News: Member Blog

Now in its 40th year, with some musicians participating since conception, Messiah from Scratch brings orchestral musicians and singers of all ages together to support Feed Nova Scotia and the Chebucto Symphony Orchestra. Messiah music scores are provided for a quick, one-hour rehearsal and then performed for the public, from scratch.

December 27th, 2018
Faith Tabernacle Church
2:00pm

Everyone is welcome to participate or to hear the performance. Messiah from Scratch will be held Thursday December 27 at Faith Tabernacle, 6225 Summit Street, Halifax. Rehearsal is at 2:00 p.m. and the performance at 3:15 p.m. Cost is $10 to participate or attend, with a $10 deposit for scores (refunded when returned). Donations and canned food for Feed Nova Scotia are welcome.

Junior Choir Camp
August 11 -17, 2019

Guest Conductor | Krista Vincent
Krista Vincent is a conductor and music educator in the Halifax area. Her love of singing began in her early years in Stephenville, NL, and has seen her progress from elementary school chorister to conductor of her own ensembles. She has continued her choral education through involvement with several local choirs, and keeps active in the professional community by participating in masterclasses and workshops. Krista aspires to provide an experience that challenges singers to improve musically, while valuing the social benefits and community connections of choral involvement.

Ms. Vincent was the founding director of Vivace Children’s Choir and was conductor of the Halifax Youth Honour Choir.  Krista sang with and has been Resident Conductor of the Nova Scotia Youth Choir and a clinician at Youth Choir Camp. This year she is thrilled to be leading EnChor East Singers. She is looking forward to being at camp with us.

Youth Choir Camp
August 11 -17, 2019

Guest Conductor | John Wiebe
Dr. JOHN WIEBE is an award-winning conductor, pianist, educator, adjudicator and clinician based in Edmonton, Alberta, where he conducts the choirs at the University of Alberta-Augustana campus, is the Artistic Director of the Edmonton Youth & Children’s Choirs and the President of Choral Canada. John has studied at Wilfrid Laurier University, the University of Alberta, with Frieder Bernius from Stuttgart, Germany, and in Vienna, Austria. Choirs under his dynamic leadership have recorded six CD’s, performed coast-to-coast across Canada and around the world (Europe, Russia, South America and China), and have received awards for their performances locally, nationally and at the Langollen Music Festival and the World Choir Games. John is a regular clinician and adjudicator across Canada who likes to keep in shape for his music schedule by travelling with his family, running, and playing hockey.

Adult Choir Camp
Choral Conducting Apprenticeship
August 19 -24, 2019

Guest Conductor | Michael Zaugg
Swiss-native Michael Zaugg has distinguished himself as an innovative and versatile conductor, pedagogue and clinician. Currently in his 7th season as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the professional chamber choir Pro Coro Canada in Edmonton, Michael also previously led other notable Canadian choirs including, in Montreal, the St. Lawrence Choir (2008-2013), and voces boreales (2006- 2015), and the Cantata Singers Ottawa (2005-2014).
As Chorus Master of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (2006-2011), Michael successfully prepared groups of up to 1500 singers for OSM Artistic Director Kent Nagano, including the award- winning production Saint François d’Assise by Messiaen. Michael also prepared the Cantata Singers Ottawa for their appearances with the National Arts Centre Orchestra under conductors such as Franz- Paul Decker, David Lockington, Trevor Pinnock, Helmuth Rilling and Paul Goodwin.
Active as a Guest Conductor, Michael Zaugg has worked with notable groups including the Vancouver Chamber Choir, National Youth Choir of Canada, the BBC Singers, Vancouver’s musica intima, the Nova Scotia and Ontario Youth Choirs, Thirteen Strings, as well as the Longueuil Symphony Orchestra. In Switzerland, he was Chorus Master of the Symphonic Chorus Regiochor, and he appears regularly as a guest conductor in his home country. Michael’s US debut was with the Grammy-nominated Choir of Trinity Wall Street in New York. Over the last three years, he has led a 60-voice male choir, with singers selected from across Canada, the US and the Ukraine, to perform the Resurrection Liturgy by Fr. John Sembrat (Alberta) in tours from Edmonton to Saskatoon, Regina, and Winnipeg and to Toronto, Philadelphia, Rochester and New York City.

Originally an accomplished tenor, Michael became the first Swiss conductor to be accepted to the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm, Sweden in its prestigious post-graduate program for Professional Choir Conducting. Through this program, Michael worked weekly with singers of the world-renowned Swedish Radio Choir and had the opportunity to guest-conduct Sweden’s gems – the Adolf Fredrik’s Girls Choir and the Mikaeli Chamber Choir. Mr. Zaugg also holds degrees in voice and music education from the University in Basel. In 2018 he was awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Music (Hon DMus) by Scotland’s King’s College, University of Aberdeen.
A passionate pedagogue, Michael Zaugg is strongly committed to his work not only with choirs but also with emerging artists. He created the educational component #connect with Pro Coro Canada, which has young composers, singers and conductors working with him and the professional choir several times over the season. Michael is also the Program Director of ‘CHORAL ART: for singers, composers and conductors’ at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. His work with and support of emerging Canadian composers is presented through Pro Coro Canada’s Choral Series, distributed by the Leading Note in Ottawa.

April 5-7, 2019 Truro
Guest Conductor Kellie Walsh

Join us for this exciting children’s program with one of Canada’s best known conductors.

