Upper Canada Choristers
Laurie Evan Fraser
416-256-3809
laurieevanfraser@gmail.com
www.uppercanadachoristers.org
Laurie Evan Fraser
416-256-3809
laurieevanfraser@gmail.com
www.uppercanadachoristers.org
The Upper Canada Choristers is an SATB community choir in Toronto with a history of collaboration with both local and international choirs and professional guest artists. UCC is committed to excellence and diversity. Cantemos is UCC’s auditioned Latin American ensemble. Founding Artistic Director, Laurie Evan Fraser, and Accompanist, Hye Won Cecilia Lee, provide the professional musical leadership for this vibrant organisation.
The 2024/25 concert season opens with “A Holiday Travelogue” on Friday, December 13 at 7:30pm at Grace Church on-the-Hill, 300 Lonsdale Road. The concert includes music from Ireland, Sweden, Spain, Scotland, Venezuela, France, and England. A featured work will be Fantasia on Christmas Carols by Ralph Vaughan Williams with baritone soloist, Bradley Christensen.
On May 16, 2025, the Choristers will be joined by Caribbean choir La Petite Musicale, under the direction of Lindy Burgess. Our special guests will be Venezuelan composer, Cesar Alejandro Carillo and his wife, poet Laura Morales, visiting Canada for the first time. "Venezuela Viva" will provide a snapshot of the diversity of Venezuelan music. Repertoire will showcase a slice of choral culture with Afrocentric, Spanish, and Caribbean influences.
Nykola Parzei
416-246-9880
nykola@vesnivka.com
www.vesnivka.com
Award-winning Vesnivka Choir was established in 1965 by founding artistic director Halyna Kvitka Kondracki. The choir has delighted audiences with its rich repertoire of Ukrainian classical, contemporary, sacred and traditional folk music. Vesnivka, together with its partner the Toronto Ukrainian Male Chamber Choir (also founded by Ms. Kondracki), are often joined in concert by area musicians and soloists. We are excited to announce that Nazar Lozynskyy will be assuming a broader role as co-conductor of the choirs in the upcoming 2024/25 season. Our concert season will consist of three major concerts, the first being “Prayer for Ukraine”, a concert of sacred music by classical and contemporary Ukrainian composers, to be held on November 3, 2024. Joining the choirs will be guest ensemble St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Church Choir from Toronto. On January 12, 2025, we will celebrate the new year with our annual Christmas concert, featuring traditional and contemporary Ukrainian Christmas carols and New Year’s songs. Our final concert of the season will be held on May 4, 2025. “Songs of Love” will feature a program of Ukrainian music depicting themes of romance, unrequited love as well as familial love.
Victoria Shalygin
416-788-8482
hello@vivayouthsingers.com
www.vivasingerstoronto.com
VIVA Singers Toronto is a family of seven choirs with a mandate to give members, ages four through adult, the opportunity to achieve artistic excellence in a singer-centered, collaborative choral community.
VIVA offers diverse musical programming, including regular performance and international touring opportunities, musical literacy, chorister composition and Orff-based creation activities, an annual fall Performing Arts Camp and commissioned works and partnerships with distinguished musicians and composers.
VIVA’s dedicated efforts to put choristers first inform our rehearsal structures and music-making processes. We embrace the coexistence of a high level of artistic and educational engagement while fostering a truly inclusive environment.
We continue to advocate for all voices, and push for inclusivity to ensure that anyone who enjoys music is welcomed - and challenged - at VIVA. VIVA is proud to celebrate its 25th anniversary in the 2024/25 season!
Jenny Crober
416-931-8224
crober.best@gmail.com
www.vocachorus.ca
The VOCA Chorus of Toronto, a dynamic, auditioned ensemble under the leadership of artistic director Jenny Crober, performs a broad range of repertoire in collaboration with a variety of superb guest artists. VOCA's season consists of concerts, cabarets, community performances and workshops. Our wonderful collaborative pianist is Dakota Scott-Digout. Numerous remarkable artists have joined VOCA as clinicians, including composer Ola Gjeilo, conductor Ivars Taurins and jazz vocalist Dylan Bell.
