Special teacher of the year 2011 : Andrea Battista

Andrea Battista received most of her musical education in Winnipeg where she was born into a family that valued music. Her parents began her older sister on piano lessons and they soon discovered that Andrea was learning all her sister’s pieces, so she started piano lessons at age 5 with renowned Winnipeg teacher, Jean Broadfoot. At age 9, her parents added violin lessons with Anne Pomer-James. She later studied violin with Mary Graham after Mrs. James moved away from Winnipeg..

Growing up in Winnipeg in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s was a wonderful thing for a musical child. Andrea was given opportunities to participate in Orff workshops, in music writing and music appreciation classes, and she sang in every choir that she could, including the St. Andrew’s River Heights United Church Choir, elementary, junior high and high school choirs, the Winnipeg Girls’ Choir, and the University of Winnipeg Madrigal Choir. She sang the lead role of Yum-Yum in Kelvin High school’s production of the Mikado and sang the soprano lead in several small opera productions at the University of Winnipeg. In addition she played violin in the Greater Winnipeg School Symphony Orchestra, finishing as concert master in her graduating year.

Andrea did exams with both the Western Board of Music and the Royal Conservatory of Music, earning 7 silver medals in both piano and violin from the RCM and the gold medal in piano performance for her ARCT. She also attained an ARCT in violin performance, and was the only one in Canada that year to do so. She has an Associate in piano performance form the Western Board as well and earned a gold medal from the University of Manitoba for her Licentiate in piano performance.

Andrea was lucky enough to study at Jeunesses Musicales in Orford , Quebec on full scholarship, where she studied piano with French composer and concert artist Pierre Sancan. She also heard the Orford String Quartet in its second year of existence. She also won a full scholarship to the Congress of Strings in Los Angeles in 1967. Heifetz and Piatagorsky were in residence that summer, and she heard them play the Mendelssohn Octet. Young Winnipeg musicians were given the opportunity to perform on live radio and TV CBC broadcasts, and Andrea did this several times a year. Andrea also performed regularly at the Winnipeg Music festival and at music societies such as the Wednesday Morning Musical Club, the Jewish Women’s Musical Club and the Winnipeg Women’s Musical Club. She won scholarships from all these organizations as well as from the Manitoba Registered Music Teachers’ Acssociation. At 14 she was chosen to perform Mozart’s Concerto in D minor at a Manitoba Registered Music Teachers Convention in Winnipeg with the Greater Winnipeg Schools Symphony, of which she was a member.

Andrea was encouraged to begin teaching by her teacher, Jean Broadfoot, when she was 16. She taught piano and violin to many students while she was in high school and university. Jean Broadfoot was a great model for her. Many teachers across the country know of Jean Broadfoot, an outstanding Winnipeg teacher, who was CFMTA president during the time that we were all lobbying for an exemption from the GST on music books. Despite all this musical activity, Andrea decided to pursue a degree in English at the University of Winnipeg. She graduated in 1972 with an Honours degree in English and a gold medal for her discipline. She was also awarded the OT Anderson award for outstanding academic and extra-curricular achievement, because of her many musical activities at the university. While at university she was rehearsal pianist and pit pianist for Winnipeg’s Rainbow Stage musical theatre productions. She then went to Queen’s, where she earned an MA in English and completed all but the dissertation of her PH. D. in English. While at Queen’s, she played the violin in the Queen’s Chamber Orchestra and the Kingston Symphony and accompanied many juried exams in the music department.

Andrea married her husband Richard in 1974 and they moved to Chatham in 1982. They have 3 children, all fully grown now and still pursuing musical activities. Andrea joined ORMTA in 1982 and has been a member ever since. She was twice president of the Chatham-Kent branch, served as treasurer for a time, and helped out in various ways throughout her 20 years in Chatham. Together with colleagues Janet Wake, Joy Anderson and Elizabeth Tithecott, Andrea chaired a campaign to raise money for a grand piano for the Chatham Cultural Centre. She performed in recitals to raise funds for the branch and while President, helped to organize a provincial convention with co-chairs Roberta Dickson and Joy Anderson in 1987.She was also artist selection manager for the Chatham Concert Association for many years and was able to bring many fine musicians to Chatham. She was an ORMTA representative on the Chatham Kiwanis Festival committee. While in Chatham, she had the good fortune to work with baritone Kevin McMillan in several recitals in Ontario, and she was accompanist for the Youth Voices of Kent Choir under her friend and colleague, Janet Wake, for 2 years.

Andrea has been fortunate to have taught many wonderful students, several of whom have represented the Western and Southern Zones at provincial ORMTA competitions, and 2 of whom have been gold medalists in their music programmes at the University of Western Ontario. Several have gone on to attain graduate degrees in music and she is enormously proud of them. She maintains contact with many of her students and has actually adjudicated several children of former students, which is a great satisfaction. Andrea has been an examiner for Conservatory Canada for 20 years and has been a member of the Canadian Music Festival Adjudicators Association since 1991 as well. She enjoys travelling across Canada and Ontario hearing young musicians on piano and violin, and is inspired by the wonderful teaching that she encounters everywhere. She has also been a workshop clinician for ORMTA for almost 20 years and this has been very rewarding, because it has enabled her to meet many colleagues in various towns and cities across Ontario. She has learned a lot from her colleagues in other branches and has received many ideas for interesting activities for her students.

In 2002, due to a job change for her husband, Andrea and her family moved to Burlington. Before leaving Chatham, her colleagues in ORMTA held a concert and tea for her, attended by many former students and parents. ORMTA gave her a book of photos from that day which she cherishes. Beginning again in a new community was a challenge, but her ORMTA colleagues in the Hamilton-Halton branch welcomed her into their group. They soon put her to work and after a few years she assumed the Presidency one more time. Once again, Andrea is busy accompanying voice and string students, and she is a member of the second violin section of Symphony Hamilton, soon to be known as Symphony on the Bay. She performs chamber music with her colleagues in the orchestra, and also performed Bach’s D major Concerto for keyboard with the orchestra in 2008. She has a great group of students and considers herself very fortunate.

In Burlington, she was chair of the music committee for the Rotary Burlington Music Festival for several years. She helped to organize a 10th anniversary celebration concert a few years ago for the festival, which was a huge success. She is also a member of CFUW, the Canadian Federation of University Women, Burlington branch. For their 50th anniversary, she organized a fund-raising concert featuring all Burlington women performers. They raised $3500, which was given as a scholarship to a young woman pursuing a graduate degree in the arts. One of the young women selected for this award went to the University of Ottawa to pursue a Master’s in piano performance. Currently, she is chairing the Keys to the Future committee, which is raising funds for a concert grand piano for the new Performing Arts Centre in Burlington. To date, the committee, made up of 4 ORMTA teachers and 3 interested citizens, has raised over $100,000 and plans to purchase the piano this summer. This has been an enormous task, but Andrea has been encouraged by the community support for the project. Andrea believes strongly that we as musicians and music educators must be actively involved in the cultural activites in our community.

Andrea has attended numerous ORMTA conventions since 1985 and values the visits with colleagues over these years. It is for that reason that she proposed to the Hamilton-Halton branch that they host the next provincial convention in 2012. She and her colleagues will be busy planning 3 days of music making and activites related to the wonderful vocation of music teaching. To quote Jean Broadfoot, “There is no profession more rewarding”. Andrea is grateful to her colleagues for nominating her for this award and counts herself fortunate to have been given the opportunity to have a career doing something that she loves.