The Fort Saskatchewan Music Festival committee would like to offer our sincerest thank you to our distinguished Adjudicators for being a part of our Festival!
2025 Adjudicators
TERESA (Pitcher) ALLRED - Piano
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Teresa Allred was born and raised in Cardston, Alberta. In Cardston and Lethbridge, she won various awards and scholarships in music festivals from the time she was 6 years old. She would like to extend a special tribute to Beatrice Foster of Lethbridge who taught her piano from Grade VII through her Western Board Performer/ Teacher Degree. She is a graduate of Brigham Young University (BA – piano / choral). Teresa studied music in Salzburg, Austria for 7 months and student taught one semester in the music department for BYU-Hawaii. She lived in Hinton, Alberta for 10 years teaching private piano, serving as Community Theatre Music Director and teaching in the High School. She has been involved in adjudicating piano at music festivals throughout Alberta for 30 years. Teresa has resided in Red Deer for 34 years where she maintains a 20+ private piano/vocal studio. She co- conducted Red Deer Chamber Singers for 17 years, served as Provincial President for both the Alberta Registered Music Teachers Association and The Alberta Music Education Foundation and served on the Red Deer Performing Arts Festival Board. Teresa taught the Keyboards for Kids Program sponsored by AMEF in Red Deer for 10 years. She has also been music director for several Hunting Hills High School Musical productions and Treehouse Theatre productions. A milestone for Red Deer music teachers was reached when Teresa initiated the ground work for a new city by-law which allows private teachers to have business licenses for $155 a year without student limitations. Her husband Drew, also from Cardston, is a retired French immersion teacher. She is mother of 4 married sons and grandmother to 10 grandchildren....6 of them girls! Justice! Hobbies: Music, tennis, pickle ball and hiking.
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Crystal Hanson - Vocal
Crystal Hanson has been teaching private and group classes for almost 30 years. She teaches private vocal out of her home studio in St. Albert. She has a MA in Vocal Pedagogy from the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David as well as a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance. She is certified in all 3 levels in CCM (Contemporary Commercial Music), Somatic Voicework, the LoVetri Method ®, through Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia. She also completed Levels 1 and 2 of the One Voice Program in New York under the tutelage of Dr. Joan Melton. Crystal has been teaching musical theatre at the Foote Theatre School, Citadel Theatre in Edmonton for over 20 years. She has toured throughout Western Canada in various musical productions and one production based out of Prague, Czech Republic. She toured with the Alberta Opera for 4 seasons and played a large role in creating and directing the Alberta Opera’s Artist in Residency Program. A freelance vocal coach, she is proud to have worked on many musical productions with Eastglen High School; Austin O’Brien High School and Avalon Junior High School in Edmonton. A busy entertainer, Crystal is a member of the local Edmonton tribute and show band ‘Crystal Blue & the Persuasions’ and ‘Dash Rip Rock’. Most recently, Crystal has been busy with the launch of Voice Body Works, which offers somatic voice work and coaching to singers, actors, and voice professionals.
Amanda Banister - Strings
Amanda Banister is a music specialist at Roberta MacAdams Elementary School in Edmonton Alberta. She is an active member of the Wild Rose String Quartet, and currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Alberta Orff
Chapter. After completing her Bachelor of Music in Violin and Bachelor of Education, Ms. Banister joined the Musical Creativity team at the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra to launch the Youth Orchestra of Northern Alberta (YONA-Sistema), a music program serving youth in priority neighbourhoods. In addition to this work, Amanda developed and led several programs focused on experiential learning and community music making for all ages and levels including Music Box Babies, Education Concerts, Symphony for Kids, Adopt a Player, Young Composers Project, Science of Sound, Summer Camps, and Sound School. This work has had tremendous influence in her teaching philosophy and belief that music is for everyone.
Amy Appleton - Choir
Originally from Lethbridge, AB, Amy began singing at a very young age. She discovered a special connection with choral music in high school as a member of the Lethbridge Collegiate Institute Chamber Choir, under the direction of Frank Gnandt; she has been singing in and conducting choirs ever since. Amy has sung with the University of Lethbridge Singers and, after moving to Edmonton, the Belle Canto and Ariose women’s choirs. She studied voice and conducting with Dr. George Evelyn at the University of Lethbridge, graduating with degrees in both Education and Arts. She taught Elementary and Junior High music with Edmonton Public Schools, and taught private piano and voice lessons in her home while raising her family. In 2021 Amy graduated with distinction from the University of Sheffield, UK, with a MA in Traditional Music of the British Isles, focusing on how the transmission of folk songs taught by Cultural bearers affect youth singers’ performance and perception of culture. Amy created and conducts the award-winning Nottingham Choirs (Children, Youth, and Women). After two successful performance tours in England (2018, 2022), Amy is currently planning the Youth Choir’s August 2025 tour. Amy is also a leader in her church’s music program, and is the musical director for a local community theatre company, StageEaters Theatre. With her, Amy brings 30 years of experience working with children and youth in a choral music context, teaching healthy technique while creating a unified sound awareness in an engaging, inclusive setting.
Bill Dimmer - Band
Bill Dimmer has been described as a “cornerstone” of Edmonton’s music scene. The structural metaphor explains his selection as an Artist/Builder in Edmonton’s Arts and Culture Hall of Fame 2014. Between his arrival in 1971 and his retirement from the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra in 2014, Bill served as a teacher, mentor, administrator, conductor, and performer, including a potential Canadian record 43 seasons as ESO assistant principal trumpet. Bill played a seminal role in creating the ESO’s educational concert series, which he was involved in for over 20 years and introduced a generation of Edmontonians to the orchestra. The ESO has been at the forefront of educational programming in North America and much of the credit is due to Bill’s talent for engaging young people – he‘s been known to don eye-popping theme costumes, from green cats to aliens, to win their attention. Bill has shared his musical knowledge with countless private students, teaching at post-secondary institutions such as the University of Alberta and Grant MacEwan University, acting as clinician and adjudicator at workshops and festivals in Western Canada, and, with students at the MusiCamrose summer music camp, where he served as managing director for several years. He has performed with several groups including the Tommy Banks Band and the Plumbers Union, and is currently music director of the Nova Musica Concert Orchestra and is active as a guest conductor, clinician and adjudicator. A skilled pilot, he is an active air crew member and Provincial Training Officer with the Civil Air Search and Rescue and ground school instructor at the Edmonton Flying Club. He has been known to fly colleagues to remote northern communities as part of the National Arts Centre’s music outreach clinics.