VOCA's 2024/25 season, our artistic director's 20th Anniversary, will be an exciting one. On October 27, our professional leads will be featured in a cabaret / fundraiser. On December 14, our 'Season Songs' concert will include Sarah Quartel's Iesous ahatonnia, Jenny Crober's arrangement of Joni Mitchell's River, a world premiere by Nicholas Ryan Kelly, an Ontario premiere by Matthew Emery and more, with guest artists Michael Occhipinti, jazz guitar and Jamie Drake, percussion. On May 10, we'll be performing Carl Orff's monumental Carmina Burana, featuring several brilliant instrumentalists and soloists, including our special guest, tenor Andrew Haji. VOCA rehearses Monday evenings at Eastminster United (Danforth/Chester subway).
Guillermo Silva-Marin
416-408-0208
www.operainconcert.com
VOICEBOX: Opera in Concert is Canada’s only company dedicated exclusively to the presentation of rare opera programming for 50 years. Our performances rely on the power and beauty of the human voice, the dramatic inflection of text and poetry, accompanied by orchestra or piano.
This season features three contrasting operas that reflect diversity through the ages in our new venue! The first opera to be presented at the Jeanne Lamon Hall, Trinity St. Paul Centre, is Gluck’s Alceste on Sunday, January 12, 2024, followed by Puccini’s La Rondine on Thursday, March 20, and Friday, March 21, 2025. The season concludes with Meyerbeer’s Robert Le Diable.
The OIC Chorus will also be featured in each opera, led by Robert Cooper with our Music Directors.
Donna Bennett
877-883-5777
westben@westben.ca
www.westben.ca
In 2024, Westben celebrates 25 years of bringing people together through music in nature. Year-round programs include the international summer festival from June to August in three outdoor venues, concerts at the Schoolhouse, music in nature small group experiences, community programs, workshops, kids camps and more.
Westben’s International Performer-Composer Residency (PCR) is an annual collaborative gathering where diverse listeners and performer-composers build relationships and connect through creating music and exchanging perspectives.
Westben is located in Northumberland County, 40 minutes from Cobourg, Peterborough and Belleville, 2 hours east of Toronto, and 2.5 hours west of Ottawa. Westben is nestled amongst the gently rolling hills of the Gunshot Treaty lands and subsequent Williams Treaties of 1923, and the traditional territory of the Michi Saagiig (Mississauga) Anishinaabeg, near what is now known as Campbellford, Ontario.
Westben’s summer festival has presented over 5000 international and local Canadian artists including Gerald Finley, Angela Hewitt, Oliver Jones, Peter Appleyard, Michael Kaeshammer, Broken Social Scene, William Prince, Jeremy Dutcher, Holly Cole, Colin Mochrie, Deb McGrath, and Natalie McMaster.
Roy Greaves
905-468-7486
wychwoodclarinetchoir@yahoo.ca
www.wychwoodclarinetchoir.com
The Wychwood Clarinet Choir brings together the family of clarinets from the E flat sopranino down to the contrabass. Our range of instruments is matched by the variety of our repertoire. We perform new compositions and arrangements, many written or transcribed by our Composers’ Collective. The choir, now in its 16th season, is directed by clarinetist and conductor Michele Jacot. Choir members are admitted by audition and pay an annual membership fee. Members are dedicated clarinetists eager to share their love of music-making in a collegial and musically challenging environment. We strive to create opportunities for serious amateur musicians to develop their musical skills and to share our music more broadly in educational settings and in the wider community. The group rehearses and performs on a regular basis in Toronto’s St. Clair and Wychwood area. Check out our YouTube videos and look for updates on our website. New members welcome - please contact us for audition information.
William Maddox
416-922-1550
wcmaddox@yorkminsterpark.com
www.yorkminsterpark.com
Yorkminster Park is synonymous with magnificent music. Whether it’s the choir accompanied by the majestic Casavant organ, our Memorial Carillon, or the congregation lifting their voices in hymns of praise, vocal and instrumental expressions of faith are integral to the Yorkminster Park experience.
Our choir, under organist and music director William Maddox and his assistant, Sharon Beckstead, enjoys a reputation as one of the best church choirs in Toronto. We present free organ recitals at 12:30pm, every Wednesday from September through June, and have recently started a series of carillon recitals in the summer months.
We have a wide variety of unique musical events throughout the year, but Yorkminster Park is renowned for its special seasonal concerts. The quality of the music ministry at YPBC is never more evident than during Advent and Holy Week. These services have become community traditions: City Carol Sing, Carols by Candlelight, Iona liturgical music, the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, Passiontide Devotion during Holy Week and Evensong services three times a year.
