Anna Bigland-Pritchard 2018-2020
Artist in Residence
Anna Bigland-Pritchard was Bethel’s Artist-in-Residence for 2018-2020. Her planned two-year term was cut short when she moved to Victoria, B.C. However, during her term, which focused on music, she wrote songs and performed them at Bethel’s Sunday morning services.
The following includes paraphrased excerpts from an article in Canadian Mennonite dated January 16, 2019.
Anna Bigland-Pritchard is a 26-year-old Winnipegger who is a member of the children’s musical act Seanster and the Monsters. The group, which describes itself as “stuck somewhere between They Might Be Giants and Fred Penner,” released its sophomore album, Stripes with Platypus, earlier this month. In addition to singing backing vocals and playing glockenspiel on the album, Bigland-Pritchard sings lead on a couple of tracks. She wrote one of them, “The Wind is Made of Sky,” after hearing a conversation between band leader Sean Hogan and his son Jude, 5.
She Seanster and the Monsters isn’t Bigland-Pritchard’s only musical outlet. She completed a degree in vocal performance and music ministry at Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) and [at the time of this writing] is working toward a post-baccalaureate diploma in performance at the University of Manitob. She is also a private voice teacher, she works as the music chaplain at Booth University College and she teaches singing classes at the Manitoba Conservatory of Music and the Arts.
Bigland-Pritchard is also the 2018-19 artist-in-residence at Bethel Mennonite Church in Winnipeg. In that role, she planned and led a Holy Saturday liturgy in 2019. This incorporated art-making and singing to support us as we explored the hard feelings of grief. About Holy Saturday, she says, “It’s my favourite day of the year because we, the church, let ourselves be sad for one day and we don’t have to fix [anything] that day.” Bigland-Pritchard also sang as a soloist for Waldy Ens’s Mass in time of war; she led music several Sundays; and she preached.
Bethel is pleased with Bigland-Pritchard’s work, says Erwin Warkentin, who sat on the church’s worship committee during Bigland-Prtichard’s term. “[She’s] vivacious, energetic, musical, friendly, outgoing, but she also knows her boundaries, and that’s something I appreciate very much,” he says. “She’s a busy woman, but we very much appreciate and value the time she is able to give us.”
Bigland-Pritchard says her vocational interests lie in the intersections of music, peacebuilding and practical theology. “I think that those things are inextricably connected for me,” she says. “I see the arts as my tool for peacebuilding, and that desire for peacebuilding, I think, is driven by my faith. I’ve always been aware that the world is hurting and I’ve always found a way to use music and art to transform pain. I think art has to be activism, especially today, so I’m excited about the roles of art—specifically music—in bringing us together and helping us to heal together and develop resiliency.”
