About Masterclass Lady
Rosanne (Giallonardo) Simunovic began her musical career in Timmins, Ontario. She studied piano with Anne Pizzale and later, at an advanced level, with Soeur Anita Vaugeois (Sister Cecile of Les Soeurs De L’Assomption in Timmins). Her vocal and accompaniment skills were nurtured by her aunt, the late Dorothea Mascioli.
When Rosanne graduated from O’Gorman High School, she moved on to the University of Toronto where she continued her piano and vocal studies while attaining a Bachelor of Arts Degree. She was hired as a piano accompanist for several musical companies, most notably, the National Ballet Of Canada. She presently holds an A.R.C.T. Teacher’s Diploma in Voice from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.
Rosanne has studied choral conducting with numerous well known Canadian Conductors, including Wayne Riddell of Montreal, Quebec and the internationally renowned Dr. Elmer Iseler.
She has been a founding member of numerous community-based arts organizations: the Timmins Arts Council, later known as Arts & Culture Timmins, the Timmins Symphony Orchestra, and, the Timmins Youth Singers…as well as the TYS Alumnus choir, the Timmins Concert Singers. In 1987, she was also selected to be the conductor of the Timmins Board Of Education Choir, comprised of talented students from Grades 5 to 8.
In 1988, she was elected to the Board Of Directors of the Ontario Choral Federation (now known as Choirs Ontario), where she served as Chair of the Festivals Committee for six consecutive seasons. In 1996, in honour of the Ontario Choral Federation’s 25th Anniversary, Rosanne was selected as one of 25 recipients of the OCF’s Distinguished Service Award for outstanding contribution to the choral art. The ceremony was presided by Lieutenant Governor, Hal Jackman.
In November 1997, Rosanne Simunovic was selected by the Rotary Club Of Timmins to receive the prestigious Paul Harris Award for her years of dedication to the artistic development of young musical talent in Timmins.
In August of 2002, Rosanne Simunovic was selected by the Board Of Directors of Choirs Ontario to serve as Conductor of both the Provincial Junior and Teen Choir Camps, now renamed in honour of the Camp Benefactors, Don and Lillian Wright.
In November 2002, Rosanne was the one of the recipients of the Commemorative Medal for the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, honouring her work in the development of the arts in Timmins.
Under Rosanne Simunovic’s direction, the Timmins Youth Singers and the Timmins Concert Singers have been featured in numerous choral festivals and performing opportunities outside of Timmins. In 1985, they were selected to partici
May 21, 2013 
Well, well, well! Looks like the American Idol and Fox honchos are paying attention to what the viewers are saying about the future success of this show. 
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YEAH!! Finally they are listening. Hopefully the Idol PTB really listen and give 3 judges vs 4, longer performances and a new song catalog.
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Yes, Aubry. Finally! Let’s hope this plays out as it should and we get Idol back to the top where is belongs. As along as Ryan is there, it is secure. Without Ryan, the show would plummet into oblivion. Hopefully, he has some say over the future of the show.
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Hey Rosanne
I;m just not 100% surprised about all of this. For me …. I started loosing interest a long before this season. I think they need to fire a lot more than just judges. They need a whole new look to me. They need new producers (they can’t hang all of their failings on the judges). The producers are the ones that picked the judges. Back this blog up about year ….and I’m sure I was here saying I couldn’t believe their pick. The themes …. don’t cater to concert goers. I bet very few record producers watch and if thats true, its very telling. Their mentors, their audition process ……they need to start working to get some different kinds of talents instead of just someone who sounds like someone else. There’s a ton of things wrong with this show to me other then the judges. I’m all for the “alumni judges” thing, but if they are just going to get coming with the same old tired themes, and audition process …. and those yukey songs they have the contestants sing together …. it’ll still be headed for its ultimate end.
What I didn’t like this season was the cat fighting. It was almost intolerable. That was not the fault of the judges. That was the fault of the producers not making sure there was a good personality mix on the panel. They dropped the ball and shot for big personalities only.
While I thought Minaj was great in her critiques, I;m not sure why she was picked. She has absolutely no class in my opinion for a show of this caliber. May be a rapping contest or something, but not American Idol. I liked Keith, when he didn’t like something, he said it. Sometimes went against the other 3 judges. I always liked Randy. And Mariah , in my opinion got a little better then when she started out (just lenghty.)
I love the idea of all Idol Alumni judges and bring in some seasoned mentors. And absolutely let Ryan stay
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BrotherKarl – the article did state that a complete refresh of Idol is in the works, from judges, to format, to producers etc. Not sure about Fox producers but the article did insinuate that Nigel and Jimmy would be replaced as well.
The judges didn’t really bother me this year – but the high pay check associated with their involvement did! It was a bad, needless business decision and the lower ratings for Season 12 reflected this.
No, the problem is in the production and vision for this show. It has gone awry. Big time!
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Ha!!!! Whhhaaatttt? I swear MCL…I think they been reading your blog!!!
See Brotherkarl…told ya I’d put a call in to tha producers!!! 😉
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No matter what else they chose to change or leave the same, the one reality they will have to work with, and we as an audience will have to understand, is budget constraints. You could see this problem developing over the last few seasons in the form of less show content. This accounts for the lack of mentors, big name talent at the finale and even smaller cars gifted by Ford. It may account for the use of older songs over and over again.
