Dr. Mark Sirett (choral), Founding Director of Kingston’s Cantabile Choirs, is a native of Kingston and graduate of Queen's University. He holds both masters and doctoral degrees in choral conducting and pedagogy from the University of Iowa and has taught at the University of Alberta, the University of Western Ontario and Queen’s University. For six years he served as Organist/Music Director at St. George's Cathedral, Kingston. Under his direction the Cathedral Girl Choristers won first prize in the 1996 CBC Choral Competition for amateur choirs.
Since founding the Cantabile Choirs in the fall of 1996, the choirs under his direction have received numerous distinctions at the regional, national and international levels including a Gold Award at the Young Prague 2004 Music Competition. Mr. Sirett has won two international awards in conducting: the Jury Prize for Imaginative Programming and Artistry at the 2002 Cork International Choral Festival, and Outstanding Conductor Award at the 2004 Young Prague Festival. He is the 2008 recipient of the President's Award by Choirs Ontario for outstanding leadership and vision in the promotion of the choral art in this province.
Dr. Sirett is frequently in demand as a guest conductor, clinician and adjudicator. He has directed the Ontario Youth Choir and the Alberta Honors Children's Chorus. Last year he was guest conductor of 'Unisong' on Canada Day at the National Arts Centre, Ottawa. He has served as clinician with the Ontario Vocals Festival, the Royal Canadian College of Organists, and the Royal School of Church Music, and has adjudicated festivals in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, London, and Calgary and this spring will adjudicate the International Choral Festival in Cork, Ireland.
Dr. Sirett is also an award-winning composer whose works are frequently performed by some of Canada's leading ensembles. Commissions have included works for the National Youth Choir of Canada, the Amabile Youth Singers, Ottawa Regional Youth Choir, La Jeunesse, Elora Festival Singers, and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. His published sacred and secular works are found in the catalogues of Boosey and Hawkes, Oxford, ECS Publishing, Walton, Hinshaw, Alliance, Augsburg/Fortress, Warner/Chappell, Kelman Hall and Canadian International.
Dr. Maxine Thévenot (organ) enjoys a distinguished international career performing solo recitals, accompanying choral ensembles, and conducting, throughout Europe, Great Britain, and North America.
An advocate of new music, Ms. Thévenot will premiere newly commissioned works by Judith Bingham, Naji Hakim, Tarik O’Regan, Iain Quinn, and Martin Stacey in concerts at Stanford University; Methuen Memorial Music Hall; the AGO Regional Conventions of Seattle and Santa Fe; serve on the faculty of the 40th Annual Summer Institute of Church Music, Canada; Niederndodeleben, Germany; Oxford Town Hall and Westminster Abbey, UK as the closing recitalist of the Annual Festival of New Organ Music commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Royal Canadian College of Organists; and Notre Dame, Paris. She will also present a lecture-recital on Canadian Organ Music at the Royal Academy of Music, London as part of the AFNOM Festival.
A regular featured performer at the AGO and RCCO National and Regional Conventions she was unanimously awarded First Prize in the Canada Bach 2000 National Organ Competition. She has broadcast for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, National Public Radio, PipeDreams and has recorded six commercial compact discs mostly available on the Raven CD label.
Moving from Manhattan (where she served on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music) to New Mexico in 2005, she currently serves as the Associate Organist-Choir Director at the Cathedral of St. John in Albuquerque, New Mexico; is a member of faculty at the University of New Mexico as the Director of the only collegiate women’s choir in the State of NM, university chapel organist, teaches music appreciation and music theory classes; and is the Founding & Artistic Director of Polyphony: Voices of New Mexico, the only professional chamber vocal ensemble comprised of residents of the State.
Dr. Thévenot continues to write articles for The American Organist magazine, lecture, give masterclasses, and adjudicate for regional choral festivals and competitions. She presently serves as a member of the National Board of Examiners for the American Guild of Organists, and on the Board of Professional Concerns for the Association of Anglican Musicians.
Dr. Thévenot has received the Bachelor of Music in Music Education with distinction from the University of Saskatchewan, and the degrees, Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts in organ performance from the Manhattan School of Music, New York where she was twice-awarded the Bronson Ragan Award for ‘most outstanding organist’. She also holds the Associate diplomas from the Royal Canadian College of Organists and the Royal Conservatory of Music. In December 2006, Dr. Thévenot was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the National College of Music, London, UK for her services to music.
