Forshaw, Laurel

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Bio

Laurel Forshaw convocated in November 2021 with a PhD in Music Education from the University of Toronto, Faculty of Music. Her doctoral research— Engaging Indigenous Voices in the Academy: Indigenizing Music in Canadian Universities—engaged with six Indigenous musicians who have all studied music in university and was supported by a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship (SSHRC-CGS). Laurel is joining the EDST at UBC as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, where her research in decolonization and Indigenization seeks to draw attention to the disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous participation in higher music education within Canada and to encourage and engage in meaningful decolonization and Indigenization within higher music education. Laurel holds a Master of Arts in Music Education (Choral Conducting) and Kodály and Orff-Schulwerk certification from the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota, and serves on faculty as the conducting and ensemble instructor for the Kodály certification program at Western University (London, Ontario).

While a graduate student at the University of Toronto, Laurel served as a course instructor, teaching Principles and Practices of Music Education for Children and as a Teaching Assistant for Introduction to Music Education and Responding to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Music Education. A long-time choral conductor of children, youth, and adults, she most recently served as conductor of the Strata Vocal Ensemble in Hamilton, ON, a mixed voice chamber choir (until the COVID-19 pandemic, when in-person choral singing paused).

Laurel is also involved in a multi-institutional research project and collaboration investigating all-ability choral experiences through the development of a new app, Adaptive Use Musical Instrument (AUMI) Sings, developed for research on the inclusion of peoples with vocal (dis)abilities in choral settings. The AUMI Sings research seeks to disrupt conventional expectations and experiences of choirs and singing with the goal of considering the complexities and possibilities of inclusive choral experiences.

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