Concert Band/Orchestra/Chamber Ensemble
Nathan Beeler
Vice Principal, Halifax Regional Arts
nathan-beeler.ca
About Nathan
Dr. Beeler has served as the resident conductor of Scotia Brass and the Dalhousie Wind Ensemble, and has guest conducted the Nova Scotia Youth Orchestra, the Chebucto Symphony, and Nova Sinfonia. He is a highly sought-after clinician, guest conductor, and presenter. Currently, he is the vice principal of Halifax Regional Arts, one of Canada’s largest publicly funded arts programs.
Nathan is the author of “Everything Matters: 50 Essays on Music Education,” as well as several scholarly works, including his dissertation, titled “Stepping Toward a Culture: Mi’kmaq Music in Settler Instrumental Music Classrooms.” In 2010, he received the Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence, one of Canada’s highest honors for educators.
Krista Bryson
PhD Student, UPEI
Director of Music, Three Oaks Senior HIgh School
About Krista
Krista holds a Master of Music in Percussion Performance degree from the University of Minnesota and a Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Prince Edward Island. As a high school band director, her ensembles have earned numerous gold standings at national and regional festivals, including the Atlantic Festival of Music and MusicFest Canada. Her leadership in music education has been recognized with the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal and the Kerri Wynne MacLeod Women of Impact Award for Women in Music. A dedicated conductor and educator, she has also recently served as a sessional instructor at UPEI, teaching courses in conducting, percussion techniques, jazz techniques, applied percussion, and directing the UPEI Jazz Ensemble.
As a professional percussionist, Krista enjoys performing with the PEI Symphony Orchestra and in contemporary productions including those led by Craig Fair. Her varied musical career has included directing marching bands, indoor drumlines, percussion ensembles, community choirs, and steel drum ensembles, reflecting her commitment to inclusive, authentic, and community-connected music-making.
In addition to her work as a PhD student researcher, teacher, and music director, Krista is a research assistant for a multi-year project studying ADHD and executive functioning and she enjoys sharing presentations on neurodiversity in education. Krista finds daily inspiration in teaching students who love music as much as she does, and in coming home to her loving husband Gary, sons Charlie and Christopher, and their sweet golden retriever, Lucy.
Jason Caslor
Director of Bands
Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts
About Jason
From 2015-2019, Caslor was an assistant professor and the associate director of bands and orchestras at ASU. Highlights of that time include founding the now firmly established ASU Philharmonia and being nominated for ASU’s Outstanding Master’s Mentor Award. From 2010-2015, Caslor was an assistant professor of instrumental conducting at Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada where he conducted the wind ensemble and oversaw the undergraduate and graduate instrumental conducting programs. Prior to that, he spent three seasons as resident conductor with the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra (TBSO). During his tenure with the TBSO, he conducted more than 75 concerts (including a CBC Radio national broadcast) and recorded a full-length, internationally distributed CD with Canadian blues artist Rita Chiarelli.
A Conn-Selmer Educational Clinician, Caslor has guest conducted or adjudicated in every province in Canada and throughout the United States. In addition to numerous regional engagements, Caslor has conducted the National Youth Band of Canada, the South Dakota All State Band, the South Dakota Intercollegiate Band, and the Alberta Wind Symphony.
A fiercely proud Canadian currently living amongst cacti, Caslor’s co-founding and leadership over the Canadian Band Association’s (CBA) Howard Cable Memorial Prize in Composition lead to him being the recipient of the CBA’s 2022 International Band Award. The award recognizes those individuals who have embraced the ideals of the CBA and have contributed to the promotion, growth and development of the musical, educational and cultural values of Canadian band outside of Canada.
As a researcher, he has presented his work at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic, the WASBE International Conference, the CBDNA National Conference, the IGEB International Conference on Wind Music, the International Society for Music Education World Conference, and the Riksförbundet Unga Musikanter Wind Band Symposium (Sweden). He has also published numerous articles, most prominently in the Canadian Winds journal.
Caslor completed his doctorate in conducting at Arizona State University. Prior to earning a master’s in conducting from the University of Manitoba, he earned dual bachelor’s in music and education from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.
Greg Edwards
Jazz Educator
gregedwardsmusic.ca
About Greg
Mr. Edwards’ teaching career began in Texas, where he taught for a year before returning to Manitoba to teach music for over three decades in Winnipeg. After teaching middle school, he spent 25 years as the band director at Westwood Collegiate. Under his leadership, the Westwood Collegiate bands earned a stellar reputation provincially, nationally, and internationally. His ensembles consistently ranked as the top bands at local festivals, earning accolades such as the Don Greene Award for best band program and the Investor’s Group Jazz Award for best jazz program.
In 2007, Mr. Edwards was recognized as Manitoba’s top jazz educator with the Xerox Jazz Educator of the Year award at the prestigious Winnipeg International Jazz Festival. His xcellence in teaching was also acknowledged by the University of Manitoba in 2011. In 2022, he received the Tommy Banks/N.A.C. Orchestra Outstanding Jazz Director Award, naming him the top jazz educator in Canada. Most recently, in 2023, Mr. Edwards was named one of the recipients of the Douglas Alumni award from his alma mater, Douglas College in New Westminster, B.C. The Alumni award honours those who demonstrate resilience and global citizenship, recognizing alumni who apply their skills and knowledge to their careers, life’s work, or passion projects.
