About Blue Arch Music

Composition

Education

Performance

Elisa Sereno-Janz

Elisa Sereno-Janz is a fiddler and baroque music specialist from Calgary, Alberta. She has a Bachelor of Music (Violin Performance) and a Bachelor of Education from the University of Western Ontario. She had a private violin studio from 1983-2010. In 1989-90 she accepted a temporary position with the Hampton School District in New Brunswick where she taught the senior orchestra and various violin classes throughout the district. 
 
Elisa and her husband Tim Janz founded Prairie Ceilidh, a traditional Celtic band that performed throughout Canada from 1995-2006. They recorded two CDs: Dry Island and A Prairie Ceilidh Christmas. You can find them on iTunes.
 
In 1998, Elisa founded Blue Arch Strings (formerly Baroque & Buskin’ Strings), an amateur string orchestra in Calgary which provides an opportunity for all string players to play folk music in an ensemble. Finding limited folk music repertoire, Elisa created musical arrangements in a folk style, where all of the instruments have a chance to play the melody and all of the parts are fun and interesting to play. To date, she has arranged and composed over 35 pieces for string ensemble. 
 
Elisa continued her studies in baroque music at the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute in 2002 and 2003. At the North Atlantic Fiddle Convention 2006 at the University of Aberdeen, Elisa presented her paper “Bridging Fiddle and Classical Communities in Calgary, Alberta: The Baroque & Buskin’ Strings.” In her paper, she discusses the similarities between 18th century folk music and classical music of the same time period. Her paper is published in Driving the Bow: Fiddle and Dance Studies from around the North Atlantic 2.  
 
In 2010, Elisa closed her private teaching studio of 27 years to pursue fine art studies at the Alberta College of Art and Design, and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts (With Distinction) from Alberta College of Art and Design in 2014. Since then, Elisa balances an artful life, painting, and making music. You can see her art projects on www.elisaserenojanz.com. Her new media work, The FiddleLights Project, combines her music making and her art making. It has been presented at conferences in Canada and in Europe. 

Tim Janz

Tim graduated from the University of Western Ontario with a Bachelor of Music (Honors, Flute Performance) and received his Masters of Music in Composition at the University of Calgary under Alan Bell. He has also studied at the Banff Centre.

Tim has taught at Mount Royal University as a theory instructor since 1990. He teaches flute and music theory privately. Recently, Tim has worked with Learning Through the Arts which integrates music in teaching core curriculum in Calgary public schools. Tim enjoys writing music for schools, and created six operettas in conjunction with Nellie McClung Elementary school in Calgary. He has also been Composer in Residence at Willow Park School in Calgary.

In 2009, pursuing his interest in baroque music and playing baroque flute, he became the temporary director of the Blue Arch String Orchestra while his wife, Elisa Sereno-Janz took a two year sabbatical. He now has taken the position of resident composer for the Blue Arch String Orchestra, producing a new work for them each term.

Tim has performed with the Banff Centre New Music Theatre Program, the traditional Band Prairie Ceilidh, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Blue Arch String Orchestra, and numerous chamber ensembles.

Through teaching, composing, performing and listening to music, Tim has become very intrigued by the physics of sound, the choices that composers make in combining sounds and then how performers shape those combinations in time. He continues to explore and research these concepts and their interactions, with a particular interest in tempo.