The Enactus UBC Okanagan team competing at the national exposition included, from left, Kim Duong, Erkki Annala, Nicole Michalewicz, Ishita Ashraf, Tristan Ramsay and Puru Pradhan. (Missing from photo: Milan Hecimovic, Ashish Meghani, Mohammad Al Jamal, and Phoebe Kotulska).

Members of a newly formed Enactus UBC Okanagan team received national recognition competing in their first Enactus Canada National Exposition earlier this month.

Held in Vancouver, the national exposition allowed all Enactus teams in Canada the opportunity to showcase their efforts throughout the year and to compete against one another in business presentations.

Joining a community of Enactus groups at many other Canadian universities and colleges, the Enactus UBC Okanagan team involves student, academic and business leaders using entrepreneurial action to create a better, more sustainable world. A truly interdisciplinary group, the team includes students pursuing degrees in nursing, human kinetics, management, civil and mechanical engineering, economics, philosophy and political science.

The team had just 17 minutes on stage to present their group’s projects at the national competition. They highlighted two of the three projects created so far:

• Inventathon, a semi-annual 24-hour case competition allowing students the ability to learn new skills and take their ideas further, launched in February with the next Inventathon taking place in the fall 2017 term.

• Project Roots, soft-launched in April with a full-scale roll out planned for September 2017. An ambitious project designed to address the concern of food security, Roots is a social enterprise that will allow students on campus to access fresh and nutritious produce at prices 40 to 60 per cent below retail prices while supporting local farmers.

They were winning ideas.

The team won the Hellman's Best Project Solution award for their food security project proposal and received the Enactus National Competition Opening Round Runner-Up Award and the National Rookie Champion award as the best new team in Canada.

A third project -- not presented at the exposition -- is Project FLOW, which involves a smart sensor suite being designed to allow for maximizing irrigation efforts for all farms, big and small.

“At the time of the competition, the team was officially only three months old,” said Enactus UBC Okanagan president and co-founder Erkki Annala, who just completed his first year in the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program.

“We are deeply motivated to make a difference in the world around us,” Annala said. “Our team is led by students eager to leave the comfort of the classroom and apply our growing knowledge to real challenges that affect real people.”

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Robert Silverman

One of Canada's premiere pianists, Robert Silverman will be at UBC's Okanagan campus on October 27 to perform three of Beethoven's sonatas. This concert is free, open to the public, and will mark the in-concert debut of the campus' new grand piano.

In a career spanning more than five decades, Silverman has climbed every peak of serious pianism: lauded performances in prestigious halls across the globe; orchestral appearances with many of the world's greatest conductors; and award-winning recordings distributed internationally.

This is the third concert performance in this season's Minds and Music concert series, which presents a mixture of genres -- from jazz piano and voice to orchestra rehearsal and piano recitals -- showcasing the talent of well-established artists from the Okanagan, British Columbia, and beyond.

"The vision of the Minds and Music is to presents the world’s finest music by renowned performers, and put it all into a contemporary context through informal lectures by faculty and artists about the music, its past, and how it relates to the present," says Manuela Ungureanu, a philosophy professor at UBC's Okanagan campus and organizer of the series.

"The Silverman concert holds particular significance, as it will be the first time our new grand piano will be used, which was made possible through fundraising efforts over the last few years and the generous support of a donor this past summer."

Shortly before Silverman performs, concert attendees will be guided through a brief interactive discussion focusing on the history of the piano and how it changed the repertoire of music when it came onto the scene in the early 1800s.

The Robert Silverman performance will take place at 1 p.m. in the University Centre ballroom (UNC200). Following Silverman's concert, students will showcase their talents on the new grand piano.

For more information about Robert Silverman, visit www.robert-silverman.com.

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Auditions are now open for violin students from the Okanagan region who would like to participate in a master class led by internationally acclaimed violinist Angèle Dubeau.

Dubeau and the all-female string ensemble La Pietà will perform at Kelowna's First Lutheran Church, 4091 Lakeshore Road, in UBC Okanagan’s Minds and Music series on March 2. In a two-part program, Dubeau will conduct a master class with four violin students, then lead La Pietà in concert performing mainly 20th-century music, including music by Canadian composers.

“We are thrilled to welcome La Pietà back to the Okanagan,” says Manuela Ungureanu, organizer of theMinds and Music series. “They gave an exceptional performance in 2006 as part of our very first season. This time, a selection of the Okanagan’s promising violin students will have an opportunity to study with an outstanding teacher in Angèle Dubeau. We will then be treated to a wonderful retrospective of La Pietà’s repertoire.”

