Judith Kehler Siebert

Dr. Judy Kehler Siebert has earned an international reputation as a pianist, chamber musician and teacher. A native of Manitoba and a graduate of the Eastman Faculty of Music, her appointment in 2002 brought Dr. Kehler Siebert back home to the University of Manitoba Faculty of Music where she began her university teaching career.

  • In the faculty

    • Professor, Collaborative Piano
    • Collaborative Piano Area Head
    • Coordinator, Chamber Ensembles

Education

BA, University of Winnipeg
MMus, University of Toronto
DMA, Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester

Performance highlights

In addition to her solo and chamber ensemble performances of the standard repertoire on three continents, Dr. Kehler Siebert has distinguished herself as a proponent of new music by contemporary composers. She has participated in the world premieres of over 20 major commissioned works, many of them recorded for CBC radio broadcast and CD release. She has been a featured artist at seven of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's annual New Music Festivals. Festival highlights have included the world premieres of Heather Schmidt’s Piano Concerto No. 1, T. Patrick Carrabré's The Elements, and a Canadian premiere performance of the two-piano concerto, Heterophony of Two Pianos and Orchestra by Japanese composer, Akira Nishimura with Shirley Sawatzky and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. The latter was released on CD by the CBC/Warner label, Bramwell Tovey, conductor.

Along with saxophonists Dale and Kimm Stammen, Dr. Kehler Siebert is a founding member of the Quarks! Trio. The trio has performed over 350 concerts since 1989; its numerous commissions and recordings have created a new literature for this unique combination of instruments. Quarks! also embraces electronic music, notably the 2002 premiere of composer David Jaffe’s Racing through Time for chamber ensemble and radio drum. A CD of Quarks!  commissioned works is being recorded at the Banff Centre for the Arts, and was released in 2004.

Ongoing research and creative works

Teaching has always been a key part of Dr. Kehler Siebert’s life in music. She has held teaching appointments at Concord College (now Canadian Mennonite University), Sir Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo, ON), Syracuse University (NY), Brock, University (St. Catharines, ON), and Brandon University (MB), as well as graduate assistantship teaching at the Eastman Faculty of Music (Rochester, NY). From 1996-2001 she participated in establishing a Collaborative Piano Committee, Music Teachers National Association of North America.

In 2020, Dr. Kehler Siebert co-founded Dream Big: Music Out of Bounds, an academic conference dedicated to the art of collaborative piano, which brought renowned performers and teachers from across Canada and the United States to the University of Manitoba for discussions, masterclasses, and concerts.