{"id":7860,"date":"2026-07-20T12:31:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T17:31:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brandonu.ca\/music\/?page_id=7860"},"modified":"2026-07-21T10:58:58","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T15:58:58","slug":"kirk-wassmer","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.brandonu.ca\/music\/festivals-and-workshops\/avenues\/kirk-wassmer\/","title":{"rendered":"Kirk Wassmer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Kirk Wassmer has just retired after a 35-year career teaching band across western Canada.\u202f\u202fFor the past 23 years he was at Didsbury High School in Didsbury, Alberta, a rural community north of Calgary where more than half of the school\u2019s population was involved in the Music Program.\u202f\u202fIn addition to numerous local and regional performances, groups from Didsbury High School travelled across Canada and internationally to Scotland, England and Spain.\u202f\u202fEnsembles from DHS consistently received high accolades for their concert and festival performances.\u202f\u202fPrior to Didsbury Kirk taught at G.P. Vanier Secondary School in Courtenay, BC and at Revelstoke Secondary School.\u202f\u202fStudents from all of Kirk\u2019s programs can be found across Western Canada performing and teaching music.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">Kirk received his undergraduate degree from the University of Saskatchewan, and he has a Master of Music from the University of Missouri \u2013 Columbia.\u202f He has served on the Boards of the Alberta Band Association, the Canadian Band Association and the Coalition for Music Education in Canada.\u202f Kirk remains active as a clinician and adjudicator, and\u202fhe\u00a0has been a part of the Kamloops Interior Summer School of Music, a three-week K-12 summer music program, since 2015.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><span data-contrast=\"auto\">In 2008, he was\u00a0honoured\u00a0to be recognized as a semi-finalist in Alberta Education\u2019s Excellence in Teaching Awards.\u202f In 2017 Kirk received the David Peterkin Award in recognition of exemplary and consistent contribution to bands and band education from the Mu Alpha chapter of Phi Beta Mu.\u202f In 2019 he was presented with the Elkhorn Band Director of the Year award by the Alberta Band Association, and in 2022 received the\u00a0Vondis\u00a0Miller Legacy Award. \u202fIn 2024, Kirk was awarded the Keith Mann\/National Arts Centre Outstanding Band Director Award from\u00a0MusicFest\u00a0\u2013 The\u00a0Nationals, and\u00a0was also\u00a0honoured\u00a0to receive a Prime Minister&#8217;s Award for Teaching Excellence\u00a0and a King Charles III Coronation Medal in recognition of Kirk\u2019s innovation and dedication to student success in band and in life.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kirk Wassmer has just retired after a 35-year career teaching band across western Canada.\u202f\u202fFor the past 23 years he was at Didsbury High School in Didsbury, Alberta, a rural community north of Calgary where more than half of the school\u2019s population was involved in the Music Program.\u202f\u202fIn addition to numerous local and regional performances, groups [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":393,"featured_media":0,"parent":5507,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7860","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brandonu.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brandonu.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brandonu.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brandonu.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/393"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brandonu.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7860"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.brandonu.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7879,"href":"https:\/\/www.brandonu.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7860\/revisions\/7879"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brandonu.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brandonu.ca\/music\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}