Improve your skills, hone your technique and get confidence and ideas from this wonderful new course. With some of the country’s most inspiring and insightful conductor tutors, this is your chance to get hands-on experience in master-classes conducting the inspiring Sydney Chamber Choir.

Ideal for conductors of church choirs, school ensembles and more advanced choral groups. Meet and network with other choral conductors and practitioners in your field.

Features

• Conducting Master-classes with Sydney Chamber Choir as resident ensemble
• Work alongside experienced and inspiring tutors
• Warm-ups and rehearsal technique
• Beat patterns and beyond the beat
• Repertoire labs – constructing suitable programs; Australian repertoire
• Stylistic performance issues

Participate or observe

• Limited places will be available to participate as a conductor – get in soon!
• Observer places offered at a discount rate.

Fees

Full participant rate: $450
Observer rate: $220

Morning and afternoon teas are included. Meals and purchases of music scores are in addition to course fees.

Course Timetable at a glance

Friday 4 February: 7pm-9.30pm – Introductory session with analysis of scores.
Saturday 5 February: 10am-4.30pm – All day conducting workshop with Sydney Chamber Choir
Sunday 6 February: 10am-4.30pm – Concentration on rehearsal technique plus repertoire lab

(A more detailed course structure will be issued closer to the workshop. Sydney Chamber Choir reserves the right to change details about the course structure without notice.)

About the Tutors

Michelle Leonard is the founding Artistic Director and conductor of the Leichhardt Espresso Chorus, the Moorambilla Voices Regional Children’s Choirs and Festival Director of the Moorambilla Festival. Michelle is widely sought-after as a choral clinician particularly on Australian repertoire and she facilitates compositional workshops for special projects. Michelle’s career includes a period as assistant conductor of the Sydney Children’s Choir, she has been conductor in residence for Gondwana Voices (Junior 2008), was recently Choir Master for the Festival of Sydney’s Lost and Found Orchestra and also for the 2010 Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Michelle conducted the inaugural Moorambilla Voices touring choir for its 2008 Sydney Opera House performance that celebrated regional indigenous culture and reconciliation on the occasion of Patrick Dodson's Sydney Peace Prize lecture.

Elizabeth Scott was appointed Associate Conductor of Sydney Chamber Choir in 2009. She was the Assistant Chorus Master to Sydney Philharmonia Choirs from 2006 to 2008 and is currently the Musical Director of Vox, Sydney Philharmonia’s youth Choir. Elizabeth works for the Arts Unit in the NSW Department of Education and as such brings tremendous experience of choral music-making across many levels. Additionally, she has been part of Symphony Australia’s Conductor Development Program and was recently awarded the Sydney Choral Symposium Foundation Choral Scholarship.

Paul Stanhope is the Musical Director of Sydney Chamber Choir and has also been a guest conductor with other choral ensembles including Cantillation, Sydney Children’s Choir and Gondwana Voices. He collaborated both as composer and conductor with the Danish National Girls Choir in 2005. Paul is widely respected for his skills in conducting new music, having worked with Kammer Ensemble on numerous occasions as well as The Australia Ensemble and the Seymour Group. Paul is widely regarded for his composition skills: he is Musica Viva Australia’s featured composer in 2010 with national performances of his work by illustrious ensembles including the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge and the Pavel Haas String Quartet.