Information
EVERETT HOPFNER
Piano Adjudicator
Everett Hopfner is not a harmonium player. However, if you need a harmonium player, you’re in luck: he’ll probably say yes. An enthusiastic explorer of the piano (or whichever keyboard instrument happens to be nearest), Everett’s performances exude joy and intention, qualities he translates to his roles as teacher, administrator, advocate, and life-long learner.
Everett’s reputation as a generous, thoughtful, and brilliantly skilled player continues to grow. His openness and penchant for musical risk-taking has led to many collaborations with composers and artistic peers. Delighted audiences have found him strumming piano strings surrounded by whale skeletons in Frankfurt’s Senckenberg Museum, tinkling away at the jeu de timbres on tour with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, performing on cathedral steps under the stars as a collaborative pianist for Casalmaggiore International Music Festival in Italy, touring across Canada as a winner of the Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition, and illuminated by a pulsating light installation alongside the Assiniboine River as part of Winnipeg’s Nuit Blanche. Everett performs regularly with pianist Madeline Hildebrand in the experimental keyboard duo Tönky Hönk: together they have held artistic residencies at Avaloch Farm Music Institute, New Music on the Point, and Memorial University of Newfoundland. Their debut EP will be released in 2026.
Everett is an active piano teacher in high demand for workshops, masterclasses, adjudication, and summer festivals. He facilitates meaningful experiences by asking questions, embracing challenges, and developing goal-oriented, student-centred learning processes. Everett lives for the “lightbulb moments” -- instants where his students find clarity or realize a musical wish -- and works tirelessly to break down barriers to musical participation and understanding still enduring in traditional institutions. Everett has contributed to his artistic community as a board member for the Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition, Associated Manitoba Arts Festivals, and the Manitoba Registered Music Teachers' Association, and previously served as Director of the Eckhardt-Gramatté Conservatory of Music at Brandon University. He is based in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
LORETTA THORLEIFSON
Vocal & Choral Adjudicator
Loretta directed the choral program at Garden Valley Collegiate in Winkler for many years, where she became the founding director of the “Inversions”, whose experiences included representing Manitoba at the National Unisong Festival held in Ottawa on Canada Day.
Loretta has enjoyed acting as a guest conductor and adjudicator at numerous choral events and festivals throughout Manitoba, and was pleased to have conducted the Intermediate Provincial Honour Choir several years ago. She was also privileged to conduct the adult chamber choir Prairie Singers for many years.
Loretta has studied voice with Henriette Schellenberg of Winnipeg, and enjoys teaching voice privately and singing in choirs, including the CMU Festival Chorus which regularly performs together with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.
Loretta has been privileged to act as president of both the Manitoba Choral Association and Associated Manitoba Arts Festivals, and she continues to support the Manitoba artistic community through her work with her local festival committee. She and her husband Al perform with a Celtic/folk quartet called On the Edge and their two adult children have arts related careers. In addition to sharing the stage with various local musicians, Loretta loves to sing with her four sisters, as she has been doing ever since she can remember. Her signature expression is “Why just exhale when you could be singing?!”
AL THORLEIFSON
Speech Arts Adjudicator
Al Thorleifson taught senior English, Mathematics, and Choral Music at Nellie McClung Collegiate in Manitou, Manitoba for several decades.
In 2012, he developed the Pembina Manitou Archive, a regional, on-line archive which promotes Southern Manitoba’s history. The web site currently hosts 80,000 documents including large collections of heritage newspapers, memoirs and histories of regional communities, grave and obituary records, and Canada’s largest collection of documents by and about the legacy of Nellie L. McClung. Due to its constant use, the Pembina Manitou Archive has been recently updated to current software standards. Al is currently working with the Pembina Manitou Culture and Heritage Association and the Boundary Trail National Heritage Region Board on several museum related projects and on continued partnerships with several communities’ major digitization projects. For his heritage work, Al received the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Historical Preservation and Promotion in 2017.
He has taught public speaking and dramatic arts at many levels both in the schools and in the community. Mr Thorleifson loves writing and has worked on numerous research projects on various topics which have resulted in publications or monographs published on the Pembina Manitou archive website.
He has always enjoyed the role of the storyteller and has acted and performed in festivals and concerts and in the classroom since he was very young. By integrating these storytelling skills into the classroom as a teacher and public speaker, he has worked to develop the same skills in his students.
Mr Thorleifson performs with the vocal group On The Edge, which performs everything from Celtic music to Jazz to Blue Grass. As well, he has sung for many years with the Borderline Singers and is a member of the Manitou Coffee House Musicians.
He is a dedicated member of the board which maintains and promotes the Manitou Opera House, southern Manitoba’s oldest performing arts theatre.Mr Thorleifson and his wife, Loretta, are the proud parents of two wonderful young adults, Erin Rose and Skye – both of whom celebrate the arts, as well.
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