Our sanctuary is frequently made available to other choral and concert groups, which draw appreciative audiences from all over Southern Ontario.
We are pleased to present our 20th annual Blue Pages, a directory of music presenters and arts services published every year in our October magazine, and maintained year-round online, under the “Who’s Who” tab at thewholenote.com. This year’s 152-profile portrait of musical life in the Greater Toronto area and Southern Ontario has two segments: section 1 reflects the wealth and diversity of music presenters and performers in our region – orchestras, choirs, opera companies, chamber ensembles, etcetera; section 2 is for individuals and organisations providing services to artists in the communities we cover, predominantly artist managers and publicists.
We’d like to thank all who have chosen to participate in this year’s Blue Pages; individuals and organisations whose support and dedication helps sustain not only The WholeNote but the music community in general. If your organisation missed being part of the October Blue Pages, we’ll be publishing a “latecomers” supplement in the November issue. And the online directory accepts new members year round.
For information on the benefits of a WholeNote membership (of which this Blue Pages profile is a feature), please contact Karen Ages at karen@thewholenote.com or 416-323-2232 x26.
BLUE PAGES TEAM 2019/20
PROJECT MANAGER: Karen Ages
PROJECT EDITOR: Danial Jazaeri
LAYOUT AND DESIGN: Susan Sinclair
WEBSITE: Kevin King
We are pleased to present our 20th annual Blue Pages, a directory of music presenters and arts services published every year in our October magazine, and maintained year-round online, under the “Who’s Who” tab at thewholenote.com. This year’s 152-profile portrait of musical life in the Greater Toronto area and Southern Ontario has two segments: section 1 reflects the wealth and diversity of music presenters and performers in our region – orchestras, choirs, opera companies, chamber ensembles, etcetera; section 2 is for individuals and organisations providing services to artists in the communities we cover, predominantly artist managers and publicists.
We’d like to thank all who have chosen to participate in this year’s Blue Pages; individuals and organisations whose support and dedication helps sustain not only The WholeNote but the music community in general. If your organisation missed being part of the October Blue Pages, we’ll be publishing a “latecomers” supplement in the November issue. And the online directory accepts new members year round.
For information on the benefits of a WholeNote membership (of which this Blue Pages profile is a feature), please contact Karen Ages at karen@thewholenote.com or 416-323-2232 x26.
BLUE PAGES TEAM 2019/20
PROJECT MANAGER: Karen Ages
PROJECT EDITOR: Danial Jazaeri
LAYOUT AND DESIGN: Susan Sinclair
WEBSITE: Kevin King
Welcome to The WholeNote’s 21st annual Blue Pages directory of our region’s music makers. It’s been a bumpy ride getting to this point, and we hope you’ll enjoy perusing the profiles that follow, submitted both by presenters who are forging ahead with pandemically appropriate plans for 2020-21, or whose detailed plans are still uncertain.
Thanks to all those who have once again opted in with a WholeNote membership and profile: for your faith in and support for what we do; and for having faith in yourselves, finding the resilience needed to move forward in these very uncertain times.
And thanks to you, our readers, in print, and online at kiosk.thewholenote.com (where you can also find our four issues since April 1). If you missed any of those four print issues and would like copies, please contact us.
Profiles will be kept up-to-date online here, as new ones arrive or more information is available.
For information on the benefits of a WholeNote membership (of which a Blue Pages profile is a feature), please contact Karen Ages at karen@thewholenote.com or 416-323-2232 x26.
BLUE PAGES TEAM 2020/21
PROJECT MANAGER: Karen Ages
PROJECT EDITOR: Danial Jazaeri
LAYOUT AND DESIGN: Susan Sinclair
WEBSITE: Kevin King
Welcome to The WholeNote’s 22nd annual Blue Pages directory of our region’s music makers. It’s been a bumpy ride getting to this point, and we hope you’ll enjoy perusing the profiles that follow, submitted both by presenters who are forging ahead with pandemically appropriate plans for 2021-22, or whose detailed plans are still uncertain.
Thanks to all those who have once again opted in with a WholeNote membership and profile: for your faith in and support for what we do; and for having faith in yourselves, finding the resilience needed to move forward in these very uncertain times.
