2026 Adjudicators
MusicFest Fanfare prides itself in working with first-class musicians, professors, and composers to provide adjudication and workshops for each performing group.
Dr Steven J Capaldo
DMA, MPerf, BEdMus, AMusA(Distinction)
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Dr. Steven Capaldo is currently an Associate Professor of Music Education & Conducting, the Wind Symphony and Concert Band Conductor, Graduate Advisor, and Head of Music Education and Graduate Wind Conducting at the University of Victoria. Dr. Capaldo has previously held conducting positions at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and UNSW Australia.
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Distinguishing himself as one of the most respected music educators, wind conductors, and conductor educators in Australia and Canada, he has earned academic and musical recognition locally, nationally, and internationally. Dr. Capaldo has won many teaching awards throughout his career, including the 2018 UOW Teaching and Learning Award and the 2023 UVic Faculty of Fine Arts Teaching Excellence Award.
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Dr. Capaldo has extensive conducting experience working with symphony orchestras, wind orchestras, and chamber ensembles. As an active writer, he composes, arranges, and transcribes music for wind orchestras, symphony orchestras, festivals, and concerts. His work Invictus Fanfare was performed at the closing ceremony of the 2025 Invictus Games in Vancouver, with other works having been performed by groups in Australia, Canada, Japan, and the United States, recorded on Klavier records (US), and published with Brolga Music and Murphy Music Press. An Assistant Producer and Co-Editor for eight Klavier Records CDs, Dr. Capaldo has been also Chair of the Australian Jury Panel for the 2017 International Eurovision Song Contest and has been a full voting member of the Grammy Awards.
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Dr. Capaldo is in demand as a conductor, clinician, and adjudicator. Having been a conducting clinician for ABODA Queensland, ABODA NSW, the Canadian Armed Forces, and the BCMEA, he has now established the new UVic Conductor Educator Symposium demonstrating his commitment to providing professional learning opportunities for music educators and conductors.
Dr Angela Schroeder
BMus, MMus, DMus.
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A native of Alberta, Dr. Angela Schroeder is currently Associate Professor of Music in the Department of Music at the University of Alberta. She is the Director of Bands, the Area Coordinator for the Winds and Percussion, oversees all areas of instrumental ensembles, and conducts the Symphonic Wind Ensemble and Summer Band. She teaches undergraduate courses in conducting and wind band education, and works with graduate students in instrumental conducting. She previously taught conducting at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. Angela is also the conductor of the St. Albert Community Band, an ensemble that is currently in their 48th concert season. This ensemble recently completed their first overseas tour, performing throughout Austria and Germany.
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Dr. Schroeder completed undergraduate degrees in Music and Education at the University of Calgary, majoring in Secondary Music Education, with performance studies in piano and trumpet. She also completed the Diploma of Fine Arts in Wind Band Conducting under the supervision of Glenn Price. After a teaching career at various secondary schools in the Calgary area, she entered the Long Term Residency program at The Banff Centre, where she studied and performed on piano, trumpet and as a conductor. Angela entered the Master's program in Wind Conducting at Northwestern University in 2002, where she studied with Mallory Thompson and earned the Master of Music in Conducting. In 2007, she completed the degree Doctor of Musical Arts in Wind Band Conducting at the University of North Texas, under the supervision of Eugene Corporon.
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Angela Schroeder is well known in the Alberta music education community, not only through her teaching and conducting both in schools and in community music organizations, but through her involvement as an executive director of the Alberta Band Association for several years. Angela has performed on cornet with the Mill Creek Colliery Band and was the Principal Trumpet for the Concordia University Orchestra for seven seasons. Angela has guest conducted and adjudicated numerous wind bands in festivals and clinics throughout Canada, the United States, Austria, Germany, Australia and Thailand. She is a contributor to eleven volumes of the Teaching Music through Performance in Band series, which profile wind literature for all levels of instrumental instruction (published by GIA). She is joyfully married to husband Geoffrey and mother to her brilliant sons, Joshua and Jonah.
