New Brunswick Registered Music Teachers' Association

New Brunswick Registered Music Teachers' Association

New Brunswick Registered Music Teachers' Association. Organized in 1950 as the New Brunswick Music Teachers' Association, it affiliated with the CFMTA in 1954 and in 1961 incorporated and changed its name. In 1990 there were some 80 registered and 47 associate members active in branches in Fredericton, Saint John, Moncton, Sackville, and Campbellton.

The primary aims of the NBRMTA are to provide professional development and fellowship for members, provide performance opportunities for students, win recognition of musical achievement from the school and university communities and from the public, and encourage Canadian composers and performers. Although music became a curriculum subject in New Brunswick high schools in 1968, in 1990 the NBRMTA was still lobbying the provincial Dept of Education to give credit for conservatory examinations. The association holds an annual convention and discussions and publishes a quarterly Newsletter. Young Artists Competitions were begun in 1986 in co-operation with the NSRMTA. Branches organize courses, workshops, discussions, and student recitals; individual members assist in planning music festivals and arrange examination centres. Generous assistance has come from music faculty members at Mount Allison University and University of Moncton, and from the Arts Branch of the New Brunswick Department of Tourism, Recreation and Heritage.

On joining the CFMTA, the NBRMTA urged the promotion of Canadian composers and performers by that organization. To celebrate the province's bicentennial in 1984, the NBRMTA began a program of publishing works by New Brunswick composers including, by 1990, Robert C. Bayley, Carleton Elliott, Michael Miller, and Norma Ferguson. The association promotes Canada Music Week, emphasizing the CFMTA Music Writing Competition.

Presidents of the NBRMTA have been Robert C. Bayley 1950-2, Howard Brown 1952-6 and 1960-1, James O. Manchip 1956-8 and 1961-4, Ernest W. Freeborn 1958-60 and 1964-5, Elsa Stramberg Noble 1965-7, Greta MacKenzie 1967-70, Elizabeth Armour 1970-3 and 1980-1, Hester Jackson 1973-4, Kathleen Fensom 1974-6, Margaret King 1976-8, Alice Mae Wright 1978-80, Millicent McRae Kavanagh 1981-2, Evelyn Clark 1982-3, Vivien Hay 1983-4, Mabel Doak 1984-6, Isabel Hardy 1986-8, and Louise Milota 1988-9, succeeded by Patricia Elliott in 1989.