Watch for more information

A native of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, Kellie Walsh is the Artistic Director of Shallaway Youth Choir, Founder and Artistic Director of Lady Cove Women’s Choir, as well as Co-Founder and Artistic Director Emeritus of Newman Sound Men’s Choir.

Shallaway is an internationally award-winning and celebrated youth choir. Most recently, the senior ensemble received a first and second place win in the prestigious Llangollen International Music Eisteddfod. At that same festival, the choir received the highest mark overall for all of the children and youth choirs, winning the 2015 Children’s Choir of the World award.

Lady Cove Women’s Choir recently released their second CD, Heart’s Delight. The choir is a two-time winner of the CBC Radio National Competition for Amateur Choirs. In 2008 Lady Cove won first place in the prestigious Béla Bartók Contemporary Choir Competition in Debrecen, Hungary, and was one of 25 choirs in the world invited to participate in the 9th World Symposium on Choral Music in Puerto Madryn, Argentina in 2011. Most recently Lady Cove won two gold medals at the World Choir Games in Riga, Latvia.

Kellie also enjoys a busy schedule as a workshop clinician, guest conductor, and adjudicator, traveling regularly to work with choirs of all genres. Well known to Nova Scotia choristers she was the guest conductor of the Nova Scotia Youth Choir, the New Brunswick Youth Choir, Junior Choir Camp and the choral adjudicator for MusicFest Canada in Ottawa. In January 2016 she presented at an ACDA Children and Youth Choir conference in New Jersey. She holds Bachelor degrees in both Music and Music Education from Memorial University, in addition to a Masters degree in conducting.

It is #GivingTuesday this week, please consider supporting the Nova Scotia Choral Federation. Every donation helps us to build a stronger choral community here in Nova Scotia and not only provide the best possible programs and services and but also make them accessible to people of all ages and means.   Please consider making a donation to the Friends of Nova Scotia youth Choir; Louise Simons Memorial Scholarship Fund; NSYC Black Folder Purchase Campaign; Elizabeth Murray Bursary Fund for Junior and Youth Choir Camp Bursaries or a general donation to help provide more services. You can find us at Canada Helps! https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/nova-scotia-choral-federation/

World Choral Day / Dia Mundial del Canto Coral– commemorating the 100th anniversary of the ending of WWI

Join choral ensembles around the globe in celebrating World Choral Day  to show that “our choral family contributes through music to break down the artificial barriers of politics, ideologies, religions, and racial hatred that separate human beings” (Alberto Grau at the launch of IFCM’s World Choral Day, 1990). All choral ensembles are invited to register concerts/events that happen between November 11 and December 16 (Remembrance, Advent, Christmas, etc.). Choirs are encouraged to include the World Choral Day proclamation in concerts, use the logo in programs and advertising, and publicize their participation in World Choral Day through social media. Let’s have a massive Nova Scotia and Canadian presence on the World Choral Day website to demonstrate belief that “choral singing, an integral part of the Canadian cultural experience, has the power to build communities and transform lives.”

An international choral event to extol the values of solidarity, peace and understanding!
Since 1990 thousands of choirs have been joining in the celebration of World Choral Day on or around the 2nd Sunday of December.

Millions of singers across the globe have been involved in World Choral Day concerts, festivals, sing-alongs, choral seminars, days of friendship and other events.

The World Choral Day is an initiative of Alberto Grau from the Latin American Vice-Presidency of the International Federation for Choral Music, proposed and approved by the General Assembly of IFCM held in Helsinki in August, 1990, within the framework of the 2nd World Symposium on Choral Music:

“The world is living through severe and continuous crisis of self destruction. There are no possible reasons that can justify these actions. The majority of the human race wants to live in peace with dignity. It is time to show, with more power and strength, that our choral family contributes, through music to break down the artificial barriers product of politics, different ideologies, religious differences, and racial hatred that separate human beings. We must be able to show that MUSIC, the divine art, is more than the mere search of formal perfection and interpretative beauty, music should serve to extol the values of solidarity, peace, and understanding . We cannot work isolated, we have to make all possible efforts to have our voices heard and to let music work its own paths of communication.”

We at the DaCapo Chamber Choir are pleased to announce that the 2019 NewWorks choral composition competition is now open.

The purpose of the NewWorks competition is to foster new and engaging choral works by Canadian composers.  We are continually looking for new pieces to perform which will challenge us and our audiences – both musically and emotionally.  This November, we released our newest CD – 9 of 10 tracks on this recording come out of this NewWorks competition!

In its programming and performance, DaCapo aims to contribute to the work of building empathy, of fostering understanding, and of strengthening bonds between the entitled and the impoverished, focusing particularly on the refugee road in its present programming. With this in mind, for this year’s NewWorks competition, we are asking for compositions that are related in some way to the theme of renewal: of hope, courage, and new purpose.
The winning entry of the 2019 competition will receive a $1,500 cash award plus travel expenses to Kitchener to attend the premiere of his/her composition by the DaCapo Chamber Choir, under director Leonard Enns, in the choir’s 2017/2018 season.  We are also inviting young composers (aged 25 and younger) to submit compositions for consideration in our Young Composers Reading Sessions.
Entry deadline is Monday March 18, 2019. Full information is available on our web site:  http://www.dacapochamberchoir.ca/newworks.

Sara Martin, manager
DaCapo Chamber Choir
www.dacapochamberchoir.ca
@DaCapoChoir  #NewWorks
519-725-7549