The Rev. Dr. Daniel Hansen
(SICM Chaplain, “Singing Free”) is a minister and spiritual Director currently residing in Renfrew, Ontario and serving as Interim Minister to Trinity United Church, Kars, and St. James’ United Church, Osgoode, Ontario. Dr. Hansen was ordained in 1997 by the Toronto Conference of the United Church of Canada (UCC), and settled in the Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario Conference. Prior to that and since his teenage years, he has served as a church musician in churches in southern Ontario and the Eastern United States. He was the organist and music director at Lawrence Park Community Church (1982-1990). Dan’s primary training in spirituality and spiritual direction was at St. Bennedict’s Monastery (Winnipeg) and Mount Carmel (Niagara Falls), in conjunction with the Haden Institute. He is a member of Spiritual Directors International. In the late 1980s, he served as co-chair of the founding steering committee of The United Church of Canada Association of Musicians (UCCAM), now called Music United. In 2004, Dan was the compiler and major writer of a booklet entitled, The Ministry of Music in The United Church of Canada: Guidelines for Musicians, Congregations, and Worship and M&P Committees. His doctoral dissertation was on the role of the church musician in the UCC. He was the ordained minister of liturgical music and spiritual care at Trinity-St. Andrew’s United Church in Renfrew, ON (2003-6). In addition to the Osgoode-Kars Pastoral Charge, he currently serves the Ottawa Centre of the RCCO as the chair of professional support. Dan brings to the institute a strong background as a church musician and an ordained minister, and a desire to be a spiritual companion to church leaders.
Christopher Dawes (SICM Director), numbered among Canada’s leading church musicians, concert organists and choral accompanists, is a freelance musician and consultant based as Lead Musician at Toronto’s Church of St. George-the-Martyr. Mr. Dawes currently divides his professional time between freelance performing across a wide spectrum of the Toronto music scene and the Directorship of Canada’s Summer Institute of Church Music in Whitby (which he has directed since fall 2004), and the Organ Concerts and Academy at Stratford Summer Music, where he is an Artistic Associate and has served since its inception in 2000.
Mr. Dawes has given solo recitals and accompanied choral tours across North America and Europe, and been broadcast repeatedly on domestic and international radio services. His work appears on over two dozen commercial CDs to date and has been showcased in Canada’s greatest concert stages and organ lofts. He is faculty accompanist and coach to the graduate and undergraduate choral conducting programs at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music, accompanist to that school’s MacMillan Singers and Bach Festival Singers, a staff accompanist to the Toronto Children’s Chorus, and a resident musician for various productions of Theatre Erindale, the professional performance wing of the Theatre and Drama Studies program offered jointly by the Sheridan Institute of Applied Arts and Technology and the University of Toronto at the latter’s Mississauga campus.
A passionate advocate for the organ, sacred music and his country’s cultural life, Chris is known for a musicianship that freely crosses classical and popular styles and eras; for his imaginative, informed and approachable presentation of both the familiar and the obscure, and for his love of history, places, people, and all that is unusual and inspirational in music. A native of Kingston, Ontario, Chris lives with his wife Marcia, and their children, Nathaniel, Simon, and Charlotte in Georgetown, 50km northwest of Toronto.
Douglas Cowling (“Around the Worship World in Four Instruments”) is a musician and writer with a lively commitment to the liturgy and the arts. He has a particular interest in music in the smaller church and the role of children in worship.
Doug was co-author of Sharing the Banquet with Paul MacLean, and a contributor to Let Us Keep The Feast, both published by the Anglican Book Centre. He has edited two collections of global music for liturgical use: Let Us Make Music Together: A Multicultural Sampler and LUMMT: Members of the Household of God, published by the Diocese of Toronto. He was also the writer of four Juno Award-winning productions for Classical Kids, including Mozart’s Magic Fantasy and Vivaldi’s Ring of Mystery. Doug is a regular contributor on CBC Radio. Mr. Cowling’s Christmas was a recent feature.
Doug is Director of Music at St, Philip’s Anglican Church, Etobicoke (Toronto). He is a speaker, consultant and leader of workshops in church music both in the Diocese of Toronto and at ecumenical conferences in Canada and the U.S. He lives In Toronto with his wife Elizabeth.
