UPCOMING EVENTS
Bringing art music to exciting & unexpected venuesNew! 4 Concert Package! Buy Tickets Here

Music in the Country
Enjoy beautiful music from CMF String Quartet in a peaceful and pastoral indoor setting. The program will pair perfectly with your views of the amazing prairie landscape. It includes lovely folk-song arrangements by Florence Price, and “Other Names for Birds” by our own award-winning composer and Artistic Director, Lavinia Kell Parker.
Homecooked appetizers and refreshments will be available for purchase.
Thank you to festival sponsor Astro Insurance and to Community Partner Venue of New Hope!
Music in the Country
CMF String Quartet
Thursday, July 3, 7 pm
The Venue of New Hope, 100043 Range Rd 22 #3, Diamond City
CMF String Quartet
Alina Khvatova, violin
Alayna McNeil, violin
Gabe Kastelic, viola
Christine Bootland, cello

Music in the Garden
Concert goers are provided with high fidelity headsets. Enjoy the music while you move around the beautiful garden landscape, or sit near the performers. The program includes French and nature-inspired works including Haydn’s “Sunrise” Quartet and “Telluric Ache” by acclaimed Blackfoot composer Sonny-Ray Day Rider. This will be very special!
Beverages will be available for purchase. We move indoors if the weather is uncooperative.
Thank you to festival sponsor Astro Insurance and Community Partner Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden!
Music in the Garden
CMF String Quartet
Friday, July 4, 7 pm
Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden, Lethbridge
Alina Khvatova, violin
Alayna McNeil, violin
Gabe Kastelic, viola
Christine Bootland, cello

Pianos (and more!) in Paris by Candlelight
This event takes place in an intimate setting, lit by flickering candles. You will be mesmerized as you are transported to Paris in Southern Alberta. Poulenc’s Sonata for 2 Pianos (Brad Parker, Deanna Oye); Poulenc’s Sextet for Wind Quintet and Piano; “Paris” by Darius Milhaud, for 4 pianos featuring FOURtitude.
Thank you to festival sponsor Astro Insurance and Casa Concerts sponsor Stringam LLP!
Pianos in Paris by Candlelight
Saturday, July 5, 7 pm
Community Room, Casa, Lethbridge
Our Wind Quintet:
Paul Sanden, flute
Liz Tormorsky-Knott, oboe
Joan Rogers, clarinet
Jonathan Gresl, bassoon
Sarah Viejou, French horn

Rising Stars and Final Bows
This grand finale concert has something for everyone. We highlight this year’s Festival winner, along with final performances by piano virtuosos and members of the CMF String Quartet.
Thank you to festival sponsor Astro Insurance and Casa Concerts sponsor Stringam LLP!
Rising Stars & Final Bows
Featuring Scholarship Winner: Noelle Kuntz, mezzo-soprano and Friends
Sunday, July 6, 3 pm
Community Room, Casa, Lethbridge
Concert features scholarship winner Mezzo-Soprano Noelle Kuntz with Carolyn Herrington on piano; Brad Parker, and members of the CMF String Quartet performing the Mozart Piano Quartet in G-Minor
Centric MusicFest in Festival Square

Centric MusicFest at Festival Square
Free 1 Hour Concerts: CORRECTION
Friday July 4, 2025 12:00 pm
Free Guided Soundwalk July 4, 2025 at 1:30 pm with Annie Martin
Saturday July 5, 2025 11:00 am
Join us for a selection of local musicians performing live on stage in the heart of Downtown and a Soundwalk. Details below!
2025 ARTIST LINEUP
2025 Festival Quartet

Centric MusicFest String Quartet
At the heart of the Centric MusicFest String Quartet’s purpose is the promotion of collaboration, transcending geographical and artistic boundaries. By uniting musicians from different communities, we inspire a powerful exchange of ideas, techniques, and creative visions.
This unique ensemble will vary every year, bringing together local and visiting artists. The members of the 2025 quartet are musicians Alina Khvatova, first violin; Alayna McNeil, second violin; Gab Kastelic, viola; and Christine Bootland, cello.
Pictured left, the 2024 Centric Festival Quartet, consisting of Alina Khvatova, violin; Vladimir Ruffino, violin; Fabiola Amorim, viola; and Christine Bootland perform at Venue of New Hope, Diamond City, Alberta.

