News: Member Blog

Choirs for Change is thrilled to announce that Ryan Henwood has been appointed to the new role of Artistic Director!

Ryan has been involved with Choirs for Change since its inception in 2017, first as a singer and later as principal director of Polaris and Spíra choirs. In that time, he has led both choirs through countless rehearsals and concerts, and taught hundreds of arrangements—including original songs like “Pulse” and “Celandine.”

Last year, Ryan completed his Bachelor of Music Education from Memorial University and started work in Halifax as a music teacher.

“In my role as Artistic Director,” Ryan says, “I hope to be able to work with and support my conducting colleagues to provide our audiences with high-level and thought-provoking artistic programming…[and] I want to empower our choristers to feel that our art making is a form of a social change.”

Choirs for Change’s mandate is to have its three choirs—Polaris, Spíra, and Eastern Horizon—support social change movements with innovative choral events. With this in mind, Ryan has previously led the choirs to appear at Nocturne: Art at Night Festival, Mayworks Halifax, and multiple rallies for different causes. Going forward, Ryan plans to promote causes close to home.

“I hope to ground our social change focus on local issues. This may take form through events that focus on issues happening on a municipal or provincial level, but may also look like partnering with other organizations that are already doing amazing work in our community.”

And Ryan’s event planning doesn’t stop with choral music—he plans to collaborate with artists across a variety of mediums. “Choral music is already such a powerful vehicle for storytelling,” he says. Choristers and audiences alike will appreciate the shared talents of “musicians, dancers, and spoken word artists.”

Catch Ryan leading Polaris in concert at the end of November—watch for the concert announcement at choirsforchange.ca.

Choir/Choruses/Singing Groups/Composers Survey

Strengths, Challenges and New Opportunities

This survey is part of a project designed to determine the major challenges choirs, choruses, singing groups and composers are currently facing, as well as to help identify what gaps there are in choir programming and governance. This survey will also provide some preliminary insight into what new opportunities are available and what toolkits are needed to help meet these challenges.

Choirs at all levels and composers across the country are seeing new opportunities in exploring the creation and use of new and shared digital content and resources. (This does NOT include unauthorized sharing of copyrighted material.)This survey and project will help inform decision making and provide strategic guidance to allow for a quick and successful transition to our “new normal”. 

National and provincial choral organizations, artists, composers, schools, and various arts organizations across Canada will be invited to complete this survey which asks questions about “Digital Offerings”, in particular during COVID.  Questions on topics such as: What digital tactics have been used? How have they been monetized, if at all?  How and with whom have these been shared? Have they resulted in changes in audience connections? What financial and human resource barriers have you encountered?

There are new resources needed to increase the digital literacy of choral organizations.  This could take the form of “toolkits” or a national database to help organize access to current and future content. The hope is that these resources will help leverage digital technologies to inform innovative programming, new ways of marketing and funding, and a transformation of audience engagement as they return to live performances. Your collaboration through the completion of this survey will greatly assist in helping the choral and other arts sectors towards understanding these goals.

Some questions are designed for singing organizations to answer and some are more generic and can be answered by both choirs and independent composers. Composers associated with singing organizations can of course answer all questions. Independent composers not associated with a specific organization will be directed to certain parts of the survey.

The survey will take approximately 15 minutes of your time. As a token of appreciation for your time, after completing the survey you can enter into a draw to win one of the prizes: 

– A gift certificate for $100 from Cypress Music Publishers 

– A $50 gift certificate from Long and McQuade

Deadline: Wed. November 9, 2022 

Complete the survey today!  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8MH7MYJ

If you have any questions, or if you experience any technical issues, please don’t hesitate to contact us directly at: Victoria Glizer at info@cpamo.org or charles c. smith at executive@cpamo.org.

This project is supported with funding from the Canada Council for the Arts. 

Elevating the arts and culture through leadership and partnership

The Creative Nova Scotia Leadership Council (CNSLC)

Needs YOU…

Your voice, perspective, lived experience, and cultural expertise are needed. If you are a Nova Scotian interested in growing and strengthening the culture sector through strategic planning, brainstorming, and innovation, you are urged to apply to join this dedicated and passionate group of arts and culture leaders.

We are seeking 4 new volunteer council members to join our table of cultural and creative industry leaders representing the province’s ethnic, cultural and regional diversity.

What is the CNSLC all about:

The Creative Nova Scotia Leadership Council is legislated to play a key role in promoting arts and culture and enabling the success of creative industries. As such the council:

• serves as a consultative body to the Nova Scotia government on matters of cultural policy and cultural sector development;
• aims to enhance cultural activity through research and consultation, investment, promotion, and preservation; advises and makes recommendations to the Minister of Communities, Culture and Heritage on matters important to Nova Scotia’s creative sector.

The perspectives of those involved daily in arts and culture activities are invaluable to our province. With Council’s insight, government can develop policies that benefit artists and grow the creative economy

For more information, please click here to see a more detailed call for applications and check out our website at http://creative.novascotia.ca/

Deadline for applications: December 1, 2022

All NSCF Memberships expired on August 31, 2022. Have you renewed your individual or group membership? Do you need an invoice for your membership? Please go to https://nscf.ca/membership/join-the-nscf/ to update your information. Dues can be paid by online through Paypal, by phone, email money transfer or by cheque. Please contact tim@nscf.ca or call 902-423-4688.

The Halifax Gay Men’s Chorus is having open rehearsals for the month of September. Anyone is welcome to come and check us out on Thursday evenings from 7-9:30 pm at St. Andrew’s United Church, Halifax. Please contact our membership director at membership@hgmc.ca in advance so we can have a music packet ready for you.

After a very exciting return of Sing Summer 2022 and a very successful three years with the NSCF, Ryan has resigned as Program Coordinator to begin his new career as a music educator. Ryan has accepted a fulltime position teaching music at Oxford School in Halifax. Congratulations Ryan! Ryan is also a director at Choirs for Change and Assistant Director of the Halifax Gay Men’s Chorus. Although we will miss Ryan here at NSCF we wish you all the best and look forward to working with you as an extremely active and dedicated member of our choral community!

Following our AGM in August at Adult Choir Camp, we would like to welcome new and returning NSCF Board members. We have an exciting time ahead of us and are looking forward to a healthy and productive choral season. For more information about the NSCF Board of Directors please visit Here