Chor Leoni

The Leonids

MYVoice

Carrie Taylor

Carrie has been teaching in the public school system for 32 years. She began her teaching career in Coquitlam and is currently teaching in Burnaby, where she enjoys teaching both band and choir. Carrie has also been the coordinator for the B.C. Provincial Honour Choir for the past several years and is one of the Directors of Vivo Children’s Choir.

Miranda Currie

Miranda Currie is a northern indigenous multi-disciplinary artist living in Sombek’e, Denedeh, more colonially known as Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, among the Dene people. She lives in a small cabin on the shores of the Great Slave Lake with her two Canadian Inuit sled dogs, Niyanin and Ellesmere. These days she is busy running her business CuRiouS CoNNectionS; making music, writing scripts, teaching kids and pitching films. Her goal is to create authentic northern indigenous content that is accessible to children and families.

Marie-Claire Saindon

Marie-Claire Saindon is a Franco-Ontarian choral composer with a penchant for vivid imagery and a great affinity for setting text. Her experience while studying music at McGill University and Université de Montréal ranges from accompanying dancers, to scoring films, to fiddling in a team of folk musicians on a historical steam train. Based in Montreal as composer-in-residence for Chœur Adleisia, she runs creative choral/vocal composition workshops, scores films, and teaches fiddle. Recipient of multiple composition prizes, her choral works are published with Boosey & Hawkes, Hal Leonard, Cypress Choral Music, and her film scores can be found on documentaries hosted by CBC Gem and Radio-Canada.

Shruthi Rajasekar

Composer and performer Shruthi Rajasekar is a McKnight Composer Fellow with the American Composers Forum, Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, Associate of the Royal Northern College of Music (ARNCM), winner of the Global Women in Music Award from the United Nations, and recipient of the Marshall Scholarship from the Government of the United Kingdom. Shruthi’s music draws from her deep roots in the Carnatic (South Indian classical) and Western classical traditions. Her work highlights identity, community, and joy. Globally, Shruthi’s compositions have been featured at the Royal Albert Hall (London, UK), the Cannes Film Festival (France), the National Centre for Performing Arts (Mumbai, India), Victoria Hall (Singapore), and the United Nations’ COP 26 (Glasgow, UK). She has been a performing artist and artist-in-residence at Britten Pears Arts, Tusen Takk Foundation, and Norway’s Kampenjazz. Shruthi lives in Minnesota and serves on the Board of Directors of the Anderson Center and of chamber ensemble Zeitgeist.

B.E. Boykin

B.E. (Brittney Elizabeth) Boykin is a distinguished composer, conductor and pianist, renowned for her dynamic artistry and profound contributions to the world of music. As a composer with an evolving career with notable collaborations and commissions, Boykin’s music has been highlighted with performances at prestigious venues such as the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall.

Ysaÿe Barnwell

Ysaye Barnwell is a composer, arranger, author, actress, and former member of the Black womens' a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey In The Rock. Barnwell joined the group in 1979 and facilitated their inclusion of a Sign Language Interpreter. As a vocalist with a three-octave-plus range, she appears on more than twenty-five recordings with the ensemble. For thirty years, and on three continents, Barnwell has led her workshop Building a Vocal Community: Singing in the African American Tradition. She also leads monthly Community Sings at the Levine School of Music where she is an artist-in-residence.

Cedrick Howoseb

Cedrick Howoseb is a composer and conductor from Otjiwarongo, Namibia. His passion for choral music was ignited by the hymns of the Lutheran church choir, leading him to start composing for school choirs. A self-taught musician, Cedrick continues to hone his craft and mastery of choral composition. Cedrick serves as the director of the Sion Youth Choir of Namibia, as well as the composer-in-residence of the Collective Singers. His compositions have earned him recognition within the choral community. In 2023, Cedrick was honored with the title of Best Old Mutual Choir Conductor, a prestigious award given annually to outstanding choir conductors in Namibia.

Henrik Dahlgren

Henrik Dahlgren, born in 1991, is an award-winning Swedish composer. He began his musical education at the Malmö Academy of Music, where he studied under the guidance of Professor Rolf Martinsson. He then continued his studies at the Royal College of Music in London and the University of Aberdeen, where he studied with the highly renowned composer Paul Mealor. Henrik's music is published by two of Sweden's largest music publishers, Gehrmans Musikförlag and Ejeby Förlag. Since the fall of 2020, Henrik has been deepening his knowledge of vocal music through an artistic doctoral program in composition at the University of Aberdeen, where he is supervised by the distinguished British composer Phillip A. Cooke.

Veljo Tormis

Veljo Tormis (b. 1930) has composed almost exclusively for the voice: hundreds of songs, song cycles, largescale compositions for choirs, some stage works, and only the occasional instrumental piece. His own explanation is that for him, music begins with words; he does not have “purely musical” ideas. He has emphasized that he cannot (or does not want to) write music for pleasure or entertainment; his music always has something to say about the world, nature, men and peoples. Tormis is a real master of choral sound and largescale choral composition. His colourful, almost orchestral writing for voices is always remarkable, to say nothing of his skill at creating tensions with the cumulative, seemingly monotonous repetition of an ancient folk tune.