Alina Khvatova, violin
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Alayna McNeil, violin
Alayna McNeil has completed her first year of a Master of Music degree at the University of Denver Lamont School of Music, where she studies with Linda Wang. Alayna received her Bachelor of Music from the University of Lethbridge, where she studied with Peter Visentin. She was honoured to receive the Faculty of Fine Arts Gold Medal upon graduating in 2024. Alayna is the winner of the 2022 Lethbridge Symphony Orchestra’s RBC Foundation Young Artist Competition, and she was a featured guest soloist with the orchestra in 2023. In 2019 Alayna won the Rose Bowl award for the Most Artistic and Outstanding Performer in the Lethbridge Music Festival.
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Alayna McNeil has completed her first year of a Master of Music degree at the University of Denver Lamont School of Music, where she studies with Linda Wang. Alayna received her Bachelor of Music from the University of Lethbridge, where she studied with Peter Visentin. She was honoured to receive the Faculty of Fine Arts Gold Medal upon graduating in 2024. Alayna is the winner of the 2022 Lethbridge Symphony Orchestra’s RBC Foundation Young Artist Competition, and she was a featured guest soloist with the orchestra in 2023. In 2019 Alayna won the Rose Bowl award for the Most Artistic and Outstanding Performer in the Lethbridge Music Festival.
Alayna is passionate about all aspects of music. An avid performer of chamber and orchestral music, Alayna has enjoyed collaborating and performing with musicians in Canada, the US, and the UK. Alayna is an active performer with the Lethbridge Con Brio trio. In Denver, Alayna has been co-concertmaster of the Lamont Symphony Orchestra for the past six months, and she also played as concertmaster of Bow Art chamber orchestra ensemble during the winter months of the year. Alayna currently plays with a string quartet and a string trio in Denver, and she enjoys working as a teaching assistant for aural skills and music arranging.
Alayna was honoured to be the featured performer in the final concert of the 2022 Centric Music Fest. In 2024, she performed a Centric pop-up concert with the Con Brio Trio, as well as a Centric fundraiser event with Alina Khvatova and Christine Bootland. Alayna is delighted to be returning to Centric again this year and to be performing with the resident quartet!

Gabe Kastelic, viola
native of Lethbridge, Alberta, Gabe Kastelic has been heavily involved in the Southern Alberta music community for many years. He has extensive experience as an orchestral musician, having performed in concert with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the Red Deer Symphony, Symphony of the Kootenays, and is currently the Principal Violist of the Lethbridge Symphony Orchestra. He is also a seasoned chamber musician, winning first place the Chamber Music category at the 2012 National Music Festival with his ensemble, the MRU String Trio and is presently the violist in the Musaeus String Quartet.
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Along with performance, Gabe’s greatest passion in music is teaching. He has held numerous teaching positions over the years including professor of violin/viola for the Calgary Multicultural Orchestra, Director of the String Academy for Medicine Hat College, and most recently as Music Director of the Tutti Corda String Orchestra. Gabe is also a sought-after adjudicator, frequently serving in this role for various music festivals and competitions.

Christine Bootland, cello
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Christine is an active extra performer in various chamber ensembles and with the Lethbridge, Red Deer and Regina Symphonies as well as the Symphony of the Kootenays and the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra.
She has toured Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia as a member of the Armadillo String Quartet of Canada and was first prize winner in the CIBC National Chamber Music Festival Competition with the JEB string quartet. Christine has adjudicated all over Alberta, BC and Saskatchewan and her students have won numerous awards at all levels but for her, she gets immense joy from doing educational outreach performance programs wherever she is. Christine was on the faculty at Medicine Hat College from 2001-2021 as cello instructor, ensemble coach, Academy Instructor and conductor and program coordinator for both the Community and Junior Orchestras. In 2010 she was pleased to be invited to become a cello instructor at the University of Lethbridge Conservatory of Music three days a week. Her favorite thing to do in her down time is to read, experiment in her garden and go for walks.

