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2020 Laura Hawley Micro-Grant for Canadian Choirs

Is your choir looking to connect with a Canadian composer in some way this season? Apply for a micro-grant to make it happen!

The 2020 Laura Hawley Micro-grants for Canadian Choirs promote building relationships with Canadian choral composers, conductors, educators, and publishers through workshops, commissions, and other initiatives that focus on Canadian choral music.

Funding from these grants can be used in one or more of the following ways:

  1. To purchase a piece of music by a Canadian composer for your choir’s library
  2. To hire a Canadian composer or conductor for a virtual session with your choir
  3. To assist with commissioning a Canadian composer

Applications are now open; the deadline to apply is September 15.

Click here to apply!

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Choral Canada: Crowdfunding for Research on Choral Singing and the Transmission of COVID-19

As the National Arts Service Organization for choral music in Canada, Choral Canada is helping raise funds for this important and timely study by the University of Alberta. Choral Canada believes this study will help everyone, including policy makers, be more informed about choral singing in relation to COVID-19. Your tax-deductible donations will help fund Canadian research that will also contribute to a growing body of world-wide scientific knowledge around singing. Every dollar donated will be given directly to the University of Alberta’s study and all donors will be acknowledged on the Choral Canada website. Please donate now to this critical Canadian research study.

To make a donation or to read more about this study, click here.

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Choral Canada: National Webinar with Dr. Juliette O’Keeffe

CHORAL CANADA NATIONAL WEBINAR

Risks and Precautions for Choirs 

with Dr. Juliette O’Keeffe from National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health

Dr. O’Keeffe and the NCCEH team have surveyed current available research and made an evidence review, along with recommendations for singers and choirs, in this recently released document: https://ncceh.ca/documents/evidence-review/covid-19-risks-and-precautions-choirs?fbclid=IwAR3LucUbbi1JX1uTUfAaDDrvZ68r1FbXySbEs-pz7xqQhmeacx3u5fs4Xuk

Wednesday, August 19th, 2020

4pm Pacific Time; 5pm Mountain; 7pm Eastern; 8pm Atlantic

Hear the latest on Choral Canada’s advocacy work, with an opportunity for webinar participants to play a part in University of Alberta’s critical research on Choral Singing and COVID-19 Transmission. Presenter Dr. Juliette O’Keeffe will provide insights on the NCCEH review of world-wide research and other emerging data on choral singing and the transmission of COVID-19, and how these findings pertain to choirs in Canada. Dr. O’Keeffe will answer your questions, and offer a Canadian perspective. Participants will have the optional opportunity to have open discussion time with colleagues at the end of the webinar.

Submit your questions for Dr. O’Keeffe when you REGISTER, before August 15.
Space is limited, so register today!

This presentation will be presented in English, but notes, slides and research review documents will be available in French.
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National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health’s vision is to be the indispensable online resource for environmental health practitioners and policy-makers across Canada. NCCEH focuses on health risks associated with the physical environment and identifies evidence-based interventions to mitigate those risks. Learn more here.

Juliette O’Keeffe, MSc, PhD joined the NCCEH team in 2018 bringing with her previous experience delivering research for industry and government in the areas of rural drinking water, wastewater treatment, waste management and resource efficiency at the Urban Water Technology Centre in Dundee, Scotland. Prior to this she worked with Dundee’s Public Analyst and the Scottish EPA. She holds a BSc Honours degree in Environmental Biology (SFU), an MSc in Energy and Environmental Management and a PhD in Environmental Science (University of Abertay).

Choral Canada exists to celebrate and champion choral music for all Canadians. Learn more at choralcanada.org
This event is FREE of charge. Please register below and you will receive the Zoom link the day before the webinar.
Register Here
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Chorus Connection + Harmony Helper: The Convergence of Music, Technology and Learning in the Age of COVID-19.

Chorus Connection is partnering up with Harmony Helper to present a live webinar on “The Convergence of Music, Technology and Learning in the Age of COVID-19.”

