Pro Coro Canada

Alberta’s Professional Choir

Pure, floating voices, impeccable intonation and the performance of a variety of choral music from the Early Renaissance to the avant-garde combine to create Pro Coro Canada- one of Canada’s few professional chamber choirs.

Founded in 1980 by Canadian Michel Marc Gervais, the twenty-four voices have been shaped by some of the finest choral conductors in the world, including Artistic Directors Michel Marc Gervais, Anders Eby (Sweden), Søren Hansen (Denmark), and Agnes Grossmann (Austria). In 1999, Pro Coro continued the tradition of choral excellence with the appointment of Richard Sparks (USA) as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor.

Pro Coro Canada is a resident ensemble at the Francis Winspear Centre for Music, one of North America’s finest concert halls. In addition to a subscription concert series in Edmonton, the choir performs regional concerts in surrounding Alberta centres, and tours have been undertaken to Europe and Eastern Canada. The ensemble has served as demonstration choir for various choral festivals, has conducted vocal master classes with such vocal stars as Emma Kirkby and Catherine Robbin, and runs a touring program of choral education for primary and secondary schools and community choirs.

Pro Coro Canada has performed across Canada, including the Guelph Spring Festival, Toronto International Choral Festival, Calgary Olympic Arts Festival, and the Canadian Voices Festival.

Trent Worthington,
Associate Conductor

Trent holds a Masters Degree in Instructional Technology, a Bachelor Degree in Education and an Honours Diploma in Computer Systems Technology. He has taught with the Edmonton Public School Board in music, math and computing, and has conducted and taught music at Alberta College Conservatory of Music and at The King’s University College. Trent has been a clinician and adjudicator for music programs and festivals for more than 20 years.

Trent has been involved with Pro Coro since 1981 – first as a member of the tenor section, and currently serving as Associate Conductor.

Elisa Milner,  Violinist

Elisa has been a guest violinist with the choir since 2007.  She adds so much to the concerts.Elisa Milner was born in Calgary, Alberta. She began playing the violin at the age of four while her family was living in Escondido, California. Returning to Calgary at the age of six, she continued with her studies on the violin with Elizabeth Sjoika, and at the age of nine, upon acceptance in the Academy of Music at Mount Royal College in Calgary, Elisa began studies with Joan Barrett of the Calgary Philharmonic.

Four years later, after a move to Atlanta, Georgia, Elisa joined the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra, studying with David Arenz of the Atlanta Symphony. In 1996, Elisa was accepted into the Cleveland Institute of Music to study with William Preucil, concertmaster of the Cleveland Orchestra where she completed a Bachelors of Music degree in violin performance in 2000. Three years later Elisa returned to school and in 2005 completed a Master of Music degree in violin performance at Kent State University studying with members of the Miami Quartet as well as the concertmaster of the Swedish Royal Opera.

Elisa has participated in summer music festivals at Meadowmount School in upstate New York, Banff School for the Arts, and Domaine Forget in Quebec. She has studied with concertmasters of the Winnipeg Symphony and L.A. Philharmonic as well as renowned pedagogues; Dr. Lise Elson and Sally Thomas of the Julliard School. As a chamber musician she has studied with members of the Cleveland Quartet and the Cavani Quartet. She has also worked with members of the Guarnieri, Emerson and Tokyo Quartets.

While in Ohio, Elisa was a member of the Akron and Youngstown Symphonies. She also played regularly with the Warren Philharmonic and Erie Philharmonic. In 2004, 2006 and 2007 she toured with the string section for the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. She has also played in string sections for Josh Groban, Anne Murray, Sela, Mark O’Conner and Three Dog Night. Elisa has studied Jazz violin with Didier Lockwood and enjoys pursuing improvisational style playing with contemporary church music, coffee-house music and for recording and performing with various musical groups.

Elisa currently lives in Grande Prairie and teaches violin. She also performs regularly around Alberta with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, the Red Deer Symphony and is a regular guest with the Grande Prairie Boys Choir.

Elise Bradley

Artistic Director, Toronto Children’s Chorus

This season marks Elise Bradley’s third year as Artistic Director of the Toronto Children’s Chorus. Ms. Bradley came to the position from her role as Head of Department, Music at Westlake Girls’ High School in Auckland, New Zealand.  In demand both in New Zealand and internationally as a conductor, adjudicator and clinician, she was also a soloist in New Zealand and a member of New Zealand’s national chamber choir TOWER Voices NZ.

In 2005, Ms. Bradley’s school choir, Key Cygnetures, won the City of Vienna prize at the Internationales Jugendmusikfest in Vienna, Austria against choirs and orchestras from around the world. Ms. Bradley led the Key Cygnetures Choir of New Zealand one last time to win the Award of the City of Vienna at the 2008 Summa Cum Laude International Youth Music Festival.

Ms. Bradley also served as Musical Director of the NZ Secondary Students’ Choir, which won several awards at the International Kathaumixw in Powell River, British Columbia, in 2004 and won champion of the Youth Choir section at the World Choral Games in Xiamen, China in 2006. In the same year, the New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir also won the World Choir award at the Hong Kong International Youth and Children’s Choirs Competition, and Key Cygnetures won the platinum award for the most outstanding secondary school choir in New Zealand at their national competition, The Big Sing.

Since arriving in Toronto, Ms. Bradley has garnered praise for her artistry and for her deep commitment to children and the art of treble choral music.  She has not only developed a challenging concert series and prepared the choir to perform with the Bach Consort and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, but has also continued the legacy of the TCC, leading its annual School Choir Invitational Festival as well as the Toronto District School Board’s Choral Project, originally established in cooperation with Founder/Conductor Laureate Jean Ashworth Bartle to provide professional development for music teachers.

In the summer of 2009, Ms. Bradley and the 44-member TCC Touring Choir spent two weeks in Austria, the Czech Republic, and Germany, performing at the 9th World Choral Festival at Vienna’s celebrated Musikverein concert hall and also at the Haydn Hall in Eisenstadt, at Bach’s St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, and at the Berlin Dom.  In November, the Toronto Children’s Chorus was honoured to perform Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Peter Oundjian.

 

Stacy Berg

Stacy Berg completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drama at the University of Alberta this last April. During her years in Edmonton, she had the privilege to work with Kim Mattice Wanat in both private coaching’s and in a class setting. Stacy performed at the University of Alberta- favorite credits include Maria in “Twelfth Night”, Mrs. Prentice in “What the Butler Saw”, Nurse in “Romeo and Juliet” and The Emperor in “The Emperor and the Dead Dog.” Before her acting training in the BFA, she was involved with the local arts scene in her hometown of Provost, AB. She directed the Central Lutheran Church Children’s Choir, co- directed the Provost Drama club and taught private speech/vocal lessons for Provost youth. Stacy is delighted to be part of the GP Boys Choir!