Noelle Kuntz, CentricMusic Scholarship Winner
Noelle Kuntz just completed her first year of music graduate studies at the University of Lethbridge, studying voice with Dr. Janet Youngdahl. She graduated with a Bachelor of Music with great distinction, also from UofL, in Spring 2024.
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Noelle has been studying classical voice for eight years and has loved to sing ever since she can remember. Growing up in Calgary, she was involved with various choirs and programs around the city before moving to Lethbridge in 2021. Since starting her studies, Noelle has been an active member in the University of Lethbridge Singers, and she sat on their club executive for three years. She spent the last school year as assistant conductor of the group, which was an incredible experience.
In her studies so far, Noelle has greatly enjoyed preparing and performing in several different recitals. In addition to solo voice in her grad studies, her research project, tentatively titled “Absolute Pitch in Singing: Learning to Navigate Interior Musical Processes” aims to explore the impact of absolute pitch (perfect pitch) on learning processes and environments during solo and choral singing.
Noelle participated in the Lethbridge District Music and Speech Arts Festival for the first time this past spring, and was the recipient of a Lethbridge B’nai Brith and Hebrew Congregation of Lethbridge Award and the Donaldson Plaque for Outstanding Performance in the Sr. Vocal class. Noelle recently placed third in the 28 and under class in the Alberta Provincial Music Festival and be competing in the Canada West Festival in late July.
She is absolutely thrilled and honored to be the recipient of the Centric Music Scholarship this year, and she can’t wait to share some wonderful music with you!

FOURtitude
FOURtitude is an ensemble founded by Canadian pianists, Cheryl Emery Karapita, Carolyn Herrington, Deanna Oye, and Brad Parker, all based in Southern Alberta. We share a passion for collaborating and exploring music that we would not be able to perform on our own, including operatic and orchestral arrangements and new compositions for multiple hands on one or two pianos (and sometimes more!)
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We invite our audiences to have fun with us as we exponentially expand the sonic possibilities of the piano and negotiate the athletic and contortionist choreography necessary to share the keyboard. As dedicated performer-
educators, we aspire to bring our enthusiasm for ensemble music making to our students and our communities!

Cheryl Emery-Karapita
Canadian Pianist Cheryl Emery-Karapita specializes in the ield of song in recital with Canadian vocal and instrumental talent. After completing a M.Mus in Vocal Operatic Coaching at McGill, Cheryl moved to Europe to pursue a Post-Graduate degree in Concert Collaborative Piano with Julius Drake at the Kunst Universität in Graz, Austria.
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In addition to studies in Graz, Cheryl spent two summers in Baden bei Wien working with Helmut Deutsch, Roger Vignoles, Rudolph Jansen and Wolfram Rieger at the Franz Schubert-Institut. Current activities include recital and recording projects, teaching students at Lethbridge Piano Intensive and the University of Lethbridge Conservatory, collaborating with Juno nominated Luminous Voices (Calgary), and Fourtitude (Lethbridge).

Carolyn Herrington
Dr. Carolyn Herrington is a pianist, teacher and coach based in Lethbridge, Alberta. Carolyn has taught studio piano, collaborative piano, vocal repertoire, chamber music and other classes at the University of Lethbridge and Western University, and piano at the University of Lethbridge Conservatory of Music.
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Carolyn holds a Master of Music degree in Collaborative Piano Performance from Western University, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Collaborative Piano from the University of Michigan. Her former teachers include Martin Katz and John Hess. Drawing on her extensive experience with art song, opera, and diction of several languages, Carolyn also works as a freelance vocal coach.

