Making Music

Exceptional Performance

The Toronto Children’s Chorus is recognized as one of the world’s leading treble choirs. Through its unequaled training standards, the Chorus produces world class performances and its education model is copied the world over.

Since 1978, the Toronto Children’s Chorus has been performing around the world and making special appearances with world renowned conductors, singers, symphonies and choirs.

As a result of their extensive training, performances are vocally advanced, expressive, emotive and true to the music. Choristers are taught to achieve a healthy, vibrant, free-ringing sound that blends beautifully and achieves perfect intonation – the true mark of an excellent choir.

Toronto Children’s Chorus choristers are taught the best vocal production and the highest standards of professionalism and stage presence. Even in the early preparatory level, choristers exhibit artistry and musicianship beyond their years. As a result, choristers surpass other children’s choirs in musical literacy and vocal production.

Choristers have mastered many different genres and styles of singing and it is the quality of the repertoire that also elevates performances. In the same performance, you may hear the Micmaq Honour Song (a 20th century Canadian piece where choristers surround the audience while singing a tone cluster, chanting and making sounds of the wind, a loon and other forest animals), a kapa haka (traditional Maori song and dance, where the choristers improvise harmonies on a basic melody and perform a choreographed traditional dance), and a German song cycle by Robert Schumann.

Biography

The Toronto Children’s Chorus is one of the world’s leading treble choirs. The Chorus was founded in 1978 by Jean Ashworth Bartle (now Conductor Laureate) and joined in the fall of 2007 by internationally renowned conductor, Elise Bradley as Artistic Director.

In addition to their demanding annual concert seasons, these young choral ambassadors have represented Canada on twenty-three international tours, performing in Great Britain, France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Yugoslavia, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Finland, South Africa, and the United States of America. Highlights of the choristers’ 15-day European tour in June-July 2009 included performing with the Vienna Boys’ Choir as part of the World Choral Festival, performing concerts in Leipzig and Berlin, and visiting the historic cities of Prague, Weimar, and Frankfurt.

The Chorus can be heard frequently on radio and has recorded seventeen compact discs; its newest recording, and first under the baton of Elise Bradley, will be released in 2011. The choir’s vast repertoire embraces diverse cultures and traditions and covers an extensive range of musical genres. In fulfilling its mandate to celebrate the composers of its own country, the Toronto Children’s Chorus has commissioned forty works for treble voices and regularly features Canadian repertoire. The choir has been privileged to perform with such internationally celebrated conductors as Sir Andrew Davis, Charles Dutoit, Michael Lankester, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Peter Oundjian, Sir Simon Rattle, Helmuth Rilling, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, the late Robert Shaw, Bramwell Tovey, and Sir David Willcocks.

In addition to its annual concert series, the Chorus continues to be sought as a guest artist with musicians such as Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki as well as the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Bach Consort.

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