The Ontario Arts Council (OAC) introduced that Kathleen Allan is the recipient of the 2025 Leslie Bell Prize for Choral Conducting. She’ll obtain the award on December 7 on the Amadeus Choir’s J.S. Bach Christmas Oratorio live performance at Toronto’s Kingston Road United Church.
On the December 7 live performance, Allan will probably be conducting the 130-member Amadeus Choir, together with former members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and members of the College of Toronto School of Music, in a uncommon full efficiency of the oratorio that includes all six cantatas.
This 12 months’s jury included Doreen Rao (Toronto), Vicki St. Pierre (Sackville, New Brunswick), and 2016 Leslie Bell Prize laureate Mark Vuorinen (Kitchener).
In making their determination, the jury wrote, “beneath Kathleen’s route, ensembles present outstanding progress from first rehearsal to last efficiency. Her readability and artistry draw expressive sound and deep engagement from singers and audiences alike.” Additionally they famous, “she is poised on the threshold of a rare profession that’s shaping the way forward for choral music in Canada and past.”
Moreover, the jury cited her imaginative and prescient of music as an accessible affect for positivity — a imaginative and prescient that has translated into concrete initiatives that look to carry the choral expertise to a bigger viewers.
Kathleen Allan
At present, Kathleen Allan is the creative director of each the Amadeus Choir of Better Toronto and Refrain Niagara. She can be a member of the music college on the College of Toronto. Allan works in a spread of fabric from early to modern to symphonic repertoire.
Kathleen started her tenure with Amadeus Choir in 2019, and since then, the Choir has commissioned greater than a dozen new works, in addition to founding the Choral Creation Lab for rising composers and poets. As well as, the Choir has fashioned a collection of recent partnerships throughout the GTA and past with a various vary of artists and ensembles.
She beforehand served because the Creative Director of Canzona, Winnipeg’s skilled Baroque choir, from 2016 till 2023. She was the 2016 winner of the Sir Ernest MacMillan Prize in Choral Conducting.
A wanted visitor conductor, Allan has not too long ago labored with the Luminato Competition, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Victoria Symphony, Regina Symphony Orchestra, Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra, Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, and Early Music Vancouver.
As a composer, her music is impressed by her Celtic roots, and rising up in Newfoundland and Labrador, and infrequently interweaves modern components with historic folks music. Her works have been commissioned, carried out and recorded by ensembles all through the Americas and in Europe, and have been featured at two World Symposiums on Choral Music.
Kathleen can be a soprano vocalist, and has carried out as a soloist with the Nationwide Broadcast Orchestra, Berkshire Choral Competition, and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.
The Leslie Bell Prize for Choral Conducting
The Leslie Bell Prize for Choral Conducting is awarded each two years to an Ontario resident who’s an rising skilled conductor working with knowledgeable, semi-professional or group choir.
It comes with a $10,000 money prize that’s facilitated by a monetary contribution from the Leslie Bell Scholarship Fund and the OAC. The scholarship fund, administered by OAC, was established in 1973 by the Leslie Bell Singers and pals of the late Dr. Leslie Bell.
Earlier winners embody Dr. Elaine Choi (2023), Charlene Pauls (2018) and Mark Vuorinen (2016).
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Anya Wassenberg is the Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. Beforehand, she was a contract author with a specialty in tradition and journey for 3 a long time, and a inventive writing teacher for Ontariolearn.
