As the Past President of the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles (WASBE), Colleen Richardson is active as a clinician, adjudicator, and guest conductor within Canada and internationally. Recent adjudicating engagements have included the Certamen International Band Festival (Valencia, Spain), the World Music Contest (Kerkrade, The Netherlands), the New York International Music Festival (Carnegie Hall), the Pacific Basin Festival (Hawaii), and the Singapore International Band Festival. She has guest conducted or presented in Brazil, Ireland, Switzerland, Italy, Taiwan, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Wales, and the US. From 2022-2024, she served as WASBE’s President and as Chair of the Artistic Planning Committee for the 2024 conference in Gwangju, South Korea.

In 2018, Richardson was invited to present at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic in Chicago and was awarded the Canadian Band Association’s “International Band Award” for her contribution to the international band movement. Her publications include eleven study guides for the Teaching Music Through Performance in Band series, two study guides for Winds of the North: A Survey of the Canadian Wind Band Tradition and Repertoire, as well as articles for the Canadian Winds, and the Canadian Music Educator Journal. In 2012, Richardson produced and edited the Hunsberger DVD within GIA’s DVD set entitled Three Icons: Frank Battisti, Donald Hunsberger, and H. Robert Reynolds.

Within Western University’s Don Wright Faculty of Music (London, Ontario, Canada), Richardson serves as the Coordinator of Bands, directs the Wind Ensemble, and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in conducting and instrumental ensemble pedagogy. In addition, she co-supervises the Western Young Winds Program with Dr. Kevin Watson. Established in 2013, this transformative program offers real world experience for the undergraduate music students selected to teach/conduct, as well as an enrichment program for the local grade 6-9 band students. Recently, due to the program’s popularity, it expanded to include the Western Youth Wind Ensemble for local grade 10-12 band students.

A native of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Richardson earned her first degree from Brandon University (BMus Ed) and proceeded to teach music for fourteen years in the Manitoba public school system. She continued her studies at the University of Calgary (Wind Conducting Diploma, MMus Conducting) and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (DMA Wind Conducting). The three-summer Wind Conducting Diploma featured conducting clinicians such as: Eugene Corporon, Jerry Junkin, Mallory Thompson, Karel Husa, Warren Benson, Dale Lonis, and Robert Reynolds. Through her graduate studies, her primary conducting instructors were Glenn Price and Rodney Winther. While in Cincinnati completing her doctorate, she co-directed the Tri-State Chamber Players, as well as served as the Music Director and Conductor of the Cincinnati Youth Wind Ensemble. In 2005, Richardson became Assistant Professor of Music Education and the Wind Ensemble Director at Converse College in South Carolina. She joined the Don Wright Faculty of Music at Western University in 2006.

adjudicators