Mr. Edwards retired from teaching in June of 2025 and now resides in Winnipeg with his wife, Lori, and their two children, Avery and Blake. Outside of his work with musicians across Canada, he is an avid cyclist, hiker, and enjoys spending time tinkering around his cottage at Victoria Beach. Music education remains his primary passion, and instilling that passion in his students has been the cornerstone of his teaching career.
Gary Ewer
Senior Instructor of Music
Dalhousie University
About Gary
As a public school music teacher for many years, Mr. Ewer conducted concert bands, choirs, and the Halifax Schools Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Ewer’s choral and instrumental compositions and arrangements have been performed by The Elmer Isler Singers, Symphony Nova Scotia, Halifax Camerata Singers, and many other ensembles. His works are published by Cypress Choral Music and Pantomime Music Publications.
Dave Staples
Performer and Music Educator
About Dave
maintains a busy freelance career as a pianist, trombonist, composer,
adjudicator and recording artist. Dave has performed and recorded with
such artists and groups as Mike Murley, Renee Rosnes, Kenny Wheeler,
Kurt Elling, Omar Hakim, the Maritime Jazz Orchestra and Bicoastal
Collective as well as numerous East Coast musicians and ensembles,
including John Chiasson, Ian Janes, Scott and the Rocks, Latin Groove,
the Blakey Project, the Mingus Project, the Horace Silver Tribute Band, the
Halifax Trombone Summit, the Back Alley Big Band and his own Dave
Staples Septet. In 1995, he received the East Coast Music Award (ECMA)
with Jeff Goodspeed as Jazz Artists of the Year for their album release of
“Eastern Passage”(CBC Productions) and is featured on the 2006 ECMA
Jazz Album of the Year “Tom Roach: Piano Trios” (CBC Productions).
Dave taught instrumental music with the Halifax Regional School Board for
over 30 years and is co-founder and former director of the Nova Scotia
Honour Jazz program, which has worked with talented students of jazz in
Nova Scotia for the last 35 years. He has also served as a board member
of JazzEast and was on the Canadian Executive Board of the International
Association for Jazz Education as Newsletter Editor and Director of
Communications from 2003 to 2008.
Instrumental Jazz
Jake Hanlon
Guitarist, Composer, Educator
jakehanlonjazz.com
About Jake
Hanlon has performed internationally, including the Kennedy Center for the Arts in the United States, The Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, Nepal and of course across his native Canada. In addition to being a multi time ECMA nominated artist.
Hanlon is an Associate Professor and Chair of Music at Saint Francis Xavier University where he teaches jazz guitar, jazz composition. Hanlon has studied jazz guitar with Fred Hamilton, Vic Juris, and John Abercrombie.
Brad Reid
Saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist
bradreid.ca
About Brad
Dave Staples
Performer and Music Educator
About Dave
maintains a busy freelance career as a pianist, trombonist, composer,
adjudicator and recording artist. Dave has performed and recorded with
such artists and groups as Mike Murley, Renee Rosnes, Kenny Wheeler,
Kurt Elling, Omar Hakim, the Maritime Jazz Orchestra and Bicoastal
Collective as well as numerous East Coast musicians and ensembles,
including John Chiasson, Ian Janes, Scott and the Rocks, Latin Groove,
the Blakey Project, the Mingus Project, the Horace Silver Tribute Band, the
Halifax Trombone Summit, the Back Alley Big Band and his own Dave
Staples Septet. In 1995, he received the East Coast Music Award (ECMA)
with Jeff Goodspeed as Jazz Artists of the Year for their album release of
“Eastern Passage”(CBC Productions) and is featured on the 2006 ECMA
Jazz Album of the Year “Tom Roach: Piano Trios” (CBC Productions).
Dave taught instrumental music with the Halifax Regional School Board for
over 30 years and is co-founder and former director of the Nova Scotia
Honour Jazz program, which has worked with talented students of jazz in
Nova Scotia for the last 35 years. He has also served as a board member
of JazzEast and was on the Canadian Executive Board of the International
Association for Jazz Education as Newsletter Editor and Director of
Communications from 2003 to 2008.
Concert/Chamber/Jazz Choir
Joel Tranquilla
Artistic Director
Halifax Camerata Singers
About Joel
In high demand as an adjudicator and clinician across the country, Joel is a past Guest Conductor of the Nova Scotia Youth Orchestra, New Brunswick Youth Choir, and the Manitoba Provincial Honour Choir, and he was the Assistant Conductor of the 2012 National Youth Choir of Canada. He was the winner of the 2012 Sir Ernest MacMillan Memorial Foundation Award as well as the recipient of the Emerging Artist Award at the 2013 Ontario Premier’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts. He holds degrees from Mount Allison University, the University of Michigan, and Michigan State University where his doctoral research was in the area of Canadian choral-orchestral works.
Major choral-orchestral works conducted include Handel’s Messiah (Symphony Nova Scotia & Chorus), Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs (New England Symphonic Ensemble), Poulenc’s Gloria, Vaughan Williams’ Hodie, Ramirez’s Navidad nuestra (members of the Vancouver Opera Orchestra and Trinity Western University Choirs), Mendelssohn’s St. Paul (Sea to Sky Symphony and TWU Choirs), Handel’s Alexander’s Feast, Requiems by Fauré and Duruflé (Windsor Symphony Orchestra and Chorus), Bach’s St. John Passion, and oratorios by Allan Bevan and David Squires (TWU Choirs and Orchestra). Choirs prepared by Tranquilla have appeared under the batons of Robert Franz, Kevin Mallon, Holly Mathieson, John Morris Russell, and Ivars Taurins.
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