Every
two years, singers between the ages of 18 and 25 are
auditioned across the country to form the National Youth
Choir. Initiated in 1984, the choir has won critical
acclaim across Canada since its inception. Some of the
finest Canadian choral conductors have been invited to
conduct the choir. The NYC has performed at all Podium
conferences since 1984 and at the 1993 World Symposium on
Choral Music in Vancouver. NYC concerts have been broadcast
nationally on the CBC Stereo Network.
The National Youth Choir has been under the direction of
John Standing (1984), Jon Washburn (1986), Wayne Riddell
(1988), James Fankhauser (1990), Elmer Iseler (1992), Diane
Loomer (1994), Robert Cooper (1996), Iwan Edwards (1998),
Leonard Ratzlaff (2000), Lydia Adams (2002), Kathryn Laurin
(2004), Richard Sparks (2006), Dr. Julian Wachner (2008),
Dr. Victoria Meredith (2010) and Ivars Taurins (2012).
Read "Words to Sing and Live By: “Cool Head, Warm Heart”,
an article about the NYC experience written by Andrea Ellis
(NYC 2012) on Incanto, the ACCC Student Chapter blog.
National Youth
Choir 2012, under the direction of Ivars Taurins, in
performance at
Dominion-Chalmers United Church, Ottawa on May 18, 2012.
Photo by Bill Blackstone.
Support the National Youth Choir
National Youth Choir
2014 will be held in Nova Scotia under the direction of
Hilary Apfelstadt.
Dr. Hilary Apfelstadt is the Director
of Choral Programs at the University of Toronto.
Canadian by birth, she began her music education in
Nova Scotia at the age of five. Her degrees, all in
vocal music education, are from the University of
Toronto, the University of Illinois, and the
University of Wisconsin-Madison. She also has a
diploma in piano performance (ARCT) from the Royal
Conservatory of Music in Toronto.
From 1993 –2010, she was Professor and Director of Choral
Activities at the Ohio State University in Columbus where
she also served as Associate Director for the School of
Music from 2008–2010. Choirs under her direction have
performed at regional and national conferences of the
American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) and at state
and regional conferences of the National Association of
Music Education (MENC). She has conducted many honour
choirs and all-state choruses throughout the United States,
and has guest conducted in Canada, Cuba, and England. In
February 2009, she conducted the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in
a public broadcast of “Music and the Spoken Word.” She has
led choral festivals in Switzerland and Austria, and
conducted at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome in 2011. She was
conductor of the Ontario Youth Choir in 2011 and has been
selected as the National Youth Choir (Canada) conductor for
2014. She is a frequent lecturer and clinician at
professional conferences and universities, and is a mentor
to many young conductors and choral educators.
Dr. Apfelstadt’s research areas include leadership styles
among conductors, and choral repertoire, particularly by
Canadian composers. She has published over eighty articles
on choral music in various refereed journals, and wrote two
chapters in Wisdom, Wit and Will: Women Conductors on
their Art, (GIA, 2009). One of several contributors to
Women’s Choirs: Strategies for Success (GIA, in
press 2012), Dr. Apfelstadt wrote a chapter on treble
chorus music by Canadian composers. She serves on the
editorial boards of The Choral Scholar, the
official publication of the National Collegiate Conductors
Organization (NCCO), the ACDA Choral Journal, and
the International Journal of Research in Choral
Singing, as well as editing a regular choral column
for the Canadian Music Educator. She is an
advisory board member for AIRS (Advanced Disciplinary
Research in Singing), a project funded by the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. A past
national president of ACDA, Dr. Apfelstadt sang with the
Robert Shaw Festival Singers for several years and recorded
two CD’s for Telarc with the Singers in France.
Four singers from each province will be selected to form
the NYC.
For information on auditioning and costs, contact your
provincial federation or e-mail NYC Co-Ordinator Robert Neufeld.
Highlights from the 1988, 1990 and 1992 editions of the NYC
are available on CD from ACCC at a cost of $18 per CD
(postage and handling included).
The Association of Canadian Choral Communities also
sponsors the National Youth Choir Conducting Apprenticeship
Program.