Join our ten panelists as they share their experiences navigating this new choral world amidst a global pandemic. In this roundtable, choral leaders will discuss the challenges the choral world is facing, how they are addressing these challenges within their own organizations, and present ideas for supporting the arts during this time.

Join us on Monday, August 10th at 12pm EDT. To join the Zoom call, pre-registration is requested here and is limited to 499 participants. All other interested viewers can watch the recording on Harmony Helper’s YouTube channel both live or after the event.

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CfCAI: The Online, Blended & Virtual Choral Experience Workshop

Tuesday, August 11, 2020
3-hour session beginning at 1 p.m. CST

Trevecca’s Center for Community Arts Innovation presents the Online, Blended & Virtual Choral Experience, August 11, 2020. Throughout this workshop, we’ll explore what it looks like to carry out the instruction, practice and performance of choral arts in an increasingly virtual world. Led by Tim Sharp, executive director of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA)

As the world pivots in the wake of 2020, we’ll discuss how choral instruction can adapt, but also thrive. Whether you’re planning for totally online instruction or a hybrid of face-to-face and online, we want to equip you to effectively engage with your students.

To  learn more about this workshop or to register, click here.

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Lessons from Singalong Jubilee: We need to sing more

 

A photo from the set of Singalong Jubilee

Check out this reflection by siblings, Claire and Jack Bennet, on their family ties to music making and why we need to sing more.  Claire is a freelance editor and writer, whose work has been published in The Coast. Jack is an arts professional, heavily involved with the Big Sing and Choirs for Change, and beginning studies at Dalhousie’s Schulich School of Law this September.

“Art is useful for sharing our inner turmoil and concerns, for protesting against injustice and lamenting grief. But too often we forget to let it express something much needed to balance those emotions: joy. Optimism is one of the jobs of the arts, and we’ve learned that through Singalong’s weekly celebrations of the world.”

–Claire and Jack Bennet 

To read the full article in The Nova Scotia Advocate, click here.

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Cape Breton Choral Director Passes Away

It is with great sadness that we share the news of the passing of James “Jimmy” McNeil. An active member of Cape Breton’s choral community, Jimmy has conducted many of Cape Breton’s choruses including the Wings of the Spectrum, the award-winning Glace Bay Schools Chorale, Island Voices, and most recently Coro Cantabile. He was organist and choral director at St. Mary’s Anglican Church (Glace Bay) for many years, as well as St. Anne’s Catholic Church (Glace Bay), Bethel Presbyterian Church (Sydney), Knox United Church (Glace Bay), and St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church (Sydney Mines).

For those who knew Jimmy McNeil, the NSCF extends our condolences. To read the full obituary or to offer your condolences to the McNeil family, click here.

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Nova Voce: She’s Called Nova Scotia

Check out Nova Voce’s performance of “She’s Called Nova Scotia”.  We hope you enjoy the beautiful landscapes of Nova Scotia that are showcased in the video. To hear more of Nova Voce’s recordings visit their website by clicking here.

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Halifax Camerata Singers: Hear the premiere recording of Derek Charke’s “Sonnet to the Moon”

Check out the  Halifax Camerata Singers perform Derek Charke’s “Sonnet to the Moon”.  Based on the poem of the same name by British poet Helen Maria Williams, the piece is set for SATB chorus a capella and solo flute, performed  by Derek Charke.  The piece is now available for streaming on various streaming platforms.

For more information, visit Lead Music Inc’s website here:
https://leaf-music.ca/product/lm2007/

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Quarantunes #6: A Biweekly Choral Playlist

Welcome to the sixth installment of QuaranTunes, the NSCF’s biweekly playlist of choral music. This week’s playlist is a throwback to the inaugural concert of our Nova Scotia Youth Choir program- then the Rotary Youth Choir- in 1991, selected by guest conductor, Iwan Edwards.

Have any song suggestions?  Suggest a song for a future playlist by completing this form,  QuaranTunes: Song Suggestion Form.  As this is a curated playlist, your suggestion may not appear in the subsequent E-notes; though we will try our best to make sure that all suggestions are used at some point. We look forward to hearing what choral music you have been listening to during this time!