I know a lot of people were glad to see Idol alums in the finale, but what I saw was a low budget production. I have been glad to see the increased use of former contestants on the show during the last few seasons but the finale duets weren’t the place for those cameo appearances. How strange was it for this season’s winner to sing her duet with a non winning contestant from an earlier year, second place performing with a judge and third place performing with another non winning contestant. (Although she did get a second performance with an invited celebrity; what was up with that?) Those have always been done by much more established stars than those two guys. The Voice contestants sing with their judges on a regular basis. Janelle in fifth place got a better deal than the top two.
The root of the problem is lower advertising budgets from advertisers due to the slow economy and lower advertising rates that follow lower ratings. Idol can only charge about half of what it did in it’s heyday for a minute of advertising. It’s a vicious circle because as ratings drop the producers may want to ad content to the show in order to reach out to viewers but at the same time they have less money to work with. They also have to run more ads during the show in order to reach their budget. Viewers don’t like that either, so more people record the show and watch later which leads to fewer people participating in voting. The new show will have to be leaner with no money wasted on inflated salaries. I would include the host in that statement. People across the country, the world for that matter, are being ask to do more for less pay.
This year they made the wrong choices on how to best invest their limited resources. Their main competitor, The Voice, has successfully made their panel of judges the central focus of their show and probably the largest line item in their budget. One of Idols recurring faults has been trying to beat their competitors at the competitor’s game, rather than innovating on their own or simply perfecting what they used to be the leader of. So they got out the check book and spent about 80% of the budget on an overpaid panel of divas to deliver a knockout punch to the competition. They spent most of their time swinging at one another. The bargain basement country boy seemed to deliver more for the money than I ever expected from him and Randy remained… Randy.
I don’t like any panel formulation that includes more than one former Idol contestant and would prefer to see only the most accomplished ones in that seat. Specialization from the judges would all but prevent the possibility of infighting, for example, a vocal judge, a performance judge and a industry judge. Each would only address the area of the contestant’s performance that is their area of expertise.
Before they hire anyone, a decision should be made about what type of show they want idol to be in the future. Will it be a reality show about an actual singing / cult of personality contest? Will it just be a singing / cult of personality contest? Or will it continue to be a reality show that looks like a singing / cult of personality contest? The judge’s job is very different in each of these scenarios. The linked article said Keith was boring yet he was among the very best judges that Idol has ever had, given the limitations and predetermined scenarios they work with.
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Vonnie – I knew you could work that out
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Very well written comments, Gene. I especially like your idea about the judges–“Specialization from the judges would all but prevent the possibility of infighting, for example, a vocal judge, a performance judge and a industry judge. Each would only address the area of the contestant’s performance that is their area of expertise.”
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Yes Louise. I liked Gene’s idea as well. But, I also think that at least one Idol alumnus would be a terrific judge. What a perspective they would bring to the singers since they have gone. through the process in the past.
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Gene:
I have been saying that for a long time:) BTW, I would keep Kieth since country has been good for AI. Also, I would SIGNIFICANTLY change the themes and bring back the original elimination format for the semi-finalists. Plus start a new in-house ‘King Records’ label to begin helping the artists develop. Heck, mabye even hire the ‘big time’ labe exec Randy to help run it:)
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Gene :
The reason I say put all alumni in is because I think Idol is way over rated. They audition thousands …and I mean thousands of singers year after year … and having gone through all of that talent they still come up folks who sing like other folks. I don’t think they can do any better. So they need to tone down the show to the level of talent they get. Lower the level of judges. Move it to a Saturday afternoon like they Star Search. To me its a kids show. I don’ think a serious record producer would look twice at Idol. Yes they have produced a couple super stars, but thats after listening to millions of auditions. Seriously ? One or 2super stars after 12 years? I’m almost confident that if you put all the countrys record producers in the room , I bet not even 10% of them watch Idol and those that do are 50 and over. That speaks volume. To me Idol has had it. One more year of prime time with that budget and they’ll be gone. Its just something to me that a show with that kind of money has not been able to produce bigger stars. At first I thought it would have been the new way to find talent but there is nothing in their record to me, thats hows they know how. Think about how many super stars have come out from other places since Idol and I guarantee you they didn’t audition millions to get there. Its just not good to me.
Just my blah blah blah opinion.
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I agree Brotherkarl…Fill the table with people who have been in the very situation of the contestants…Plus, wouldn’t it be interesting to see who they put through?!?!?!?!
I will still hold out for Kelly Clarkson, Adam Lambert, Kelli Pickler, Taylor Hicks (although, I don’t know how long his Vegas act goes)
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Gene…At this point in the game for Idol, I worry more about people with an agenda!!! A career boost, Money, whatever…IF they were to bring back on celebs; I would suggest current artists like the Voice has done…all of their judges are current.
If I had to keep any of this year’s panel it would definitely be Keith, I really liked him and thought that he gave good advice!!!
Also..on The Voice, X-Factor and Duets the judges were/are also the mentors…maybe Idol should go down this path…but do it with a twist…have one judge mentor each week, have them alternate!!!
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I just was off reading about Keith…he would love to continue as judge for Idol…I say keep him…I really liked Keith and then add Adam and Kelly Clarkson!!! Fab Three!!!
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