Lifetime Membership is awarded to members for their outstanding contributions to the Alberta Orff Chapter and to Carl Orff Canada. All three of our lifetime members have made significant contributions to the foundation of the chapter, the mentoring of teachers in the Orff approach and influences of the Alberta Orff approach in Alberta and beyond. 

Lifetime Memberships were awarded by the Alberta Orff Chapter to Judy Sills in 1997, Bob de Frece in 2012 and Diane Shieron in 2019.
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All three of these remarkable educators were amongst the first Albertans and Canadians to receive their Orff Levels certificates. They were selected by their instructors to then continue on with Orff Levels training and become endorsed levels instructors. Judy Sills and Diane Shieron served as Orff Levels instructors for many years at the University of Alberta.
​Dr. Bob deFrece continues to be the program director and level II and III instructor at the U of A where he also taught using the Orff approach for decades. All three of these music educators have taught thousands of teachers over the years, thus in turn bringing the Orff approach to school children across Alberta, Canada and the world.

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Judy Sills

Judy Sills (B.Mus. University of Alberta, Master Level Orff, Memphis, Level III Orff in French, Graduate Diploma in Education) is now retired as Department Head of music at Victoria School of the arts, a K – 12 Performing and Visual Arts school in Edmonton 
Judy has more than 35 years of choral and Orff directing experience at school and district levels. She has instructed Levels I, II and III Orff courses at several universities in Canada and the US. Judy has presented many Orff workshops across Canada, the United States, Hong Kong and South Africa. Her Orff Ensembles have performed at eight National Conferences.

Judy was founding president of the Alberta Chapter of Music for Children and served twelve years on the National Executive of Carl Orff Canada.  She has also served on various other music executives at the local, provincial and national levels. She was awarded the City of Edmonton Arts Achievement award in 1995 for her efforts in promoting music education in Edmonton and across Alberta. She was made an Honorary Life member of the Alberta Orff Chapter in 1997 and an honorary life member of the National Association of Carl Orff Canada in 2004. She was nominated as a YWCA Woman of Distinction in 2006. She co-chaired the 20th National Conference of Carl Orff Canada in April of 2008. 
Judy has served as board member for the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, the Victoria School Foundation for the Arts, Opera Nuova and the Friends of the University Hospital. She is presently on the board of the Kokopelli Choir Association.

Her publications include: 
Musica Activa 
55x Funtastic 
Can You Canon? 
Canadiana 
A Musical Treat 
Canadiana Encore Volume 2 
Musica Activa Melodic Expression 

Robert (Bob) de Frece

Robert (Bob) de Frece began his career in Music Education in 1971, teaching junior and senior high school choral  music at Archbishop Jordan High School in Sherwood Park, Alberta. In 1974-75, he was given a one-year sabbatical  leave to study at the University of Calgary, to complete a Diploma in Secondary Instrumental Music Education. By  1977, he was very busy, teaching 6 choirs, 2 bands and 2 handbell ensembles. Because his wife, Cathy, was an  elementary music specialist, Bob became interested in “what actually happens” in elementary music classes. In  1978, he and Cathy attended an all-day Orff workshop presented in Edmonton by Jane Frazee from St. Paul,  Minnesota. Bob was mesmerized by all that had been taught and learned in a way that was completely new to  him. By 1978, he had convinced his superintendent to allow him to teach elementary music in grades 1 to 6 in the  morning and his classes at the high school in the afternoon. 
In 1980, Bob was hired for the position of Fine Arts Consultant (Music) with the Alberta Department of Education.  In the summer of 1981, he began studies toward a master’s degree in Music Education at the University of Oregon.  One of the options available to him in his first summer of the program was Orff Level I, taught by Millie Burnett.  Those two weeks in Level I were a life-changing experience for Bob. He followed that up with Orff Level II, taught  by Arvida Steen, Mary Goetze, and Nancy Miller at the University of Illinois in 1982 and Orff Level III, taught by  Jane Frazee, Mary Goetze and Nancy Miller, also at the University of Illinois, in 1983. Bob taught his first Level I  course at the Crane School of Music in Potsdam NY in the summer of 1985. He had been accepted into the Doctor  of Musical Arts program at the University of Oregon, and commenced his doctoral studies in September, 1985. He  taught Orff Level I at Bowling Green State University (Ohio) for 4 years, commencing in 1986, and completed the  degree of Doctor of Musical Arts in Music Education and Choral Conducting at the University of Oregon in 1988. 
In 1993, Bob was invited to teach Orff Level III (alternating with Level II) at Hofstra University in Hempstead (Long  Island) New York, working with Carol Huffman and Donna Basile. He taught at Hofstra for 20 summers and during that time, he also taught Level III at Trinity University (San Antonio, Texas) and the University of South Florida  (Tampa). In 2008, he became Course Director for the University of Alberta Orff Schulwerk Certification Program  and continues to teach Orff Levels II and III there. Bob has presented Orff Workshops across Canada and the  United States, and in Puerto Rico. He was a member of the McGraw Hill author team that wrote Share the Music  and Spotlight on Music and taught Orff courses for teachers in bilingual kindergartens in Dalian, China, in 2006,  2011 and 2018. ​

Diane Shieron

Diane has shared many of her joys as a music educator including her times as an Elementary Music Specialist K - 6 with Edmonton Public Schools, Level I Orff Instructor at the University of Alberta and University of Regina, Introductory Orff Instructor, Sessional Instructor at the U of A Faculty of Education in Elementary Music, Orff Workshop presenter across Western Canada, Festival Adjudicator, Orff Workshop presenter in Alberta and across Western Canada, Choir Director and Accompanist and Early Childhood Music teacher for Alberta College and the Child Learning Centre at the University of Alberta. Diane has an “ARCT in Piano Performance” Degree from the Royal Conservatory of Toronto.
Diane published a collection of songs and activities called “Let’s Sing and Dance Today” and there are many of her composed and orchestrated songs in “AN ORFF MOSAIC from Canada" edited by Lois Birkenshaw-Fleming. One of her songs is in the series “MUSICANADA” and she has material in the Edmonton Public Schools Music Assessment Series.
 The love of Orff started when Diane was a first-year music specialist with Edmonton Public Schools at the suggestion and encouragement of Judy Sills. She has studied Orff with Donna Otto–Spence, Jane Frazee and Jos Wuytack. In 1985, she received her master class certification from Memphis State University, followed by three more with Jos Wuytack. As the Orff Level classes grew in interest and numbers at the University of Alberta, Diane was honoured to be asked by Jos to join the teaching staff as the Level I Instructor, alongside Judy Sills (level 2) and Jos Wuytack (level 3). During her time teaching levels, she recruited Wendy Rae to teach recorder for levels, and Laurel Nikolai for movement. In 1987 Dr. Bob deFrece asked Diane to join his teaching staff for Elementary Music Curriculum at the University of Alberta. She continued her teaching with Edmonton Public Schools part time and shared activities her school students were learning with the students in her University classes. Diane has opened three brand new schools during her teaching time with Edmonton Public Schools.
The University of Alberta’s Faculty of Education's “Teaching Award in Recognition of Excellence in Performance of Teaching'' was presented to Diane in 2007. After presenting a workshop for the Alberta Orff Chapter in 2019 Diane was honoured with a “Lifetime Membership''. A scholarship in her name will be set up. What an honour! Diane’s students have performed at National Orff Conferences, Kiwanis Music Festivals, Zone festivals for Edmonton Public Schools and EPSB’s Night of Music. These students have shown their peers, parents, teachers, principals, School Board Trustees and others the love and joy making music the “Orff” way!

Lorna Walker