As a pianist, Matthew Wicks has received several awards - Gerry Segger Scholarship for Performance Excellence (2011), a grant from the Winspear Fund, scholarships from the Anne Burrows Foundation and the Women's Musical Club of Toronto and an award from the Toronto Summer Music Academy. In 2010, Mr. Wicks received a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia.
Matthew also has two diplomas in piano performance: an Associate of the Royal Conservatory Toronto diploma (ARCT in 2003) and a Piano Performance Diploma (PDP in 2008) at The Glenn Could School of The Royal Conservatory. His primary teachers were Ina Dykstra, Andrew Markow and Joachim Segger.
Matthew’s musical interests, however, are not limited to the piano. Matthew has also studied composition and theory with opera composer Omar Daniel, and with jazz aficionado George Thurgood. His instrumental conducting studies were with Yuri Meyer and Alain Trudel.
Matthew has been teaching piano since 1998 and began to teach Music Theory in group & private classes in Edmonton as well as Music History & Harmony in 2010. He has been a member of The Alberta Music Academy faculty since August 2008.
Kanykei Mukhtarova is a PhD graduate in Ethnomusicology at the University of Alberta, Canada (2022). She studied piano at the Moscow Conservatory Music College with Galina Eguiazarova (Eguiazarova’s students include Radu Lupu, Arcadi Volodos, Martin Garcia and many other outstanding pianists). Kanykei received her Master of Music Degree in Piano Performance and Teaching with honours from the Kyrgyz National Conservatory (Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan).
During her studies at the U of A, Kanykei taught music theory and harmony to undergraduate students as a Teaching Assistant. She worked as a music teacher at the Waldorf Independent School of Edmonton (2016-2017). As a collaborative pianist, Kanykei has performed in various projects including Opera Al Fresco of the Edmonton Opera and Auriel Eurythmy.
Kanykei attended the Arts Management program at Indiana University, USA and was an intern at Folkways Records at the Smithsonian Institution (2003). In 2006, Kanykei established the annual Bishkek International Jazz Festival, which she managed until 2018. Kanykei is a member of the International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM) and she has presented at numerous World conferences. In 2008, she established the “Public Foundation Central Asian Arts Management,” which facilitates different cultural projects in the Central Asian region.
Kanykei has taught piano in Edmonton since 2012. Her students have received high scores in RCM piano and theory exams, and prizes at the Kiwanis Music Festival.
Kanykei joined the Alberta Music Academy's faculty in July of 2022.
Copyright © 2002 - 2023 Alberta Music Academy Inc. - All Rights Reserved.