Our Team
Alison Kenny-Gardhouse
Founder & President
Alison Kenny-Gardhouse creates inspiring and experiential community-based arts programming throughout North America. As the founder and president of Connexionarts, an arts-in-education consulting firm, Alison has established herself as a leader when it comes to the development of education models, teacher and artist training, and creating arts-based educational resources.
She has worked with major arts organizations across Canada and the U.S., including GRAMMY Foundation, San Francisco’s Word for Word, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, Opera Lyra Ottawa, Pasadena Symphony, and Toronto’s Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra. Alison has written study guides, guidelines, and professional development materials for teaching artists and online multi-media learning collections, such as the Virtual Museum of Canada.
During her 10-year tenure as Vice President of Music and Engagement for the Francis Winspear Centre for Music and Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (ESO), Alison developed a wide range of innovative outreach programming. By leading a team through her unique process of identifying community needs, research, pilot programs, revisions, training, and sustaining strong arts programming, she increased the impact of the Winspear and ESO substantially. Programs she helped pioneer include Music Box Babies classes for children ages 0-48 months and Science of Sound field trips for Grades 2 and 3. Alison also created spring break and summer camps for kids ages 6-12 to learn how to play an orchestral instrument. Her most recent pilot project for the Winspear Centre is Musical Mornings, cushion concerts designed to engage, entertain, and educate children in a casual, family-friendly environment.
Recognizing the value of musical education for all ages, Alison created the Rusty Musicians B-Sides program for adults, which gives amateur musicians the chance to perform side-by-side with orchestra members. The success of that program led to the Rusty Musicians Summer Camp, an immersive experience for adult amateur musicians that culminates in a performance with members of the ESO. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Alison and her team at the Winspear launched Music Appreciation Online classes for adults. Following the model of trying “small experiments with radical intent,” Alison started Parkinson’s jam sessions, where a person living with Parkinson’s was paired with an ESO musician to rediscover the instrument they had played prior to their diagnosis.
Alison was instrumental in preparing for the Winspear Centre’s Evolution of the Arts in a Digital World Symposium, which took place in 2021. Her contributions included finding funding, defining topics, choosing speakers, and moderating online sessions.
Alison led the design and implementation of the Artful Learning school improvement model in schools across America, impacting more than 50 school districts in 50 states across America. As a consultant to the Leonard Bernstein Center, she continues to advise and provide ongoing project support to the model. Other contributions to the field of education include the design and field-testing of the first online integrated-arts course for the Performance Learning Systems, an organization that provides courses for teacher accreditation in North America.
Concurrent with her consultant work, Alison has been an active educator at multiple levels at a variety of institutions. She has worked as a sessional instructor at the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, professor of voice in Musical Theatre at Sheridan College, and was on the teaching faculty at the Royal Conservatory of Music and at the Toronto District School Board.
A skilled motivational speaker and facilitator, Alison frequently works with leadership teams at arts organizations to assess their needs, and design and implement arts-infused programming that fits the needs of the community. She is a regular guest lecturer/presenter at universities and conferences across Canada and has served on the board of Coalition for Music Education, the Advisory Board for Carl Orff Canada, and the International Advisory Committee for the School of Education at Drake University. She is currently a board member for Room 217 Music Care.
Alison is currently based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Catherine West
Senior Associate
Catherine West has an international reputation as an arts consultant, author, workshop clinician, and course instructor. As Senior Associate of Connexionarts, she has worked with numerous Connexionarts clients including the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, Tafelmusik, the GRAMMY’s Leonard Bernstein Foundation, and Opera Lyra (Ottawa). She has authored numerous books and curriculum resources, including co-authoring How the Gimquat Found Its Song for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and Let’s Go Mozart and Vivaldi and the Four Seasons for the National Arts Centre Orchestra.
As a consultant, Ms. West has worked with the Victorian Orff Schulwerk Association (Australia), the American Orff-Schulwerk Association, the Bermuda Union of Teachers, Orff China, Carl Orff Vietnam, many school districts and universities, the Ontario Music Educators’ Association, and the Ontario Ministry of Education. She recently co-authored teaching resources for Kuné – Canada’s Global Orchestra. Additionally, Ms. West taught with the Toronto District School Board as a music specialist and Instructional Leader in Music, and also coordinated and taught music AQ courses for the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Education (OISE) and the Faculty of Music.
Over the past decade, Ms. West has led the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Smart Start ™ program, doing ground-breaking work with neuroscientist Dr. Sean Hutchins. They identified the parallel alignment of music teaching strategies and cognitive stages in a young child’s development and field-tested a multi-ages curriculum. Through the pilot stage, they trained teachers and in 2023, they launched the online product, Smart Start ™. A global launch took place the Music and the Mind symposium, with headliner Renée Fleming, the internationally acclaimed opera star. Ms. West continues to act in an advisory role as Smart Start reaches communities around the world.
Ms. West is the recipient of an Honourary Life Membership in Carl Orff Canada for her many years of service to the organization as National Editor of the COC journal Ostinato.
Doug Friesen
Associate
Doug Friesen is currently an Assistant Professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Music Education and Community Musicand has extensive public school classroom and consultant experience. He recently completed a PhD focused on sound and listening pedagogies, emphasizing critical practitioner research and collaborative inquiry. He has guided teachers, students, musicians, and other interested individuals across Canada and Latin America in utilizing listening and sound to foster creativity and build community and has a particular interest in integrating democratic teaching models inspired by the work of improvisor John Zorn and composer/educator R. Murray Schafer.
Doug is also a performing musician and has toured, recorded, and collaborated with numerous bands and singer-songwriters.
Dr. Susan (Sue) Snyder
Arts-Integration Consultant
Dr. Susan (Sue) Snyder, Principal Member of IDEAS (Inventive Designs for Education and the ArtS), is a career-long arts education leader. She is a teacher, clinician, author, program designer, mentor, and collaborator. Sue holds a Ph.D. in Music Education and Curriculum and Instruction. She has developed research- and practice- informed arts integration philosophy that considers the arts not only for their unique importance in human development, but also as the delivery system for curriculum and social-emotional/mental health/and wellness content.
She is the author of numerous publications, including the Macmillan/McGraw-Hill’s Music and You series. She developed Total Learning, and was the senior curriculum consultant for the US Department of Education’s Ready to Learn Project LAMP (Learning Apps Media Partnership). Dr. Snyder created learning resources such as recordings and movement scarves for students, educators, and families.
She has conducted research to support her philosophy and approach, often targeting underserved groups, communities, and schools. Dr. Snyder is currently working with a multidisciplinary team that connects data and best practices in the arts, education, and mental health/wellness fields. She serves on the Board of Story Tapestries, a not-for-profit organization with a like-minded approach. She is most proud of her continued ability to make instant and sustained magic in and through the arts with children, teachers, and families.