Bach Children’s Chorus & Bach Chamber Youth Choir

Founded in 1987 by Linda Beaupré, Bach Children’s Chorus (BCC) & Bach Chamber Youth Choir (BCYC) is widely known and respected for its innovative programming and the clear, lovely sound of its singers. Charissa Bagan joined the organization last season as incoming Artistic Director and leads the choirs with an incredibly talented music team, including BCYC conductor, James Pinhorn and pianist, Eleanor Daley.
With participants aged four to twenty-four, the BCC family of choirs features three main treble choruses and an SATB youth choir but also facilitates an acapella ensemble for young adults, an intensive treble chamber choir, a seasonal all-boys choir, as well as two play-based ensembles for young children. The BCC is a leader in choral musicianship training and continues to set the highest standards of musical literacy and education for community choirs across Canada. We serve the communities surrounding East Toronto and are known across Canada due to six wonderful CD recordings and many awards.
The Bach Chamber Youth Choir was awarded “Best Overall Performance” among numerous first-place finishes in 2018 from the National Music Festival. The Bach Children’s Chorus Choir III earned a platinum first place finish at the local level, and Choir II/Cantabile were awarded first-place at the national level. This season, the top treble voices of the BCC and BCYC have been invited to perform at Roy Thompson Hall with Eleanor Daley as part of their free noon-hour organ concert series.
The BCC performs two large-scale choral presentations each year as a Company-in-Residence at the Toronto Centre for the Arts. The BCC recently performed as invited guests for dignitaries of the Asia Pacific Foundation and sang John Rutter’s “Mass of the Children” as official Guest Artists at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
Past tours have included many stops across Canada from St. John’s to Victoria and north to Yellowknife. The members of Bach Children’s Chorus have also performed at prestigious choral festivals such as the Atlanta International Music Festival, Festival 500 in St. John’s, Newfoundland, the Suas E! Festival in Cape Breton and the International Choral Festival in Missoula, Montana, where they met and performed with choirs from 16 countries. In 2012, Choir III competed in the Golden Gate Children and Youth Choral Festival in Oakland, California and received three gold standards, as well as a special award for dramatic presentation.
Charissa Bagan is originally from Edmonton and completed a Master of Music in Conducting at the University of British Columbia following extensive musical studies at the University of Toronto and training in Arts & Cultural Management at Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton. While at UBC, she worked with the UBC Women’s Choir, Chamber Choir, Choral Union, and sang in the award-winning University Singers. For four years, she led the Junior Choir program at Toronto’s renowned St. Michael’s Choir School, directing choristers in a musical training program which included singing weekly mass at St. Michael’s Cathedral. A nominee for the 2018 Leslie Bell Prize for Choral Conducting, Charissa loves to learn and grow with her choristers. She has participated in intensive masterclasses at the National Conductors’ Symposium with the Vancouver Chamber Choir, the Montreal Choral Institute with Voces Borealis, the Festival 500 in St. John’s Newfoundland and the American Bach Soloists Academy in San Francisco. Charissa has worked as conducting staff for the Zezere Arts Festival at the spectacular 12th
Century Convento de Cristo in Portugal and has previously worked with undergraduate and graduate students at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, as Director of the Early Music Singers.
James Pinhorn is a native of St. John’s, Newfoundland and James appeared frequently on stage and on CBC Radio and Television as a boy soprano and actor. James’ choirs have won eight National Gold Awards at MusicFest Nationals. He currently teaches Music at Agincourt Collegiate Institute where the choral ensembles have twice been awarded the trophy for the top High School Ensemble in the Toronto Kiwanis Festival. This season Jame’s ensembles had the honour of singing with the Elmer Iseler Singers under the baton of Lydia Adams. James holds a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from the University of Toronto and his subsequent studies have included both education and choral conducting. While at university James was selected to conduct choirs under Dr. Doreen Rao and Robert Cooper and continued for eight years to conduct choirs at the university level. Throughout his career James has trained students and teachers in rehearsal techniques for young male singers. He has twice been selected to present at the Ontario Music Educator’s Association annual conference, speaking on the state of music education in our schools and on training young male voices, and for fifteen seasons he has conducted the massed choir at the Ontario Educational Leadership Centre.
Eleanor Daley is the long-time Director of Music at Fairlawn Avenue United Church in Toronto and conducts three choirs there. Eleanor has worked with numerous choirs, including the Toronto Children’s Chorus, the Canadian Children’s Opera Chorus, The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, the Elmer Iseler Singers and the Amadeus Choir. She received her Bachelor of Music Degree in organ performance from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and holds diplomas in both organ and piano from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto and Trinity College in England. A prolific composer, Eleanor has a remarkable gift for melody and sensitive interweaving of text and music. She has over 150 choral compositions in publication, and is commissioned extensively throughout North America and Europe. Her music has been performed and recorded throughout North America, Great Britain, Europe, South Africa and Asia. Eleanor’s compositions have twice received the National Choral Award for Outstanding Choral Composition of the Year by the Association of Canadian Choral Conductors at their national conference. The choirs of Fairlawn Avenue United Church have recorded two CDs featuring the choral music of Eleanor Daley: Canticle to the Spirit (2000) and What Sweeter Music (2003).