Saskatchewan Youth Choir

Applications are now being accepted for the 2021-2022 season.

Saskatchewan Youth Choir (SYC) is an exciting opportunity for talented youth ages 16 - 22 to perform in an SATB balanced choir with the best singers in Saskatchewan  The program develops singers ready to participate in premier vocal ensembles across Canada, representing Saskatchewan as part of the National Youth Choir and in other provincially-sponsored choral projects.

As part of their training, singers will prepare a varied program of exciting repertoire designed to enthrall audiences of all ages.  If the pandemic permits, the Choir will share their choral proficiency with high school and community ensembles in workshop scenarios and perform at schools, senior residences and community facilities while touring Saskatchewan.  

For the 2021-22 season, the SYC will be under the direction of Laura Hawley, a Canadian musician known for her compelling approach to musical leadership and artistic programming, multi-faceted community engagement, distinctive compositional style, and passionate advocacy for Canadian choral art.  Her music, often influenced by creative community connections and exchanges, has been described in The WholeNote  as conjuring 'the forces of natures and its effect on the human spirit.'

Laura is artistic director of Da Camera Singers (Edmonton), conductor of Chandra Tala (Edmonton), founding artistic director of Hypatia's Voice Women's Choir of Ottawa (2015-2019), and is collaborative pianist and singer with the Canadian Chamber Choir.  An active clinician throughout Canada, Laura has worked with a wide variety of community-based choral and orchestral ensembles from sea to sea to sea, including CAMMAC, Music & Beyond (Ottawa),  Choirs Ontario, Choir Alberta, Nova Scotia Choral Federation, Saskatchewan Choral Federation and Choral Canada.   She is a founding pianist and associate conductor of Cantiamo Choirs of Ottawa, and was their composer-in-residence from 2003-2017.  From 2007 to 2018 she was Director of Music at St. John's South March Anglican Church, leading the adult choir and establishing a thriving parish youth choir  In 2014, 2016, and 2018 she was nominated for the prestigious "Leslie Bell Prize for Choral Conducting" and is a 2019 recipient of the Association of Canadian Women Composers' Roberta Stephan Award.

Ms. Hawley holds an ARCT from the Royal Conservatory of Music and completed a Bachelor of Music in piano performance and Master's in Music Theory at University of Ottawa.  She has studied conducting with Wayne Toews, the late Prof. Morihiro Okabe, Michael Zaugg, and Lone Larsen, composition with Stephen Gellman, Ugis Pralins, and Prof. Allan Bell, and voice with Elizabeth Turnbull.  She is based in Edmonton, AB.

SYC 2021 - 2022 season specifics can be found here.

Application Procedure can be found here.