Executive and Office
President
Ki Adams (St. John's, NL)
Keenly aware of the impact and power of professional organizations, Ki has held executive positions with provincial, national, and international music education organizations: President of the Music Council of the Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers’ Association, President of the Avalon Centre of the Royal Canadian College of Organists (RCCO), President of the Kodály Society of Canada (KSC) and, most recently, Secretary-Treasurer of the International Kodály Society (IKS). For the years 2004-2008, he served as one of the national Directors of the Association of Canadian Choral Conductors (ACCC). Passionate about celebrating choral music and bringing choirs and singers to Newfoundland, Ki is a Founding Artistic Director of Festival 500 as well as Co-Director of the festival’s Phenomenon of Singing International Symposium, an integral academic component of Festival 500. In 2004, he was instrumental in beginning a new choral festival in Louisiana - Lift Every Voice: Feliciana International Choral Festival.
To complement his university teaching and leadership activities in professional organizations and festivals, Ki is active as a choral conductor and performer. He is Music Director at St. Thomas’ Anglican Church and recently retired after 14 years as Associate Conductor and Accompanist of Shallaway (formerly Newfoundland Symphony Youth Choir). He is also active as a festival adjudicator, workshop/conference clinician, and jury member for Canada Council.
Past President
Dr. Debra Cairns (Edmonton, AB)
A recipient of the Sir Ernest MacMillan Memorial Prize in Conducting (awarded by the Canada Council), Debra Cairns has had articles on the music of the Renaissance composer, Palestrina, published in the Choral Journal and Anacrusis, and has had an edition of Palestrina's Missa Ave Regina Coelorum published by Carus-Verlag of Stuttgart, Germany. In demand both nationally and internationally as a workshop and conference presentor, she has given several sessions on her current area of research interest, the relationship of gesture to sound. She serves on many committees both at the University of Alberta and across Canada, and is also active as a clinician, adjudicator and guest conductor across Canada. In April 2002 Debra Cairns was nominated for the Syncrude Canada Award for Innovative Artistic Direction in recognition of her work with i coristi chamber choir.
Secretary/ Treasurer
James H. Hawn (Saskatoon, SK)
At present he is conductor of the Saskatoon Chamber Singers, a choir that he sang in for approximately fifteen years. He regularly directs plays and musicals for one of the local amateur theatre companies in Saskatoon. Aside from that, he is currently (2008-2009) president of the board of directors of TCU-Place, Saskatoon’s premier arts, entertainment and convention centre and also sits on the board of directors for the Broadway Theatre, one of the few independently owned movie theatres still operating in Canada.
President Elect
Jeff Joudrey (Truro, NS)
Jeff Joudrey (Truro, Nova Scotia) is
the founding conductor of the First Baptist Girls
Choir (1983) and Halifax Camerata Singers (1986). A
native of Nova Scotia, Jeff studied organ at Acadia
University and the Haarlem International Academy in
The Netherlands before going to McGill University to
study with organists John Grew and Raymond Daveluy.
His choral music mentors include Canadian conductors
Elmer Iseler and Wayne Riddell, and German conductor
Helmuth Rilling. Over more than two decades his choirs
have established enviable reputations for performance
excellence and innovative programming. First Baptist
Girls’ Choir has five recordings to its credit and has
toured in England, Wales, The Netherlands, Iceland,
Finland, Germany, and across Canada. The Halifax
Camerata Singers is frequently heard on CBC Radio and
were awarded the Galaxie Rising Star Prize in the 2008
CBC Choral Competition. Their third CD, Songs of the
Stable: Christmas Music From Canada, was nominated for
two awards. Jeff is an enthusiastic supporter of
Canadian choral music, and frequently commissions
works from both established and emerging Canadian
composers for his choirs to premiere and perform. His
other passion is working with young singers, and he
was honoured by the invitation to conduct the Nova
Scotia Youth Choir’s 15th anniversary tour.
In addition to being Director of Music at First Baptist Church, Jeff is Chorus Master of the Symphony Nova Scotia Chorus and is in demand as a guest conductor, choral clinician, teacher, and adjudicator. He has served on the faculties of Dalhousie and Acadia universities as well as the Nova Scotia Choral Federation’s Institute of Choral Conducting. A former director of the Association of Canadian Choral Communities, he also is a former president of the Nova Scotia Choral Federation. He has served on juries for the Ontario Arts Council, the Juno and East Coast Music Awards, and the ACCC.
ACCC Executive Director
Christina Murray
A native of Nova Scotia, Christina
Murray has also lived, worked and sung in Ontario, New
Brunswick, other parts of Canada, and India. In
addition to 10 years of non-profit and arts
administration experience, Christina is also a
conductor and singer. Nurtured by the Nova Scotia
Youth Choir and the National Youth Choir of Canada,
she now sings in the Canadian Chamber Choir and the
Halifax Camerata Singers and conducts Camerata Xara
Young Women’s Choir and the Bay Chorale. Christina has
a profound passion for choral music and has been
actively involved with the Nova Scotia Choral
Federation in various capacities for several years.
6303 Duncan Street
Halifax, NS B3L 1K4
Tel.: 1 (902) 442-7054 Fax: 1 (902) 442-7050
exec.director@choralcanada.org