Dr. Norman E. Burgess
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Norman Burgess studied at the University of Saskatchewan and completed his doctorate in music education with distinction at Indiana University. His teachers have included Dorothy Overholt, Michael Bowie, Urico Rossi, Tadeusz Wronski, Ruggiero Ricci and Paul Rolland. He also has certification in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Brain Based Learning.
He has performed frequently as a soloist and as a chamber and orchestral musician, including engagements with the Saskatoon Symphony, the Stratford Festival Ensemble, the Calgary Philharmonic and the Regina Symphony where he served as assistant concertmaster. Norman Burgess has directed a number of ensembles including the Mount Royal Junior Orchestra and the Calgary Fiddlers.
He is active as a clinician, adjudicator, examiner, speaker and consultant in Canada, the USA, Europe and Australia. He has written numerous articles on music and music education. He has served on the organizing committee for the Arts Festival of the 1988 Winter Olympics, the Board of Directors of the Calgary Philharmonic, the Calgary Fiddlers, the Calgary Youth Orchestra, the Youth and Education Committee of the Toronto Symphony, the Canadian Music Centre (Ontario Region), and the Association of Colleges and Conservatories of Music. He is currently Chair of the Canadian Music Centre, Ontario region and member of the national board, a member of the Advisory Council for the Faculty of Music at Wilfrid Laurier University, and Past President of the Kiwanis Festival Association of Toronto. He was honoured with the Alberta Achievement Award for local, national and international achievements and in 2000 he was awarded the Colonel Peacock Award by the Casa Loma Kiwanis Club for his contribution to the music festival organization in Toronto.
Dr. Burgess has taught at conservatories, universities and within the public school system. He was music director at Sheldon Williams Collegiate in Regina, assistant professor of music at Emporia State University in Kansas. For over 15 years he was Director of the Conservatory of Music, Speech Arts and Dance at Mount Royal College in Calgary. During this time he instituted a number of internationally recognized new programs including the enormously successful Academy for Gifted Children and established its first endowment fund.
More recently, Norman Burgess has been with the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto where he initially consulted and advised on the national examination system, subsequently served as the Dean, and founded the RCM Centre for Learning Through the Arts. He led the formation of a city-wide partnership of arts organizations and school boards to collaboratively develop and deliver arts-based curriculum. Currently, he is leading an organization that advocates and assists individuals and groups to learn and achieve change through incorporating latest brain research, learning systems and computer technology.