Save Our Conservatory

I support the Conservatory -- it was central to my daughter's development in music. Now, at 24, while a graduate from another program at MRU, she continues to participate in, and find enrichment in community quartets, sharing her love of music with other string players and the community. Reducing the Conservatory is short-sighted, especially after so many, many years of diligent work.

I concur Bill vanderSloot and John Kadz are outstanding teachers and deserve to be reinstated. this is the 2nd time for Mr Kadz to be "ousted". Unfair! They have helped make Calgary a go to place for musicians.

My son participated in the MRC music program for early musicians last year and gained so much from it - these decisions to defund and destabilize the program are atrocious.

Save music in Calgary. Don't be draconian by cutting arts.

Please keep the integrity of their Arts and Music!

I am very unhappy with this news and hope you will reconsider. The Conservatory needs Bill and John and I won't attend there without them.

My children have benefited immensely from the programming provided by John and Bill and I am saddened by this unimaginable decision. Please reconsider.

Bill and John made the Conservatory that you will destroy.

I just signed the petition asking for reinstatement of John's position - now I see MRU has also removed Bill as Director of the program? My son says "All I can think of are swear words" and I must agree. What on earth are you guys thinking??? Un-freaking-believable and it most certainly changes the decisions that I will be making about my children's future education. Please, please, rethink these foolhardy decisions before your reputation is irreparably damaged.

When learning of this unfortunate decision I was shocked to say the least. These two internationally known pedagogues Bill van der Sloot and John Kadz turned throughout the years excellent musicians who have put MRU on the music world map. Bill was an excellent student of mine at the Eastman School of Music where he earned his Masters in Violin and it is a joy for me through my many guest visits to MRU to see him develop into a very fine and dedicated teacher producing the best students as well as his great vision for your University as Manager. These two gentlemen turned your institution into the small circle of elite string programs in North America. How something like this could happened is beyond anybody's wild imagination. I urge everybody responsible for this decision to come to your senses and reinstate without delay John Kadz and Bill van der Sloot. Your institution would instantly loose its credibility otherwise. Gerardo Ribeiro Professor of Violin, Coordinator of Strings Co-Chair of Music Performance Bienen School of Music Northwestern University Evanston, IL 60208 USA

The leadership at the Mount Royal Conservatory has created a world class program in Calgary which draws talented students from around the world. The alumni who have studied at the school are leaders in the musical community across the globe. I largely credit my own career as a musician in one of the orchestras at Lincoln Center to my early training at the Mount Royal Conservatory. In order to preserve this outstanding pillar in Canada's musical community, full time faculty such as Mr. Katz, Mr. Van Der Sloot and Mr. Dornian are integral. For institutional leaders not to realize this is extremely short sighted and damaging.

Verna Mark, Calgary 105 years built with a vision, one decision in a day to destroy. Please reinstate Mr. Van de Sloot and Mr. Kadz to continue the vision of the founding musicians before them. As a parent of children that have gone through the APP and Academy programs at the Conservatory, My three are strong and confident in all that they do today because of these programs and the insight of these two men.

I know both of these teachers well from serving on the Board of the Canadian Music Competitions for 35 years and listening to their excellent students in Competition. Over the years they have been largely responsible for changing Calgary from a backwards place in the musical community to a leader nationwide in the quality of the string students they have taught and developed. It would be a tragedy not to allow their efforts to continue.

Can't believe this is happening.

The answer is so clear. If you do not bring back Mr. Van der Sloot and Mr. Kadz your reputation will be damaged beyond repair. I urge you to google the names of the people who are signing these petitions. Among them are some of the most elite musicians and pedagogues of our time. The credibility of your institution is crumbling by the day. You can fix this. Do the right thing.

I have had the pleasure and honor of watching Bill Van Der Sloot work. Very few people have the ability to work with promising youth that he does -- very, very few. For the sake of the arts, he needs to be there.

Happy to support this petition endorsed by distinguished musicians and friends.

Bill van der Sloot is one of the most distinguished violin pedagogues in the world, as evidenced by the many extraordinary students who have emerged from his studio, including many laureates of the Klein Competition in San Francisco (of which I am the Artistic Director). I extend my full support to him, and strongly urge that he be reinstated.

The world is watching.

John Kadz is not only regarded as the best 'cello teacher in Calgary/Mount Royal, but in Canada, across which he is in frequent demand as both adjudicator and teacher. Consider how well so many of his students have done in the cut-throat world of music. For easy example, our own daughter, Martha, is a member of the world-famous Cleveland Orchestra, an adjunct professor and artist-in residence at various Cleveland-Ohio institutions, and is currently setting up a music programme at the prestigious Cleveland Institute of Music that is closely modelled on Kadz' Mount Royal own. Not to renew his contract is an act of academic & musical lunacy, presumably inspired by either/or new brooms sweeping clean, or internal politics