Professor, Desautels Faculty of Music
Room 223 Taché Hall
University of Manitoba (Fort Garry Campus)
150 Dafoe Road
Winnipeg, MB. R3T 2N2
Phone: 204-474-8774
Mel.Braun@umanitoba.ca
Mel Braun
Mel Braun heads up the Desautels Faculty of Music's vocal program, which is renowned for its collaborative and holistic approach to training singers. He has seen many of his students go on to significant careers as performers and teachers. Braun also looks after the operatic ensembles at UM, and helps to coordinate the faculty's Contemporary Opera Lab.
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In the faculty
- Professor
- Voice Area Head
- Opera Theatre Ensembles Coordinator
Education
- BMus, University of Toronto
- MMus, University of Toronto
- Church Music Degree, Canadian Mennonite Bible College
Students come first. Our job is to mentor them, giving them the tools that they need to grow and move forward, ultimately becoming their own teachers. When we work together as Faculty and find all kinds of creative ways of collaborating, we survive and flourish. Collaboration is the way that people on the prairies have always survived and passing this ethos on to our students is a gift that will prepare them for fruitful ongoing lives as human beings and creators in their own right.
Mel Braun
Professor, Desautels Faculty of Music
Performance highlights
In addition to many performances and broadcasts of early music with Tafelmusik and Opera Atelier, Mel has performed new music premieres with the Banff Centre, Winnipeg’s Groundswell, Winnipeg New Music Festival, Kitchener’s Sound in the Land Festival, and many others. He has been heard across Canada in the masterworks of Bach and Handel, appearing with Tafelmusik, the Calgary Bach Festival, Symphony Nova Scotia, and Pro Coro Edmonton. He is also a regular with Manitoba Opera, most recently seen in Madama Butterfly.
Ongoing research and creative works
Recent projects include Braun's work with Camerata Nova, a choir devoted to exploring new approaches to choral music-making. He is particularly involved in the group's Indigenous themed concerts. He works closely with Andrew Balfour, a Cree composer and Camerata Nova's artistic director, putting together and directing concerts as a response to the truth and reconciliation initiatives.
As a composer, Mel also continues to contribute to Camerata Nova’s choral canon with works like Le Temps Passe (Metis Folk Song Suite) and Invocation to the 4 Directions. Braun works to find new ways to present art song, and his collaborative work with pianist Laura Loewen has allowed him to explore all kinds of possibilities. These collaborations include recent performances of John Greer’s “A Prairie Boy’s Life” and a concert combining the songs of Franz Schubert with those of Gordon Lightfoot.
Braun is an in-demand adjudicator and choral clinician, and also enjoys teaching many of the young rock singers that make up Winnipeg’s burgeoning Indie Music scene. You’ll find him wherever young singers need mentoring.