Carleton’s Music department offers its students plenty of opportunities to engage their passion for music in the Ottawa community.
With about 10 campus ensembles, from choirs to opera to West African Rhythm and more, Carleton has opportunities to suit all types of students’ music tastes. Students can also participate in several affiliated off-campus ensembles, including the Capital Youth Jazz Orchestra and Divertimento Orchestra among many others.
In the wider music community, local music events such as Chamberfest and the TD Ottawa Jazz Festival also engage Carleton students as volunteers, providing experience in arts administration and exposing them to more music opportunities. Chamberfest extends free pass to the entire festival to Carleton students in exchange for students blogging about the concerts they attended.
If you are interested in hearing Carleton students pound out some tunes, venues such as Rideau Hall, the Museum of Nature, The War Museum, Parliament Hill, the Ottawa Convention Centre, the National Art Gallery all frequently contact Carleton’s music department asking for musical performers. “We get so many requests to have our students perform at these types of events that coordinating them all could almost be a separate job!” joked Professor James Wright, a professor in Carleton’s Music department. Weddings and other events also seek out Carleton students as performers. In each of these experiences, students are paid for their work and are able to gain excellent performance experience.
For students interested in jazz, the jazz mentor series is a connection with students and professional jazz players in a variety of performance spaces. Students can attend performances, learn from mentors and maybe even jam a bit! For other live music, Carleton’s campus-based community radio station CKCU 93.1 FM also features Carleton music students every Tuesday from 1:00-2:00pm. Go to the red radio on CKCU’s site to stream it live!
These excellent community partnerships and engaging learning opportunities will be available to students in years to come. Professor Wright shared that the experiences of working with community partners has been very well received by Carleton students and by the community “Our partners wish to engage with us in the future, which is a natural fit with the Music department’s programs. Our students are really truly wonderful and they need the experience connecting with the community.”
Want to know more? Visit http://www.carleton.ca/music/
By Heather McAlister