The High Park Choirs of Toronto welcomes Caitlin Smith as new Choir Manager

TORONTO, Feb. 24 /CNW/ - The High Park Choirs of Toronto is pleased to announce the appointment of their new Choir Manager, Caitlin Smith. Caitlin is a talented Toronto-based musician. She recently returned from New York City, where she spent 2008-2009 on a study grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. While there, she studied composition with the renowned pianist and composer Jim McNeely, was a participant in the BMI Jazz Composers' Workshop, and studied orchestral conducting with Gary Fagin and Alan Pierson.

As Choir Manager of the High Park Choirs of Toronto, Caitlin will work closely with Artistic Director Zimfira Poloz and will be instrumental in ensuring that the day-to-day management of the choirs is efficient and effective. She will take on many administrative tasks and facilitate internal communications.

Caitlin is a graduate of the jazz program at Humber College in Toronto, where she studied composition and woodwind performance. Caitlin has also studied composition with Dave McMurdo and film composer Christopher Dedrick. She holds certificates in classical clarinet, harmony and theory through the Royal Conservatory of Music.

Caitlin's talents are multi-faceted. She is a composer, conductor, arranger, copyist, teacher, and performer. She leads the 20-piece Tiny Alligator Large Band and is co-founder of the new The Wireless Orchestra. She was the conductor of the Hart House Jazz Ensemble at the University of Toronto for 2007-2008. Her compositions and arrangements have been performed by orchestras at home and abroad and her music has been played on CBC Radio One and on JazzFM 91.1.

About Zimfira Poloz

Zimfira Poloz has been the Artistic Director for the High Park Choirs of Toronto since 2004, and under her direction, the choirs have earned praise nationally and internationally. She is a highly respected conductor, educator and adjudicator with a distinguished international reputation. She has been decorated with numerous awards in her long career, including the Honoured Representative of Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan Award, the city of Hamilton's V.I.P. Award and the Leslie Bell Prize Award for Choral Conducting from the Ontario Arts Council. She is invited regularly to serve as clinician for festivals, lead workshops for educators, and jury International Choir Competitions, including the renowned Choir Olympics.

About High Park Choirs

The High Park Choirs was founded in 1986 as a girls' choir and now comprises over one-hundred-and-twenty boys and girls aged five to eighteen arranged in five skill-based divisions. The choirs develop the children's choral and musical ability while promoting inclusiveness, fun, teamwork, cultural diversity and choral excellence. The result is a group of children who have confidence in themselves and each other and produce a beautiful and unique sound that has impressed local and international audiences.

The choirs are guided by highly acclaimed artistic staff whose talent and choice of innovative repertoires has drawn singers from 71 schools across the GTA. The choirs have also benefited from collaborations with renowned Canadian and international composers and are the children's choir-in-residence at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto. Children interested in joining the choirs are encouraged to attend an open rehearsal and audition at Runnymede United Church.

    
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For further information: Kathy Tudor, [phone], [email protected], www.highparkchoirs.org