Artistic Staff
Artistic Director
Elise Bradley
Elise Bradley’s joined the Toronto Children’s Chorus as Artistic Director in 2007. Ms. Bradley came to the position from her role as Head of Department, Music at Westlake Girls’ High School in Auckland, New Zealand. In demand both in New Zealand and internationally as a conductor, adjudicator and clinician, she was also a soloist in New Zealand and a member of New Zealand’s national chamber choir, TOWER Voices NZ.
In 2005, Ms. Bradley’s school choir, Key Cygnetures, won the City of Vienna prize at the Internationales Jugendmusikfest in Vienna, Austria against choirs and orchestras from around the world. Ms. Bradley led the Key Cygnetures Choir of New Zealand one last time to win the Award of the City of Vienna at the 2008 Summa Cum Laude International Youth Music Festival.
Ms. Bradley also served as Musical Director of the New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir, which won several awards at the International Kathaumixw in Powell River, British Columbia in 2004, and won champion of the Youth Choir section at the World Choral Games in Xiamen, China in 2006. In the same year, the New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir also won the World Choir award at the Hong Kong International Youth and Children’s Choirs Competition, and Key Cygnetures won the Platinum Award for the most outstanding secondary school choir in New Zealand at their national competition, The Big Sing.
Since arriving in Toronto, Ms. Bradley has garnered praise for her artistry, for her deep commitment to children and the art of treble choral music. She has developed a challenging concert series and prepared the Toronto Children’s Chorus to perform with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Bach Consort and Soundstreams Canada. Additionally, she has continued the legacy of the Chorus, leading its annual School Choir Invitational Festival as well as the Toronto District School Board’s Choral Project (originally established in cooperation with Founder and Conductor Laureate Jean Ashworth Bartle) to provide professional development for music teachers. Ms. Bradley also receives many invitations to work as a clinician with graduate students and choirs in Canada, the United States, and her native New Zealand. She currently serves as a member of the Music Committee of the Amadeus Choir of Toronto, at the invitation of Artistic Director Dr. Lydia Adams.
In the summer of 2009, Ms. Bradley and the 44-member Touring Choir spent two weeks in Austria, the Czech Republic, and Germany, performing with the Vienna Boys Choir at the 9th World Choral Festival at Vienna’s celebrated Musikverein concert hall and also at the Haydn Hall in Eisenstadt, at Bach’s St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, and at the Berlin Dom. In November, the Toronto Children’s Chorus had the honour of performing with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem under the baton of Conductor Peter Oundjian and, in January, with Krzysztof Penderecki and Soundstreams Canada.
Assistant Artistic Director
Teri Dunn
A native of Ottawa, Teri Dunn is an accomplished choral conductor, adjudicator, voice teacher and soprano. Ms. Dunn holds a Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance from the University of Toronto, where she studied with Mary Morrison. In May 2002, Ms. Dunn received the prestigious Leslie Bell Prize in Choral Conducting, awarded by Choirs Ontario. Ms. Dunn has been on the Artistic Staff of the Toronto Children’s Chorus since 2002 and now directs the Preparatory Choir, Training Choir II, and Cantare. In March 2007, she conducted the Toronto Children’s Chorus at the ACDA National Convention in Miami.
For eleven years, Ms. Dunn was on the Artistic staff of the Canadian Children’s Opera Chorus and for over a decade ran the Children’s Choir Programs at The Royal Conservatory of Music. She has also held conducting posts with the Hart House Chorus, and at St. Francis of Assisi Church. Her choirs have appeared at the Toronto International Choral Festival, at Carnegie Hall, at Winterfest, with the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra, with the University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and on “A Classical Kids Christmas”. She currently is the Elementary Choir Conductor at St. Michael’s Choir School, and is on the Faculty of The Royal Conservatory of Music where she teaches pedagogy courses.
An acclaimed soloist, Ms. Dunn has performed in the United States, Europe, Britain and has appeared locally with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, Festival Vancouver, Aradia, New Music Concerts, Guelph Spring Festival, Soundstreams and Toronto Masque Theatre. She is heard regularly in national CBC broadcasts, has recorded for Naxos and Centrediscs and was a prize-winner in the prestigious Eckhardt-Grammatté Competition in 1999.
Teri Dunn conducts the Cantare section of the Main Choir, Preparatory Training Choir & Training Choir II.
Associate Conductor
Carole Anderson
Carole Anderson received her Bachelor of Music at the University of Western Ontario where she studied choral conducting with Deral Johnson. During her 32-year career, she has taught music at all grade levels and has been a music consultant in both Brant and Peel Districts. She currently teaches vocal and instrumental music at Thomas Street Middle School in Mississauga, and her ensembles continue to be recognized for excellence at local and regional festivals.
No stranger to the Toronto Children’s Chorus, Ms. Anderson wishes to acknowledge the kind encouragement and mentorship of Founder Jean Ashworth Bartle, whose workshops she first attended in 1982. Her son David later sang with the choir and, since 2002, she has been a member of the artistic staff of the Toronto Children’s Chorus.
