Gwen Beamish
Gwen Beamish has received national recognition as a performer, teacher and adjudicator. Originally from Saskatchewan, she grew up in a farming family with strong musical interests. Her father was an accomplished singer, and her mother was active in the community as a pianist, choir director and teacher. Gwen soon caught the teaching bug: her first student, her youngest sister, won the Saskatchewan Silver Medal for piano. Gwen completed her ARCT while in high school, and went on to further studies in Toronto and Europe. Her teachers included Boris Berlin, Boris Roubakine and Alexander Uninsky. Later she also received a Master's degree in Performance from the University of Michigan, studying with Theodore Lettvin and Eugene Bossart.
Gwen is a longtime piano faculty member at the University of Western Ontario. She taught for many years at the Banff Centre, where she helped form the Gifted Youth Program. She has also spent summers teaching, performing and giving lecture-recitals at Courtenay, BC, Sudbury, ON, and Acadia University in Nova Scotia. Gwen is a faculty member of the Adamant Music School in Vermont, where she has also served as Executive Director. She has twice been president of the Canadian Music Festivals Adjudicators' Association, and has served as an adjudicator from coast to coast in Canada and the U.S. Gwen has been a judge for competitions such as the Spokane Festival of Fine Arts, International Young Keyboard Artists, National Music Teachers Association (U.S.), the Eckhardt-Grammatté and Contemporary Showcase. She also maintains a private studio in Sarnia, working with teenagers and coaching piano teachers. In 1991 she received the Special Teacher Award from the Ontario Registered Music Teachers' Association.
Gwen delights in performing and talking about the works of Robert Schumann. In 1999, she wrote and performed a play based on letters of Robert and Clara Schumann from 1828 until their marriage in 1840, and music written at that time. The play, with Gwen as Clara and Jeffrey Stokes as Robert, has been performed several times with appropriate costumes and staging. Gwen has given many solo recitals of Schumann’s music, including a performance on an 1846 Streicher piano recently acquired by UWO. She will be performing the Schumann Piano Quintet in February.
Gwen enjoys the variety of her musical life. Recent activities have included master classes at the Athens Conservatory (Greece), a solo performance and three weeks teaching at the Adamant Music School in Vermont, a performance of “Gwen Beamish & Friends” featuring Canadian composers, two adjudicating sessions for Canadian music festivals, judging two ORMTA Competitions, and presenting clinics for teachers’ workshops on “Tips from an Adjudicator”, “Performance Preparation”, and “Teaching Teens & Adults”. Gwen has been heard on the CBC and at Carnegie Hall, New York, in an anniversary concert for the Adamant Music School.
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