Choir Director

Ms. Carolyn Gwyer


Born in Neepawa and raised in the Minnedosa area, Ms. Gwyer completed a one-year program of General Biblical Studies at Covenant Bible College in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, before attending Brandon University, where she received her undergraduate degrees in 1995 and where is currently completing her Masters in Music Education.  In addition to teaching part-time at Vincent Massey School in 1998-2000, she has taught in the Performing & Visual Arts Department at Neelin High School since the fall of 1994, and currently holds a full-time position teaching the following courses:
  • Concert Choir
  • Chamber Ensemble
  • Boys' Chamber Choir
  • Simple Green (Show Choir)
  • Drama
  • Musical Theatre
  • Music Theory
Ms. Gwyer has toured Neelin singers to western, south-central, northern, and eastern Manitoba, as well as to festivals in Winnipeg, Minneapolis, Ottawa, Banff, the Czech Republic, and Long Island, New York. She has also vocal coached Neelin’s major productions since she began at the school, including:
  • Anne of Green Gables ('94-'95)
  • Finian’s Rainbow ('95-'96)
  • Bye Bye Birdie ('96-'97)
  • Oklahoma ('97-'98)
  • The King and I ('98-'99)
  • Annie ('99-'00)
  • Camelot ('00-'01)
  • Peter Pan ('01-'02)
  • Fiddler on the Roof ('04-'05)
  • Once Upon a Mattress ('05-'06)
In addition to vocals, she also directed the orchestra for:
  • The Wizard of Oz ('02-'03)
  • West Side Story ('03-'04)
  • Disney's High School Musical ('06-'07)
  • Elton John & Tim Rice's Aida ('07-'08)
  • SANCTUARY (Hope for Darfur) ('09-'10)
From 1992-2002, Ms. Gwyer worked in music and youth ministry at Central United Church in Brandon. She has served as Chair of the Westman Choral Association, Brandon Rep for the Western Manitoba Youth Choir Committee, and with the Manitoba Choral Association as WestMan Rep to the Official Board, Chair of Membership, and WestMan Rep for the Professional Development Committee. Currently, she serves on the Board of the Foundation for Choral Music in Manitoba and as Choral Rep on the Brandon School Division Music Steering Committee. Ms. Gwyer has been a clinician for choral workshops in Steinbach, Minnedosa and Brandon and has contracted with local community theatre organization Mecca Productions, teaching at their summer Arts Adventure Day Camp, and doing the vocal coaching and orchestra direction for their production of Footloose in November 2002. Through Mecca, she also coordinated the Messiah Choir project -- an auditioned regional community choir of voices aged 15 to 70 with whom she prepared excerpts from Handel’s Messiah to perform in a mass choir of 250 voices on American Thanksgiving Sunday 2003 in New York City's Carnegie Hall, directed by John Rutter. Ms. Gwyer was nominated for the Western Manitoba YWCA Women of Distinction Award in 1999.

Ms. Gwyer has enjoyed singing with many different choral, jazz and rock musicians in Brandon and beyond. She was the only resident Canadian to sing with the American Choral Directors' Association National Women's Honour Choir in Chicago, Illinois in 1999. She made her premiere musical theatre performance as Sister Amnesia in Theatre 85’s Nuncrackers – The Nunsense Christmas Musical in November 2000, following up in the role of Audrey in Mecca Productions' production of Little Shop of Horrors in May 2004. She was a reader for CBC Radio's Dickens' Christmas Carol in aid of the WestMan Women's Shelter in December 2006, . and you can still catch her "stunning" appearance in Psalty's Christmas Carol which she did in Grade 8 almost every Christmas on Minnedosa's Access 12 Channel!

Ms. Gwyer considers it a wonderful life in the Wheat City, close to family and friends, with husband, Blair Bolduc, and their two dogs, Angel and Boz. She very happily continues her work in the choral program at Neelin, which aims to bring all kinds of teens together to learn and perform some of the world’s greatest music while discovering the joys of singing.
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