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McKenzie Warriner and Danielle Guina dazzle with music skills at Estevan concert

Estevan might not technically be home for McKenzie Warriner, but it’s pretty darn close, and the city has played a big role in her development as a musician.
McKenzie Warriner pic
Alameda’s McKenzie Warriner, right, and accompanist Danielle Guina showcased their talents at a concert in Estevan on Sunday afternoon.

Estevan might not technically be home for McKenzie Warriner, but it’s pretty darn close, and the city has played a big role in her development as a musician.

Therefore, her performance in Estevan on the weekend could still be classified as a homecoming.

Warriner, an Alameda native who is in her second year of studies at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., performed before a crowd of family, friends and music lovers Sunday afternoon at St. Paul’s United Church. She was accompanied on piano by her close friend Danielle Guina, who hails from Humboldt and is also in her second year of studies at the Eastman.

A gifted soprano, Warriner performed a number of operatic selections for the appreciative audience. Spanish folk songs, Finnish music, and songs by American and Canadian composers were all part of their repertoire.

It’s not music that would be heard very often, but it’s music they’re very big fans of.

Warriner was excited to perform before the local crowd.

“I took piano lessons here for six or seven years, and I took voice with Arlene Lafrentz for several years, so it kind of feels like my home,” Warriner told the Mercury.

She was also an acclaimed performer in the Estevan and District Music Festival for a lot of years.

“It feels very comfortable, like it’s a place where I know people will support me and cheer me on, and it’s not quite as intimidating as some of the work I do out east,” said Warriner.

She described it as a test run of the big recital that Warriner and Guina will have to do next month as part of their respective degrees. 

“We’re doing our masters degrees, so instead of writing a thesis, we have to perform a recital,” said Warriner.

The duo said it felt good to be doing the performance Sunday, and to work out the kinks. If they made mistakes on Sunday, they knew the crowd would still appreciate them, rather than grade them or judge them.

And it was their one chance to have a public trial run.

“Because we are doing this almost six weeks before a recital, it gives us a chance to try things out, locate where some trouble spots are, fix them, and it gives us the chance to be much more comfortable with our program by the time we’re actually getting graded on it,” said Guina.

But they know they will need a strong performance at their recital next month to get their respective masters degrees.

It’s been a remarkable year and a half for Warriner and Guina at the Eastman. Their parents knew each other years ago, and they went to similar events where they saw each other perform, but they never really crossed paths until they went to school in Rochester.

Before the start of their first year together in the fall of 2018, Guina received a message from Warriner asking if they wanted to be roommates, even though they hadn’t met.

“Then our teachers paired us up to work together, and we’ve been working together ever since and it’s been a blast ever since,” said Guina.

The teachers thought it would be good to have the two Canadian musicians working together, but by the time they were paired up, they had already committed to be roommates.

 “We’re surrounded by so many brilliant musicians, and in such welcoming and warm environments that have pushed us beyond what we thought we were capable of. We’re excited to have one more term in that, and then go out into the world and make a name for ourselves in knowing what we can do,” said Warriner.

Both of them have grown in ways that they didn’t know were possible, thanks to their professors, and an environment where they are pushed to be the best musicians and people possible.

“I think that’s what we both really needed at this point,” said Guina.

The February recital will be part of a busy schedule for both musicians. Warriner will be part of an opera in January that she will be rehearsing before constantly. She will also be in the chorus for a musical based on the Sweeney Todd character in April. Graduation will take place in May.

Then she hopes to move to Toronto after graduation to find work and pursue as many opportunities as possible.

Guina, meanwhile, has to play for a certain number of people as part of her program. After the Estevan recital, she will have about seven one-hour performances over the next four months. Once she is finished at the Eastman, Guina plans to move to Winnipeg to pursue her musical ambitions.