Deanna Oye
Pianist Deanna Oye is Associate Professor and Studio Coordinator of the Department of Music at the University of Lethbridge where she teaches Studio Piano and Collaborative Piano, and also teaches with the UofL Conservatory of Music.
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A strong commitment to teaching and innovation led to the development of the unique Collaborative Piano/Guitar course series at the UofL, which gives undergraduate pianists and guitarists the opportunity to develop skills of high-level musical partnership with singers and other instrumentalists. Deanna’s piano students have achieved success in a variety of music endeavours, including performance and musicology studies at masters and doctoral levels, collaborative pianist positions, piano competitions, and private and public school teaching, among many other career paths. In addition to frequent master class teaching and adjudicating, she is often invited to give career talks to aspiring young musicians. She is an enthusiastic advocate for music in interdisciplinary contexts, with special interest in helping her students make connections between piano performance and their other passions.

Brad Parker
Canadian pianist, Brad Parker, has performed extensively as a soloist and collaborative pianist in Canada, the US, France, Italy, and Haiti. Recent performances include solo recitals in Alberta, South Carolina and California, as well as collaborative performances with Pedro Diaz (English Horn, Met Opera Orchestra), Gabriel Goni (flute, Costa Rica Symphony), and Nancy Stagnitta (flute, Interlochen Center for the Arts), multiple events in the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, as well as concertos with the Lethbridge Symphony, Charleston Symphony and Lyra Vivace Chamber Orchestra.
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Brad is a founding member of the FOURtitude Piano Ensemble, which regularly performs and leads workshops/masterclasses across Southern Alberta.
An active promoter of new music, Brad has debuted several works for piano and various chamber ensembles at the Banff Chamber Music Festival, Musique Maintenant in Paris, as well as the Women in Music Festival at the Eastman School of Music.
Dr. Parker is on the music faculty at the University of Lethbridge, and previously taught at Charleston Southern University and Erskine College in South Carolina. His passion for musical instruction led him to volunteer for several summers at the North Haiti Music Camp, on the campus of the Christian University of North Haiti. Currently, he co-directs the Lethbridge Piano Intensive, a summer program which hosts talented pianists of all ages from across Canada.
Brad completed a Masters and DMA in Piano Performance at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, with further graduate studies in France at the Paris Conservatory. He studied at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario where he earned a Bachelor of Music with Distinction. His principal teachers include Rebecca Penneys, Dr. Heather Dawn Taves, and Jean Koerner.
Festival Square Artists

Jamani Duo, Friday July 4, 2025, 12:00 pm
The jamani duo is the musical partnership of Jodi Groenheide and Matt Groenheide. The jamani duo plays an exciting mix of world, classical, jazz, and popular music on flute and percussion instruments from around the world.

Guided SoundWalk, Friday July 4, 2025, 1:30 pm
Join artist Annie Martin for a listening walk in Galt Gardens and adjacent public spaces. Grounded in deep listening and sound walk practice, we will tune our ears and open our senses to the sonic colours of the commons. This walk begins and ends at Festival Square and will last approximately one hour. Please dress for the weather.
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Annie Martin’s practice traverses sound installation, drawing, painting, textile, performance and writing. Her work has been exhibited widely in Canada, and also internationally. Among her recent projects are collaborations with vocalists and composers that explore the space between sound and image (adoration, 2017 and Oh Death, 2020). Since 2004, she has led listening walks based on a sound walk practice shared by Hildegard Westerkamp, creating multiple iterations that seek to connect participants to specific environments through slow listening. Martin received her MFA from Concordia University, and lives and works in Lethbridge, Alberta, in the traditional territory of the Niitsitapi. She is an Associate Professor in Art at the University of Lethbridge.

Dale Ketcheson (guitar), Alec Chisholm (Celtic musician) and Mohsen Mahmoud (Persian drummer)
July 5, 2025, 11:00 a.m.
Our Festival
Since its inaugural event in 2014, Centric MusicFest has become a permanent fixture in the City of Lethbridge's flourishing art and music scene. Building upon the success of its founder, Jesse Plessis, the annual summer classical and art music festival has grown under the stewardship of Artistic Director Ryan Kolodziej to feature a combination of local and visiting world-class Canadian and international musicians from coast-to-coast-to-coast. Read more...
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