Tickets for the Mar. 2 master class and performance at First Lutheran Church will be $23, and will be available through Ticketmaster (250-860-1470) starting Feb. 4, Ungureanu advises. The master class is from 3 to 4:30 p.m., followed by a concert from 5 to 6 p.m.

Proceeds from ticket sales will go toward the purchase of a baby grand piano for the UBC Okanagan campus. Donations are invited for either the Minds and Music program or the piano fund. Contact the UBC Okanagan Development office at 807-9251.

Call for Auditions

Four students from the Okanagan region will be selected through a blind audition process in which judges do not know the identity of the candidates. Violin students interested in participating in the master class must be studying at Royal Conservatory Grade 9 or higher level, be 32 years of age or younger, and reside in the Okanagan region.

To audition, candidates are asked to submit five copies of an audio CD or tape featuring their performances of two pieces as follows: (a) one classical selection (unaccompanied Bach piece counts as classical) and (b) one Romantic or contemporary. Audition material should be no more than 30 minutes in duration.

Along with five copies of the audio CD, candidates are asked to include a separate page with their name, contact information, a brief note about their record of relevant performance and study, and their interest in pursuing a career in music performance.

The closing date for receiving applications is Monday, February 11, 2008. Applications should be mailed to:

Minds and Music Series
c/o Manuela Ungureanu
Arts Building ART236, UBC Okanagan
3333 University Way
Kelowna, B.C. V1V 1V7

To ensure blind judging, the CDs should not bear any identifying information about the violin student. The final selection for the master class will be announced by February 25.

Other Upcoming Concerts

Daniel Bolshoy in Concert with South American Music Tomorrow, Jan. 23
This Wednesday, Jan. 23, guitarist Daniel Bolshoy will perform a free concert of South American music at UBC Okanagan. The performance begins in the Student Service Centre’s Theatre (SSC026) at 2 p.m. Bolshoy teaches guitar at Concordia University in Montreal and regularly offers master classes to guitar societies and educational institutions internationally. Admission is free and all are welcome.

Valentine’s Day with Soprano Dawn Mussellam at UBC Okanagan
Dawn Mussellam, an acclaimed soprano whose recital concerts include opera, oratorio, musical, and song repertoire, will perform Music to Stir the Heart on Valentine's Day, Feb. 14. Accompanied by pianist Arnold Draper, this free concert will feature works by Handel, Mahler, Puccini, Menotti and Herbert. The performance begins at 12:30 p.m. in the Student Service Centre foyer at UBC Okanagan.

Okanagan Symphony at UBC Okanagan April 4
The Okanagan Symphony Orchestra will perform a selection from Awakenings at UBC Okanagan on April 4. The performance begins at 12:30 p.m. in the foyer of the Student Services Centre, and will include pieces by Williams, Elgar, Mahler and Smetena. Admission is free and all are welcome.

Check the UBC Okanagan website for more about the Minds and Music series: www.ubc.ca/okanagan.

About Angèle Dubeau and La Pietà

Angèle Dubeau is a graduate and First Prize Winner of the Montreal Conservatory of Music. She pursued her studies at the Juilliard School of Music and, from 1981 to 1984, left for Romania to work with Stefan Gheorghiu. Since then, Dubeau has become one of Canada's most prominent artists.

Winner of several important international competitions, she has performed in prestigious concert halls in more than 25 countries. Her numerous recordings have been acclaimed by both the public and the press, and she is one of the few Canadian soloists in classical music to have two certified gold records for 50,000 albums sold in one year.

In 1997, Dubeau created La Pietà, a string ensemble, bringing together some of the finest women musicians in Canada. Under her direction, the group has acquired a solid reputation. From the start, the ensemble performed in some of Canada's most prestigious venues, as well as on both the Radio-Canada and CBC television networks. Dubeau and La Pietà play numerous concerts in Canada, including several for women's charities.

From 1994 to 2005, Dubeau was also a Radio-Canada television personality, hosting concert broadcasts and weekly music programs. Dubeau became a Knight of the Ordre National du Québec in 2004, a Member of the Order of Canada in July 1996, and in the same year, the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste awarded her the Calixa-Lavallée prize for her exceptional contribution to classical music.

Angèle Dubeau plays on the "Des Rosiers" Stradivarius violin (1733).

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