare composed for the opening of the Francis Winspear Centre for Music, Dreaming of the Masters I given its American premiere by James Campbell and the Boston Pops, Hannaraptor, a one-act opera commissioned by Calgary Opera, the musicals The Seventh Circleand Dead Beats and Dreaming of the Masters III, a trumpet concerto written for Jens Lindemann and given its American premiere by Jens and the ESO at Carnegie Hall in 2012. In 2002 his orchestral work On the Shoulders of Giants took First Prize at the prestigious Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s Centara New Music Festival Composers Competition. In 2012 his CD O Music was nominated for two Western Canadian Music Awards and won for Best Classical Composition. Allan has also won composition contests sponsored by Pro Coro Canada and the Alberta Band Association as well as First Place in the Jean Coulthard Competition for Composers and the Lydia Pals Composers Competition.

Education

Allan holds a diploma in Jazz Studies (trumpet) from Humber College, a Bachelor of Music degree in performance and a Master of Music degree in composition from the University of Alberta and a PhD in Composition from the University of Edinburgh. His teachers include Violet Archer, Howard Bashaw, Malcolm Forsyth, Nigel Osborne and Peter Nelson. He has taught at the University of Alberta, the University of Edinburgh, Red Deer College and MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada where he was head of composition from 2004–2016 and chair from 2012–2016.

In January 2017, Allan became the Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts and Communications at MacEwan.

Rose F. Ginther

Associate Dean, Faculty of Fine Arts and Communications
Assistant Professor, Department of Arts and Cultural Management

Rose has been teaching in the Arts and Cultural Management program at MacEwan for 25 years and served as its Chair for 17 years. In January 2018, she took on a new role as Associate Dean for the Faculty of Fine Arts and Communications.

As an educator, Rose believes that learning is an essential, intensely personal activity that involves a complex set of processes, behaviours, attitudes and decisions on both sides of the teaching and learning equation. Rose also believes strongly in the transformative power of education, having seen first-hand how it transforms and changes lives. As Associate Dean, aside from providing support and assistance to the Dean, Rose supports the rest of the leadership team and faculty in developing new and refreshing existing curriculum, developing new program proposals and working with all faculty and staff in the Faculty to foster a positive culture and climate of learning and development. One of the most important aspects of her role is in providing support and regularly communicating with students in the Faculty to ensure that they are aware of available scholarships, research, study abroad and community-engagement opportunities.

Rose holds a BA in History from the University of Alberta (1984) and an MA with a focus on work, organization and leadership (2010) from Athabasca University.

Building on her graduate studies, research areas of interest include the ways in which organizations in the cultural sector organize themselves to fulfill their missions, issues and trends related to audience and resource development and the rapidly changing landscape within which arts and cultural organizations work and their ability to adapt to and embrace those changes. Rose is also interested in the scholarship of teaching and learning, including the influence of program-level learning outcomes as contributors to student success and the importance of experiential learning in preparing individuals for the complex, dynamic arts and cultural field.

Her most recent research initiative involves an interdisciplinary collaboration with Paul Johnston (Assistant Professor, Department of Music), students and alumni in the development of a MacEwan Record Label – Bent River Records (BRR). The label enables artists to access recording and promotional assistance in exchange for providing learning opportunities for students. This exchange builds capacity in the sector, with graduates who are more fully prepared for the challenges that lie ahead.

Bent River Records