For more than 50 years, the Summer Institute of Church Music (SICM) has been helping church music to flourish by hosting a week-long transformative professional development program in July each year centred in Whitby ON. Church musicians, worship leaders, clergy and choristers study under the direction of world class faculty, and participate in workshops, sessions, and a gala concert designed to enhance their skills and professional toolkit. Participants of all skill levels and denominations are welcomed. It is the only program of its kind in Canada.
The SICM was established and operates under the following aims and objectives:
(a) to stimulate a desire for excellence in the leadership of church music;
(b) to promote an understanding of the literature of church music;
(c) more specifically, to promote and conduct a summer course for choirmasters and organists;
(d) to encourage young musicians to make a serious study of the organ, and of choral conducting;
(e) to offer a scholarship every two years to a young organ student chosen on the basis of a competition. (Osborne Organ Competition)
How we’re funded
The Summer Institute of Church Music is a CRA registered charity (Business No: 890641541RR0001, and nonprofit organization governed by a volunteer Board of Directors.
The SICM is funded entirely by registration fees paid by participants in its annual programs, donations, and corporate sponsorships. Donations, and inquiries about sponsorship are gratefully received.
New developments
Since its founding in 1970 SICM was a residential, entirely in-person five-day program in Whitby ON, until COVID-19 forced a transition to online programming for 2020 and 2021. In 2022, SICM marked a new, ambitious chapter in its history with the expansion to include in-person sessions in Whitby (SICM East), and in Edmonton (SICM West), both live-streamed, creating its first hybrid in-person/online program. In 2024 the Whitby in-person program was condensed to twelve daytime program hours over three days (Tuesday-Thursday), scheduled conveniently for all of North America’s six time zones. Then, in 2025, it was expanded again to fifteen hours from Tuesday to Thursday, plus evenings Monday to Thursday, restoring its Community Choral Program and closing Gala Choral and Organ Concert.
OUR LEADERSHIP
Board of Directors
Our Sponsors
