Meet the Adjudicators.

Voice/Choral/Speech Arts Adjudicator

Soprano Irene Ilic has a Master's Degree in Music from the Cleveland Institute of Music in Ohio. She has performed a variety of operatic and musical theatre roles in the U.S. and Canada and has sung as a guest soloist with many Canadian choirs and orchestras.

Ms. Ilic currently has a thriving private teaching practice in Newmarket. In addition to being an O.R.M.T.A. member, she is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (N.A.T.S.) and the Canadian Music Festival Adjudicator's Association (C.M.F.A.A.). She is also currently a board member of the OMFA (Ontario Music Festivals Association).
She was honoured to be selected to join the repertoire selection committee for both the 2012 edition and 2019 edition of the Royal Conservatory of Music Songbook Series.

Ms. Ilic has adjudicated many festivals throughout Canada. She has extensive experience as a teacher and clinician, and she is also the founder and director of the Newmarket Voice Festival, an annual event since 1996.

Her love of both classical and musical theatre repertoire has strongly been reflected in her teaching. Several of her students have appeared in the Toronto casts of The Sound of Music, Billy Eliot, Mary Poppins, The Lord of the Rings, The Lion King, Mamma Mia, We Will Rock You and in many productions of Opera Atelier. Her student, John-Michael Scapin, won CBC's show Triple Sensation and was awarded a $150,000 scholarship. Twelve of her students have won Silver and Gold Medals for the highest voice RCM exam mark in Ontario over the years.

Irene is very active in the arts community and regularly produces concerts and shows. She was the founder and director of Vivace!, an award-winning triple trio who performed at many community events for ten years. She scripted and directed two sold-out musical revues ("Musical Mayhem" and "More Musical Mayhem") at Theatre Aurora with talented casts of her students. Her annual "Tea & Tunes" concerts have raised thousands of dollars for Sick Kids Hospital for over twenty-five years.

She is very proud that so many of her students have chosen to pursue music at the university level and as a career path.

An award-winning violist and chamber musician whose playing has been described as "absolutely splendid ... dancing with emotion," (The Day) Dr Jamie Arrowsmith's career spans genres and pushes boundaries. He has collaborated with Asian and Arabic musicians as part of the London, UK-based Notes Inégales Improvisation Ensemble, and has appeared at several leading music festivals, including the BRAVO! Vail Valley Music Festival, the Strings in the Mountains Chamber Music Festival, and the Southbank Centre New Music Biennial. Jamie frequently appears as part of the Cambrian Concert Series, and continues to perform as a guest soloist and chamber musician around Northern Ontario.

Jamie holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Kent State University and Brunel University London. He has won numerous first prize awards as a chamber musician, including the Coleman Chamber Music Competition, the MTNA Chamber Music Competition and the Green Lake String Quartet Competition. In 2014, he joined the distinguished panel of judges for the Guangya Chengdu International Violin Competition in Chengdu, China. He has also been recognized by Northern Ontario Business as a 40 Under 40 award winner for community arts leadership, and was a co-recipient of the Joan Mantle Music Trust Community Award. In 2022, he was honoured to receive the Positive Impact Award from the Cambrian Student Council, for his work supporting student success and wellbeing. His academic work focusses on the intersection of professional and amateur practice in community orchestras, a topic for which he has published and presented papers at conferences around the world.

Jamie is the Music Director of the Sudbury Youth Orchestra, and the founder and director of the Sudbury Sound Collective Improvisation ensemble. He has also been Resident Conductor of the Sudbury Symphony Orchestra, and has twice been named as Music Director for the Northern Ontario Music Festival Honour Band. He is an active clinician and adjudicator, and continues to teach in the School of Music in Sudbury, Ontario, where he also maintains a private teaching practice.

Michelle Snyder Mitchum holds the Bachelor of Music Degree in Piano Performance from Central Michigan University, after graduation, she served as a staff accompanist for a year.  Michelle received the Master of Music degree in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from Northwestern University where she studied with Francis Larimer, Elvina Truman Pearce and Donald Issak.  She is a Nationally and State Certified Teacher of Music, serves as an active adjudicator and is past chairperson of the Michigan Student Achievement Testing State Auditions.  She is recognized throughout northern Michigan as a solo performer, collaborative pianist and teacher.  She maintains an independent studio in Boyne City and Petoskey; her students have performed with both the Interlochen Youth Orchestra and the Great Lakes Chamber Orchestra.  Michelle has served as the pianist for the Great Lakes Chamber Orchestra and has served as accompanist for the Little Traverse Bay Choral Society, Northern Michigan Chorale and the The Little Traverse Civic Theater.