Zimfira Poloz, Creative Director of the Toronto Youngsters’s Refrain, has been awarded the King Charles III Coronation Medal, a distinction that’s given to acknowledge important contributions to the recipient’s neighborhood and throughout Canada.
The Medal was introduced by the Prime Minister in Could 2023, and commemorates the Coronation of His Majesty King Charles III as King of Canada.
Together with Poloz, six different recipients of the King Charles III Coronation Medal have ties to the Toronto Youngsters’s Refrain (TCC), and have labored to assist construct and develop choral music in Canada and past.
Zimfira Poloz, Creative Director of the TCC since 2022 (Toronto)
Zimfira Poloz is an award-winning conductor, director, educator, adjudicator & clinician. She has devoted her apply to kids and their voices in choral music, and is understood for cultivating excellence in singing, together with distinctive programming and staging. She first studied music and earned her credentials in her native Kazakhstan. There, she based the nation’s first choir faculty. In Canada, she is earlier Creative Director of the Excessive Park Choirs (now YVT), and Hamilton Youngsters’s Choir, the place she has been named Honorary Creative Director. She is a lecturer on the UofT School of Music, the place she teaches Vocal Pedagogy for Younger Choirs. Zimfira is the Canadian Consultant on the Interkultur World Choir Council, a Board Member of the World Alliance of Youngsters’s Choirs, and an Advisor for the World Youth and Youngsters Choral Artists’ Affiliation.
King Charles III Coronation Medal: TCC Prolonged Household
Six different choral music leaders and recipients of The Medal have shut ties to TCC.
Jean Ashworth Bartle, C.M., O.Ont, Founder and first Creative Director of TCC (Toronto)
Jean Ashworth Bartle based the Toronto Youngsters’s Refrain in 1978 on the invitation of Sir Andrew Davis. She led TCC for 29 years as a conductor, mentor and instructor, and her contributions have already been acknowledged with a number of awards that embody the Leslie Bell and Sir Ernest MacMillan prizes in conducting, the Roy Thomson Corridor Award (1985) for her contribution to the musical lifetime of Toronto, the Order of Ontario and the Order of Canada (1998), and several other others.
Elise Bradley, MNZM, TCC Creative Director from 2007 to 2021 (Auckland, New Zealand)
Musician, award-winning conductor, and internationally revered educator Elise Bradley has devoted her profession to the choral arts. Her profession started in New Zealand earlier than leaving for Canada, together with directing the award-winning New Zealand Secondary College students’ Choir. She was named a Member of the New Zealand Order of Advantage (MNZM) by the Queen in recognition of her companies to Music in 2018.
Professor Darryl Edwards, TCC Vocal Coach since 2009 (Toronto)
Dr. Darryl Edwards teaches on the College of Toronto in addition to teaching the TCC, and instructing engagements throughout Europe, Asia, and South America. He’s the Creative Director of the Centre for Opera Research (COSA Canada), the place he works with younger singers to arrange them for careers and management roles within the singing arts.
Ruth Watson Henderson, Composer & TCC Collaborative Pianist, 1987-2007 (Toronto)
Canadian composer Ruth Watson Henderson earned diplomas from the Royal Conservatory of Music, and studied composition privately with Oskar Morawetz, Samuel Dolin and Richard Johnston. She went on to check piano efficiency on the Mannes School of Music in New York Metropolis. She grew to become a live performance pianist, after which the accompanist for the Competition Singers of Canada, beneath Dr. Elmer Iseler, for a number of years. That’s the place she first developed her expertise for compositions for voice, and wrote for a number of choirs through the years, together with TCC.
Cassie Luftspring, TCC Alumna, 1999-2005 (Vancouver)
Cassie Luftspring was a member of TCC beneath Founding Conductor Jean Ashworth Bartle, and went on to grow to be a composer, conductor, singer and instructor. Just lately named because the incoming Creative Director of Elektra in Vancouver, BC., Cassie is the Creative Director of the British Columbia Ladies Choir, and Director of Choral Research on the Vancouver Academy of Music.
Heather Wooden, TCC Normal Supervisor from 1989 to 2007 (Victoria)
Heather Wooden is a graduate of the Banff College of Positive Arts, and a gifted arts supervisor. She has managed nationwide competitions at CBC Radio’s Music division, and has served as a Board member of Turning Level Ensemble, Vancouver, and Elektra, Vancouver. Below her tenure, TCC gained worldwide recognition. She oversaw 19 worldwide excursions in addition to producing award-winning recordings.
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Anya Wassenberg is a Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. She is an skilled freelance author, blogger and writing teacher.