Dr. Andrew Donaldson (“Around the Worship World in Four Instruments”) is an active teacher of guitar, voice and piano, and recently completed three years instructing music theory and classical guitar at Redeemer University College, Ancaster, Ontario. He is also Music Director of Hilariter Singers and Players, a vocal and instrumental ensemble that performs a wide range of music, specialising in global worship music. Andrew currently serves as Pastoral Musician and Worship Enlivener at Trafalgar Presbyterian Church in Oakville, Ontario, and recently finished a two-year term as President of The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada. Knox College, University of Toronto, conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity (honoris causa) at its spring 2007 convocation. Andrew served on the faculty of SICM from 2005 to 2007, returning for a memorable opening night concert with his Hilariter Singers and Players in 2008. http://www.beachmusicarts.com/faculty.htm
Mary Lou Fallis
(Opening Banquet presentation)
Mary-Lou Fallis soprano, comedienne and Canadian cultural icon is not precisely faculty for SICM 2009 - but she most certainly is part of the family! In “The Mrs. Bouck Show: Songs my Grandmother Taught Me” she and Christopher Dawes pay fond tribute to the late choral conductor and longtime SICMhostess Jenny Bouck, who was also her grandmother. Returning to SICM for the first time since attending with her nanna back in the 1970s, present a touching and amusing look at church music, including such songs as “I am the Very Model of a Modern Church Mus-i-ci-an”, a little-known creation of Gilbert and Sullivan bearing a striking resemblance to “I am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General” from “Pirates of Penzance.” Don’t miss this wonderful kick-off to SICM’s 40th anniversary season - dinner and the show are included with full-time registration, and are available to part-time and non-registrants for a price of $20.
Dr. Gordon Adnams
(“Singing True”) has been involved in music education and leadership, as well as professional music-making for all his adult life. He has served as a minister of music at Forward Baptist Church in Toronto and Ellerslie Road Baptist Church in Edmonton, and was adjunct faculty at Ontario Bible (now Tyndale University) College and Associate Professor and co-chair of the Music Department at Taylor University College in Edmonton. He earned both MusBac and MusM degrees from the University of Toronto, and last year completed a PhD from the University of Alberta. His dissertation is entitled “The Experience of Congregational Singing.” Dr. Adnams now lives in Ancaster with his wife, Louise, and teaches at Heritage College and Baptist Seminary in Cambridge, Ontario. (For more details see his website www.worshipsinging.ca).
Elaine Broughton (“Singing Strong) received her early education in Saskatchewan. She is a graduate of the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto, holding Performance and Teaching Diplomas in both Voice and Piano. Her graduate studies with Douglas Bodle at the university of Toronto included Organ and Choral Technique.
For 25 years she was Director of the Voice programme at Trafalgar Castle School where she founded the Choral Ensemble. As well, she served as Chapel Organist. Her students are award winners and medalists, while some are also professional musicians performing and teaching both locally and nationally.
For 43 years she was Organist/Choir Director at All Saints' Anglican Church, Whitby, where she conducted 4 choirs. The choirs, all amateur, were each noted for their impressive tonal quality and extensive repertoire through which they enriched worship services.
Elaine is a Senior Examiner at Royal Conservatory of Music Examinations. In addition, she frequently adjudicates at both provincial and national levels as well as major music festivals across Canada.
Dr. Fred Kimball Graham (“Singing Free”) has been Assistant Professor of Church Music (part-time) since 2001, and Basic Degree Director at Emmanuel College since 2003. He arrived at the College after completing 14 exceptional years as Music and Liturgy Officer at the General Council offices of The United Church of Canada. During his tenure there, the denomination renewed its song resources through publication of Voices United (1996) and its prayer resources through publication of Celebrate God’s Presence, both of which involved the worship office in intense ways.
He completed the Bachelor of Music (Education) at the University of Toronto, and upon graduation in 1967 received the William Fairclough award, for studies in church music and conducting in Germany for three years. He taught choral and instrumental music in elementary and high schools in Ottawa, ON and Saint John, NB before taking up new duties as music director of the Anglican cathedral in Halifax, NS, as well as adjunct duties at the Atlantic School of Theology (church music, worship coordination) and Dalhousie University (professor of Organ Performance.) During this time he also completed a Master of Music in Organ Performance and Literature at the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, NY in 1981.
He was accepted on a full-tuition scholarship in the Liturgical Studies program at Drew University, Madison, NJ in 1985, and completed the Master of Philosophy level in 1985, under the tutelage of the late Bard Thompson, Horton Davies, and Charles Rice. The thesis writing segment, supervised by Robin Leaver, involved researching Methodist hymnbooks of the 19th century in east-coast USA. The thesis is now published by Scarecrow Press as With One Heart and One voice: A Core Repertory of Hymn Tunes Published for the Use in the Methodist Episcopal Church USA 1808-1878.
He has always maintained an active role in parish music ministry, serving since 1985 in several United Church congregations in the Toronto area for periods of six months to six years. As a travelling clinician in the areas of worship and music, Graham is well known from coast to coast in Canada’s United Church communities. He contributed the hymn tune LIFE RESTORED to the Voices United collection, an arrangement to the Anglican Common Praise (1998), and two new tunes in 2006 to More Voices (supplement to Voices United) named NEW IDENTITY, and EMMANUEL COLLEGE.