And thanks to you, our readers, in print, and online at kiosk.thewholenote.com.
Profiles will be kept up-to-date online here, as new ones arrive or more information is available.
For information on the benefits of a WholeNote membership (of which a Blue Pages profile is a feature), please contact Karen Ages at karen@thewholenote.com or 416-323-2232 x26.
Welcome to The WholeNote’s 22nd annual Blue Pages directory of our region’s music makers. It’s been a bumpy ride getting to this point, and we hope you’ll enjoy perusing the profiles that follow, submitted both by presenters who are forging ahead with pandemically appropriate plans for 2021-22, or whose detailed plans are still uncertain.
Thanks to all those who have once again opted in with a WholeNote membership and profile: for your faith in and support for what we do; and for having faith in yourselves, finding the resilience needed to move forward in these very uncertain times.
And thanks to you, our readers, in print, and online at kiosk.thewholenote.com.
Profiles will be kept up-to-date online here, as new ones arrive or more information is available.
For information on the benefits of a WholeNote membership (of which a Blue Pages profile is a feature), please contact Karen Ages at karen@thewholenote.com or 416-323-2232 x26.
Welcome to The WholeNote’s 23rd annual Blue Pages directory of our region’s music makers. It’s been a bumpy ride getting to this point, and we hope you’ll enjoy perusing the profiles that follow, submitted both by presenters who are forging ahead with pandemically appropriate plans for 2022-23, or whose detailed plans are still uncertain.
Thanks to all those who have once again opted in with a WholeNote membership and profile: for your faith in and support for what we do; and for having faith in yourselves, finding the resilience needed to move forward in these very uncertain times.
And thanks to you, our readers, in print, and online at kiosk.thewholenote.com.
Profiles will be kept up-to-date online here, as new ones arrive or more information is available.
For information on the benefits of a WholeNote membership (of which a Blue Pages profile is a feature), please contact Karen Ages at karen@thewholenote.com or 416-323-2232 x26.
Welcome to The WholeNote’s 23rd annual Blue Pages directory of our region’s music makers. It’s been a bumpy ride getting to this point, and we hope you’ll enjoy perusing the profiles that follow, submitted both by presenters who are forging ahead with pandemically appropriate plans for 2022-23, or whose detailed plans are still uncertain.
Thanks to all those who have once again opted in with a WholeNote membership and profile: for your faith in and support for what we do; and for having faith in yourselves, finding the resilience needed to move forward in these very uncertain times.
And thanks to you, our readers, in print, and online at kiosk.thewholenote.com.
Profiles will be kept up-to-date online here, as new ones arrive or more information is available.
For information on the benefits of a WholeNote membership (of which a Blue Pages profile is a feature), please contact Karen Ages at karen@thewholenote.com or 416-323-2232 x26.
Welcome to The WholeNote’s 24th annual Blue Pages directory of our region’s music makers. It’s been a bumpy ride getting to this point, and we hope you’ll enjoy perusing the profiles that follow, submitted both by presenters who are forging ahead with pandemically appropriate plans for 2023-24, or whose detailed plans are still uncertain.
Thanks to all those who have once again opted in with a WholeNote membership and profile: for your faith in and support for what we do.
And thanks to you, our readers - in print, and online at kiosk.thewholenote.com.
Profiles will be kept up-to-date online here, as new ones arrive or more information is available.
For information on the benefits of a WholeNote membership (of which a Blue Pages profile is a feature), please contact Karen Ages at karen@thewholenote.com or 416-323-2232 x26.
Welcome to The WholeNote’s 25th annual Blue Pages directory of our region’s music makers. It’s been a bumpy ride getting to this point, and we hope you’ll enjoy perusing the profiles that follow, submitted both by presenters who are forging ahead with pandemically appropriate plans for 2024-245, or whose detailed plans are still uncertain.
Thanks to all those who have once again opted in with a WholeNote membership and profile: for your faith in and support for what we do.
And thanks to you, our readers - in print, and online at kiosk.thewholenote.com.
Profiles will be kept up-to-date online here, as new ones arrive or more information is available.
For information on the benefits of a WholeNote membership (of which a Blue Pages profile is a feature), please contact Ori Dagan at advertising@thewholenote.com or 416-323-2232 x26.